Ramaswamy's Ohio Governor Bid

“Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost has suspended his campaign for governor, clearing the field in the Republican primary for Vivek Ramaswamy,” Politico reported. “Yost told supporters Friday that he chose to end his campaign after concluding that his fight to win the Republican nomination had gone from a ‘steep climb’ to a ‘vertical cliff’ after the state party chose to support Ramaswamy.”

Why did the state GOP choose a billionaire technopreneur, but relative political newcomer, over Yost, a fixture in county, and then state politics since 1999, who was poised to run with a background as prosecutor, auditor, and AG that gave him intimate familiarity with all disciplines needed to be an effective manager? In two words: Donald Trump, who endorsed Ramaswamy in February 2025 months before the party cemented the deal the following May. And being pals with JD Vance, whom he’d known since Yale Law School, and who had introduced him to high profile state-level supporters like Lt. Gov. Jon Husted (described by NBC News as “an ambitious GOP officeholder known for cultivating relationships with high-tech entrepreneurs and investors”) didn’t hurt.

To paraphrase George Carlin, it’s a big club and Yost ain’t in it. Full disclosure, I found that personally disappointing, because unlike so many politicians who duck specifics and instead offer equivocating platitudes on the Second Amendment, Yost was fully candid about where he stood when he answered my political questionnaire in 2009 during his attorney general bid. In short, he acknowledged it as a birthright, believed it should be protected from infringements by all levels of government, supported “tort protection for gun manufacturers,” opposed “AWB [assault weapon bans], Discretionary Licensing Schemes [and] Purchase Limits,” acknowledged,  “Citizens have the right to carry a concealed weapon … without process, such as Alaska or Vermont,” and shared “The better question is what HAVE I done. I signed on to the Maricopa County brief in Heller, arguing that the Second Amendment is an individual right. I personally review firearms cases in my jurisdiction to make sure that charges are not brought against legitimate gun owners. I own guns -- a Sig .380, my personal sidearm, a Ruger LCP for my wife (and me when my clothing doesn't cover the Sig) a Winchester 30-30 carbine, a Mossberg .22 A Universal 12-ga.; a Mossberg 16-ga. -- get it? Not the token handgun the politician claims to keep in the nightstand.”

To his credit, self-described “Second Amendment absolutist” Ramaswamy says, “everyone has the right to carry a gun,” including felons, Forbes reported in 2023. “Instead of removing ‘guns from law-abiding citizens, Ramaswamy said people who are ‘psychiatrically ill and dangerous and violent’ should be removed from their communities and institutionalized.” (That’s a position that comports perfectly with my long-standing contention that anyone who can’t be trusted with a gun can’t be trusted without a custodian.)

In a 2023 Politico article, Ramaswamy confirmed his support for “everyone” to have an “assault weapon” and for “constitutional carry,” and a 2024 Washington Post article, “Where Vivek Ramaswamy stands on crime and guns,” gives a further, but incomplete, breakdown.

He told Real American’s Voice he is against Red Flag laws, it says, and “In April 2023, Ramaswamy told a crowd at an NRA event that he will ‘shut down’ the FBI and establish a new ‘police apparatus’ that will do background checks,” the article continued, adding, “It’s unclear whether those checks would apply to gun shows or online sales.”

“Ramaswamy told an NRA crowd … that he wanted to ‘make constitutional carry the law of the land,’” the story added, noting “It’s unclear whether that includes schools.” Also marked “unclear” was his position on suing gun manufacturers.

“Ramaswamy told a crowd at an NRA event in April that he is a gun owner,” the article ended, but neither it, not the C-SPAN video clip it linked to elaborated on what kind. And from “On the Issues,” citing C-SPAN, he showed a fundamental understanding that the right goes beyond personal self-defense, saying, “The Second Amendment is our last line of defense. You know who knew that? Our Founding Fathers knew it. The first shots that were fired in Lexington and Concord was because the British monarchy came to take the guns of the colonists.”

Aside from background check prior restraints that Ramaswamy supports (but then, so does the NRA and the National Shooting Sports Foundation, despite the National Institute of Justice’s “Summary of Select Firearm Violence Prevention Strategies” admitting, “Effectiveness depends on the ability to reduce straw purchasing, requiring gun registration…”), another concern for a politician who calls himself a “2A absolutist” is that his campaign website doesn’t talk about the right to keep and bear arms at all.

