By Chad D. Baus

My story "Perfect storm for gun owners? McCain, DeWine and Giuliani join forces", was published at BuckeyeFirearms.org only a little more than 24 hours after the outcome of Super Tuesday was known.

In that commentary, I wrote about how anti-gun former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani's endorsement of Senator John McCain, and anti-gun former Senator Mike DeWine's work as McCain's Ohio campaign chair (as a prelude to a possible Attorney General nomination) are clear signs that the perfect storm that we've been warning gun owners about for the past year is nearly overhead.

Hoping to get a pulse on what Ohio gun owners who vote in the Republican primary are planning to do given the dwindling options, I asked for feedback, and promised a follow-up story. The results of my little survey are overwhelmingly clear:

The Republican party has lost the trust of the Ohio gun owner.

Four months after Peter Hamm, spokesperson for The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, verbally attacked the college-based, grassroots organization Students for Concealed Carry on Campus, telling a Fox News reporter, "You don't like the fact that you can't have a gun on your college campus? Drop out of school," he is stepping up the rhetoric. Not content with encouraging college students to forgo their educations, rather than fight for a cause in which they believe, Mr. Hamm has resorted to baseless conspiracy theories and slander.

In a February 19, 2008 interview with Anna Hipsley of Australia's ABC News radio, Mr. Hamm made the following statement about SCCC:

"We know very clearly that they were organized and they are funded by the gun industry, by the companies that are selling the guns. This is not some spontaneous, grassroots organization."

Scott Lewis, media coordinator for Students for Concealed Carry on Campus, responded, "In a way I kind of envy the Brady Campaign. It must be so much easier to run an advocacy group when you don't feel obligated to substantiate anything you say."