Buckeye Firearms Assoc. PAC announces endorsements for Ohio General Assembly

Buckeye Firearms Association PAC has announced our endorsements for Ohio House and Ohio Senate.

We have previously issued endorsements for candidates for U.S. Senate, Ohio Supreme Court and many local elections. I also encourage you to support NRA-endorsed candidates for federal offices.

We have considered over 400 candidates this year. The endorsement committee has reviewed candidate surveys, voting records, and in many cases made phone calls to clarify positions on issues of importance to gun owners. We have personal relationships with many of our endorsed candidates, and several of those we endorsed against. We have put enormous amounts of time and thought into the endorsements because you deserve to know who best represents your interests when you vote.

While the media is focused on the presidential race between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, there are many other candidates on the ballot. The races closest to you are most likely to affect you, but most don’t have the funding to run radio/TV advertisements. So it’s up to you to educate yourself before voting.

Much is made of our obligation to vote, but we have seen that is not enough. We need to be involved.

Every person should be either donating time or money to good candidates. We can’t afford not to.

In Ohio (and a few other states) we get a $50/person or $100/couple tax credit for political donations to Ohio House, Ohio Senate, Ohio Supreme Court and several other races. The tax credit means your donation counts toward your Ohio income tax bill as taxes paid. If you get a refund, you’ll get $50/100 more. If you owe taxes, you’ll owe $50/100 less. This is a deal everyone should be taking part in.

The NRA has an app which will allow you to make phone calls in support of their endorsed candidates on your cell phone. This is especially powerful if you live in a state that is not contested, because you can make phone calls to battleground states and have a real effect on elections.

We have endorsed sheriffs and school board candidates. These candidates don’t raise the money or get the press that other offices do, but they are critical to you and your family. They depend on volunteers to help them get their message out.

We get the candidates and elected persons we deserve. The next few weeks are a great opportunity for us to be involved. By working on campaigns we get to know our representatives on a personal level.

More importantly they get to know us. This allows them to do a better job representing us, and can lead to us being a valuable resource for their office on issues we have expertise in. A cooperative relationship makes for good government.

Endorsements have been announced. The next step is yours. We don’t depend on others to defend our lives, and we should not depend on others to support our candidates.

Thank you for supporting our endorsed candidates.

Jim Irvine is Chairman of the Buckeye Firearms Association Political Action Committee (BFA-PAC). He is also Board President of Buckeye Firearms Association, and recipient of the NRA-ILA's 2011 "Jay M. Littlefield Volunteer of the Year Award," the CCRKBA's 2012 "Gun Rights Defender of the Year Award," and the SAF's 2015 "Defender of Freedom Award."