Local politicians can have big consequences on your 2A rights.
I’ve been voting since the mid-1980s and have heard from people countless times about how important the vote for president is, but then these same people had no idea who their state representatives were. Sure, election yard signs for president are important, but political yard signs and voting are not enough. Regular contact with your state and local reps is vital to maintain a true understanding of where your representatives stand, and you cannot rely on political organizations either. The Republican Party will back the Republican, but you cannot just give candidates a free pass because the party, or even a gun rights group, gave them the thumbs up.
A great example is how the NRA gave Kathleen Hochul an “A” rating on gun rights in 2012. Now, New York Governor Hochul is one of the most anti-2nd Amendment politicians in the USA and New York is the absolute worst state for guns rights even when compared to most countries in Europe, which allow their citizens to own many guns that are banned in NY. Pathetic, but the NRA was giving out endorsements to politicians who didn’t deserve them as far back as I can remember, and that caused a lot of problems in Ohio when I was a 2A activist in my earlier days.
Some may be thinking, “What does it matter regarding the Second Amendment as to who gets elected to township trustee or county clerk? Those positions don’t normally deal with gun rights.” Never forgot that almost all politicians start at the bottom. Hochal was first elected to Erie County clerk in 2007. In 2011, she was elected to congress for New York’s 26th district. Had NY gun owners held her feet to the fire regarding gun rights, and got the real story instead of what an NRA bulletin stated, possibly, she could have been defeated in a primary or at least pushed out from ever running for a higher office. In June of 2024, I was able to attend a private machine gun shoot in northeastern Ohio called the Grub-N-Guns Shoot. That is where I met Ohio State Senator Sandra O’Brien who came to speak about her support for gun rights. The following is my interview with her.
By Vincent L. DeNiro, Editor-in-Chief
