Spokesman: Strickland now supports "common sense background checks"

A USA Today article on the Democrat primary race that will determine the challenger to Senator Rob Portman (R-OH) has provided still more evidence that the once-pro-gun Ted Strickland has turned his back on gun owners and the conservative, pro-gun Democrats who have supported him over the years.

From the article:

Dennis Willard, a spokesman for Strickland, said the former governor supports "common sense background checks, as do the majority of gun owners and the majority of NRA members. It's Senator Portman who refuses to support common sense ideas that keep guns out of the hands of criminals, terrorists and the mentally ill."

As the article notes, in 2013, Portman was among those voting against a Senate proposal that would have criminalized certain private transfers of firearms between honest citizens, requiring lifelong friends, neighbors and some family members to get federal government permission to exercise a fundamental right or face prosecution.

Strickland's spokesperson, on the other hand, indicates that the former Ohio governor, who was once considered by Buckeye State gun owners as a friend and fellow freedom fighter, would sign it.

Many gun owners will no doubt hold respect for Strickland's four year term as governor in Ohio. During his time as governor, Strickland was not only willing to sign every piece of pro-gun legislation in Ohio that reached his desk, but he also advocated for its passage. Because of his performance in office, Strickland earned the endorsement of both Buckeye Firearms Association and the National Rifle Association in his unsuccessful 2010 re-election bid.

But the newfound support for "common sense" gun control laws is not the first evidence that Strickland is no longer a friend to gun owners.

After his narrow defeat, Strickland turned his back on the gun rights community that had kept his re-election race competitive, naming an anti-gun appointment to the Ohio Supreme Court.

In 2012 he insulted gun owners' intelligence by trying to get them to ignore Barack Obama's already-abysmal record of support for gun control, endorsing the president's reelection bid and claiming that Obama "supports and respects the Second Amendment."

Last year, Strickland left Ohio for Washington D.C. to become president of the Center for American Progress Action Fund. A quick look at the CAP Action Fund's website is telling.

Articles critical of gun rights are posted regularly on ThinkProgress, the fund's blog, a website which has also routinely published articles fomenting the myth that a white Ferguson, MO police officer acted improperly when he shot a violent attacker who happened to be black. To fully understand where Ted Strickand's CAP Action Fund stands on gun control, one need look no further than the fund's "Assault Weapons Revisited" report, or to ThinkProgress' "Ultimate Guide to Gun Safety Debate."

In addition to having been president of this anti-gun rights group (a position he gave up a week after Buckeye Firearms Association drew attention to it last winter), Strickland had also been listed as a "Counselor" for what the fund website calls its "sister organization" - the Center for American Progress - the same group that hosted his conference call for the media this week.

According to the March 1, 2004 edition of The Nation, CAP is the brain child of anti-gun rights billionaire George Soros, and on November 11, 2003 the Washington Post reported that he gave some $3 million to its creation. CAP has deep ties to both the Clintons and Obamas.

Among the many anti-gun rights articles on CAP's Guns and Crime page are "Fact Sheets" calling for a "universal" background checks national gun registration scheme and federal "assault" weapons licenses, articles falsely labelling "stand your ground" laws as "license to kill" laws and arguing against a national concealed carry reciprocity law.

Former Governor Ted Strickland, despite the good he did for gun owners when he lived in Ohio, has completely and totally lost his way in Washington D.C.

Ted Strickland has always liked to claim that he supports Ohio's gun owners, but he has done just the opposite. As a candidate for U.S. Senate, Strickland will have a lot to answer to Ohio's gun voters on why he betrayed the people he used to represent in the Buckeye State, why he took a over a quarter of a million dollars by a liberal Washington think tank to advocate policies that are bad for Ohio gun owners, as well as anyone who has a concealed carry license, and why he is now supporting a proposed "universal" background check cun control law that would ultimately lead to federal gun registration.

Chad D. Baus is the Buckeye Firearms Association Secretary, BFA PAC Vice Chairman, and an NRA-certified firearms instructor. He is the editor of BuckeyeFirearms.org, which received the Outdoor Writers of Ohio 2013 Supporting Member Award for Best Website.