My Fellow Ohioans:
Last week, I signed historic legislation allowing anyone to bring a gun to Perkins. This includes, but is not limited to, wife-beaters, white nationalists, the creepy guy who hangs out at the playground, Jew-haters, and those who pose with assault rifles in their Christmas card photos.
You’re welcome.
The I’ve Completely Given Up Act, as I like to call it, does away with any restriction on your Constitutional right to be afraid. Prior to this heroic legislation, people who wanted to carry a hidden gun to Perkins were required to get a background check, undergo eight hours of training, and apply for a permit with their local sheriff.
This naturally posed a logistical nightmare. What if you were wanted on suspicion of stalking an ex-girlfriend? Out of town for a plot to kidnap the governor of Michigan? Background checks prevented you from bringing a gun. You were practically naked.
Now, if you see a Black jogger, or a Black kid with a super squirter, or Black family picnicking in Edgewater Park, you won’t have to beeline it back to Parma anymore. You can stand your ground. Or open fire. Ohio is cool either way.
Yes, some have criticized this brave legislation. A young mother with small children recently approached me outside the Capitol. She wanted to know why this great state requires licenses to fish and sell minnows, but not one to carry a hidden weapon into a preschool. My bodyguards wrestled her to the ground.
As she lay cuffed on the payment, I calmly explained that while Ohio mandates licenses for 282 various activities, it’s kind of like comparing apples to oranges. Stuff like designing a garden or cutting hair is dangerous. What if you’re the mother of the bride, and someone makes you look like Kid Rock for the wedding? Guns, by contrast, only prevent danger. If you’re at a Ford dealership, and you plan to steal the free donuts while you’re getting your oil changed, you’ll think twice knowing that waiting room is filled with untrained, armed men. That’s just common-sense governance.
I will concede to certain political motivations. As you may know, fellow Republicans accuse me of being a RINO. Just because you can spell three-syllable words, everyone’s a critic. By letting absolutely anyone carry a gun, I’m able to burnish my reputation as a man’s man.
I’ll also admit to tiring of meeting with gun lobbyists. You wouldn’t believe the spittle these guys let loose. My dry cleaner has given last rites to three suits since the start of the year.
But what this legislation is really about is me, Mike DeWine, and how much I care for the hard-working men and women of Ohio. Not long after I met that blubbering mom, I encountered an everyday citizen at a $10,000-a-plate fundraiser. In tears, he told me the tragic tale of needing heel lifts for his shoes. He couldn’t find them at the finer shops of Beachwood, so he was forced to go to Walmart. In South Euclid!
Yet he just sat in the parking lot, paralyzed by the rabble surrounding him. No way could he chance a run to the shoe aisle. Minutes passed. Then he started his Navigator and drove way. He would have to order the lifts from Amazon.
Here was just a normal Ohioan coincidentally under indictment for stock manipulation. He felt he couldn’t pass the background check to get a concealed carry permit, leaving him too frightened to shop.
The man was later sent to prison. But that’s not the point. The point is that, had the new legislation been in place, he could have confidently entered that Walmart. Any teenager who dared to be near him would be staring at the business end of a Magnum Desert Eagle.
As your governor, I think a lot about men like that major donor. They spend their days cowering from the world. Now, thanks to my valorous efforts, they can walk into a Bob Evans – even the one on Brookpark Road – knowing that at any hint of danger, they can take cover behind the people eating next to them, shooting wildly at anything that moves.
I, the Mikester, will have made Ohio just a little bit safer. And that’s something we can all cheer.
Yours in unparalleled courage,
Gov. Mike DeWine
This article appears in Mar 23 – Apr 5, 2022.