It seems like the GOP is forever in debt to the NRA, especially at the Congressional level. But as we’ve seen, the Parkland tragedy has put the pressure on certain Republican lawmakers (ahem, Marco Rubio) who have responded by moving towards acknowledging that gun violence is a problem and access to guns needs to be curtailed.
Now, we’re seeing GOP lawmakers in Ohio distance themselves from policies that, maybe a year ago, they would have supported. It happened last week when Niraj Antani, a state legislator from Ohio, suggested that not only should teachers be allowed to have guns, but students should also be permitted to carry firearms in school.
“Students deserve a chance to stand their ground and defend themselves,” Antani, who represents Ohio’s 42nd house district, wrote on Twitter. He later doubled down on the dystopian suggestion, tweeting (incorrectly) that gun-free zones don’t work and telling the Dayton Daily News that 18-year-olds, who are permitted to have long guns in Ohio, should be allowed to bring them into the classroom.
Almost all of the Ohio GOP power structure distanced themselves from the legislator’s comments.
“Both state and federal law prohibit unlicensed individuals like students from carrying guns in high school buildings, and we believe that is the right policy,” Mike DeWine, the state’s attorney general and leading GOP gubernatorial candidate, said. Senator Rob Portman concurred: "There’s a federal law requiring that there be no weapons, not even within a certain distance of schools, and I think that’s appropriate.”
Marcus Rech, a Republican who is running against Antani in a primary, said that “I remember myself when I was that age … there’s a lot of fights that break out and conflict, a lot of hormones. It’s not a good mix.” Another GOP primary opponent said “When lawmakers come out and make statements like this, it’s so damaging.”
Antani himself was forced to apologize… to a certain extent, anyway.
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Here’s what they’re afraid of: Great Democratic candidates. One of Antani’s prospective Democratic opponents in the race, Zach Dickerson, seized on the comments during a tense Twitter exchange that gained local notice. Antani tried to clarify that he wasn’t proposing legislation to arm school children, but in a conversation with Progressives Everywhere, Dickerson used Antani’s comments and record on guns to tie the Republican to several terrifying gun proposals that are currently making their way through the Ohio legislature.
“There are a couple of other really dangerous pieces of legislation that I want to make sure get stopped,” Dickerson said. “One says that anybody can have a concealed weapon. Right now under current law, you've got to have an eight-hour safety training and a background check from the sheriff. It is informative and easy. You put those together, anybody can have a concealed weapon and they can take it anywhere they want — that's crazy. It's scary. It's a dangerous policy and so I want to make sure that those things don't get pushed through and get to the governor's desk.”
Those policies have yet to make it through the legislature, and there’s a decent chance that Democrats retake the governor’s mansion. Plus, as we said, Republicans are being forced to backtrack on their most extreme gun positions.
Dickerson, a first-time candidate who works as a researcher for LexisNexis, is originally from Texas, where he learned to hunt with his father, who is a Republican. So he thinks “there’s a place for guns in America,” but also believes in common sense gun reform. He’s been moved by the students from Parkland who have led the protests and echoes their calls for raising the age on gun purchases, the banning of bump stocks, red flag laws and extreme risk protection orders, and looking at larger laws around weapons of war.
“It gets a little trickier when you start talking about banning assault weapons, but I personally don't think that an AR-15 and similar rifles need to be marketed for purchase by civilians,” he said. “It’s gonna be hard to define what an assault weapon is in that sense, but I think that's something we need to look at.”
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