However, there’s one other real Second Amendment-affecting concern that none of the “Big Tent” Republicans, and certainly none of the establishment “pro-gun” groups want to talk about for fear that truth will alienate undecided voters and encourage leftists, and squishes in their own camp, to call them racists.

“The idea of a heritage American is about as loony as anything the woke left has actually put up,” Ramaswamy declared at a Turning Point USA event in December, a statement left-leaning MS Now characterized as “a vociferous rebuke of right-wing bigotry.”

“In his argument for more H-1B work visas for skilled immigrants, Ramaswamy wrote on X that America ‘has venerated mediocrity over excellence for way too long,’” guest columnist Cliff Anthony, a “naturalized American” himself, wrote on Cleveland.com. “With a broad brush, the former Republican primary presidential candidate painted an image to the world that Americans are a bunch of beer-guzzling, burger-gobbling beach bums.”

First, being a culturist has nothing to do with being a racist, it is simply an acknowledgement of the demonstrable reality that Western (U.S.) culture, flawed though it has admittedly been, has proved itself superior at encouraging individualism, liberty, prosperity, and innovation over all others throughout known history. It’s what built the America the rest of the world wants to come to and take advantage of, including Ramaswamy’s immigrant parents.

There’s another reality, a political one that’s especially applicable to Ramaswamy’s foreign heritage and his push for more tech workers from places like India. Per a 2023 India Currents analysis, “83% Of Indian Americans Say We Need Stricter Gun Laws.” Add the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace’s assessment that “Indian Americans remain one of the most Democratic-leaning constituencies in American politics,” and it becomes self-evident that importing more here, especially with “birthright citizenship” and naturalization incentives, is a recipe for growing the anti-gun electorate. Adding such new citizens to the voting rolls will result in supermajorities in state and federal legislatures that will then be able to pass all kinds of anti-gun edicts. It will also result in nominations and confirmations of judges to the Supreme and federal courts who will uphold those edicts and reverse gains made to date.

Should Ohio Gun Owners Push for Putsch?

There’s one other candidate in the race who merits looking at, automotive designer Casey Putsch, who calls himself “the ONLY truly Pro-2A candidate for Ohio Governor,” in an X.com post accompanied by a photo of several handguns. The thing is, like Ramaswamy, his campaign website “Platforms” don’t mention the Second Amendment, albeit scrolling down it does include a photo of him aiming a rifle from a balcony.

Wanting to learn more, Firearms News approached Putsch on X.com and included the same candidate “gun rights” questionnaire sent to Ed Gallrein, Thomas Massie’s Donald Trump-endorsed challenger (Gallrein made numerous statements supportive of 2A, albeit he left many of the questions unanswered).

“For starters, I am a 1st and 2nd amendment absolutist. You can pry my guns and my steering wheels out of my cold dead hands and you won’t shut me up!” Putsch replied. He embedded a statement decrying post-Bondi Beach Australian citizen disarmament efforts with photos of him at the range with an assortment of firearms, including semiauto rifles and standard capacity magazines to make his point. Were those his guns or range rentals?

Unfortunately, he didn’t answer any of our questions. Realizing that political campaigns can be all consuming, Firearms News will issue an update if he does. Also, at this point, it looks like word of his campaign is slow to get out, noting his complaint on X that “Despite gaining a minimum of 200 followers per day, my page has been stuck at this number for a month or more,” and Google AI’s confirmation that “Vivek Ramaswamy has a significantly higher volume of Google News mentions compared to Casey Putsch.”

We’ll know after May 5 who will be running for the Republicans and facing Democrat candidate Dr. Amy Acton, a physician who proved she was in over her head when heading the state’s Covid-19 response, and who promises (threatens) to “undertake common sense reforms to reduce the scourge of gun violence.”

“Gun violence is taking its toll in too many Ohio communities,” she posted on X. “We must work together to end this senseless violence and keep Ohioans safe.”

That’s the exact kind of deceptive rhetoric every doctrinaire gun-grabber trying to mask their real intentions uses to swindle the ignorant and deluded out of their rights. And judging by the surprisingly large and boisterous attendance at numerous, well-organized and funded “No Kings” rallies throughout the state, if Ohio gun owners don’t turn up at the polls and drag their friends along with them, they’ll share in the blame for what happens next.

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