Let’s forget that the proposal is ostentatious and goes against the very foundations of American life, it says a lot about the people in elected office proposing these sudden assault weapons bans which are now being introduced in Ohio. Sens. Michael Skindell and Charleta Tavares introduced legislation making it a fifth-degree felony to possess or acquire a firearm considered an “assault weapon.” And to add to the insanity, Governor John Kasich is supporting it. That is a guy who has never been a conservative. It is amazing how far he has fallen, no wonder he was personal friends with the very liberal Ted Strickland. John Kasich has absolutely lost his mind. But for anyone in the Ohio legislature to assume that they even have a right to make it illegal to possess an “assault weapon” is seriously mistaken on such an intrusion into all our lives and it deserves action in retaliation.
Here’s why such a law could never be justified—because Kasich himself has framed the argument. Kasich in 2010 showed himself to be a Tea Party conservative then became a moderate shortly after the hard loss to the public-sector unions in 2012 on a controversial bill he had been pushing through. Then gradually as the 2016 election occurred, Kasich moved much closer to the liberal middle on the political spectrum and became a very radical anti-Trumper. Now he is wanting a second crack at a run for the presidency and is considering to run against Trump in the primary—which is a very un-Republican thing to do. But he’s planning to and will likely consider a switch in parties if he can’t get enough Republican backing—which means that Kasich was never a conservative. He was simply an opportunist—someone who is willing to wear the mask of whatever he needs to be to get elected in public office which also makes him dangerous.
Now consider the next implication—it is that these types of people are telling us that we should disarm ourselves and trust them with our lives. They’ll argue that nobody needs assault weapons to defend themselves, but as we all know from their past intentions, a ban on weapons of any kind is a step toward more restrictions until they reach their progressive stated goal of a gun free society. They won’t stop with “assault weapons.” That much is clear. They’ll keep trying forever to ban everything so if we give them anything, they’ll never stop until they take it all.
Kasich’s personal attack specifically on the “God-darn AR-15” is quite a case study. So is the proposal that anyone who has such a gun is to give it up if these Democrats have their way? That the day such a legislation is made into law that suddenly millions of people are now out-laws because they own an AR-15? Then to declare that the sporting rifle is a weapon of war and to decide that nobody should have them? Where does that stop, where politicians decide what we can and cannot have? What if some future politician decided that golf clubs needed to be banned because someone killed people with a well weighted driver? Would then the sport of golf be banned? I understand that to many people guns mean death, because that was their original purpose and is how a portion of society views them based on their educations. Guns are not just for hunting, but they aren’t just for killing either. Target shooting is a real challenge which combines known sciences into a symphony of human endeavor. It is quite a thing to do to put a lead bullet into a target 300 yards away. The quest to do such a thing is as useless as throwing a basketball through a hoop—yet many people put great credence in the sport of basketball but assume that target shooting isn’t just as relevant.
An AR-15 doesn’t shoot much of a bullet, it isn’t what I’d consider to be dangerous ammunition. I think of them as not much more powerful than a BB gun or a little ol’ .22. A .223 bullet isn’t very large, not even a quarter of an inch wide so it’s not that the gun does much damage. The bullet typically only weighs in at around .50 grains. It just has a perception of being a military style weapon because it looks that way. They look cool, so people enjoy them. Personally, I like much bigger guns, because if I’m going to shoot something, it should really exercise the power that you can contain in your hands. However, given the logic of these gun grabbing politicians, are we to ban anything that looks scary—is that the optimal purpose of making decisions about what’s legal or illegal—how something looks? That would open the idea that toy guns of all kinds could be banned because they look dangerous—whether or not they really were.
For a politician to assume that we don’t need this, or that we need that is reprehensible. For Kasich to say to a gun owner, “do you really need a “God-darn AR-15 to go hunting with.” The gun isn’t to go hunting with dumbass. It’s to learn the proficiency of a firearm without spending $3 a shot to get good with it, on the larger ammunition. Who’s to tell anybody what they need or don’t need. Do people need soccer balls, baseball gloves, or even baseball bats. Have you ever seen dear reader what a baseball bat can do to someone’s head? Talk about a dangerous weapon, a baseball bat can kill someone faster than a bullet. And a baseball traveling at 100 MPH down the first base side of the field into the stands can also kill someone, or at least cause a lot of damage. Should we ban baseball? Shooting is a sport more than its anything else, even as a tool of self-defense. A good gun becomes a trusted friend just like that old well-worn glove that you threw baseballs with your father way back when, or that great pair of golf clubs that created so many great memories hitting a silly little ball into a hole on a flat piece of grass called a “green.”
Why do we humans challenge ourselves by throwing balls into baskets, driving little balls several yards into a little bitty hole on a well mowed lawn, or try to hit a speeding ball with a wooden stick—because we are fascinated by the physics as thinking creatures of how all those elements can be combined to achieve something. And that is the essence of shooting sports. How fast can we shoot lead projectiles into a target of some distance and with what measure of reliability? Those are the questions sports shooters ask, and those are recreational elements of our American society. To designate a portion of that sporting community as “dangerous,” “needless,” or a threat to the general population is a reprehensible assumption and an assault on our very way of life. AR-15s are just another sporting rifle that may look tactical and scary but are really just inexpensive ways to get to know the mechanics of a good shooting rifle. It’s not for politicians to question why we would ever need to know about such things, its our place to enjoy them because they are products of our culture. And if you really want to peel back the onion to the truth, the Second Amendment is there because we have politicians like John Kasich who will say, do and manipulate anything as a politician to have control over the rest of us. What are we to do if he says that God told him to arrest everyone wearing a Trump shirt so that he could have a better chance of getting elected president in the next election? When he runs the state of Ohio and is power-hungry enough to switch parties for his own ambitions what might he do to any of us to clear the way? The answer is, we don’t know, and if he does abuse his authority, we need some way to check that power at the local level and sometime laws aren’t enough. Action is the only thing that can meet tyrannical force when we see it, and with Kasich, you just never know who he’s going to be from one moment to the next, and that makes him very dangerous—much more dangerous than a “God-darn AR-15.”
Rich Hoffman
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The Overmanwarrior 