Buckeye Reporter

GOP U.S. Senate hopeful Bernie Moreno didn’t receive the endorsement of Ohio’s largest pro-gun owner rights group.

He likely preferred it that way.

In his political career, Moreno, a Westlake entrepreneur touted as a “common sense” outsider, has steered clear of making rigid declarations on hot button issues. That’s including gun control, where the two-time candidate sees a general election opening with suburban voters he believes want more of it.

"This whole gun debate? Damn. We can't say, 'This is how many magazines a gun can have'? I mean… what gun do you need to have a hundred bullets in it?,” Moreno told Cleveland tech podcaster Michael Hudek, during an Aug. 2019 interview on his “Fortify your Data” show. “That doesn't mean I'm gonna take your God damn gun away, but do you really need a hundred bullets at one time?”

“By the way, are you going to eat a deer that has a hundred bullets in it?," Moreno said.

Moreno suggested that gun owners who oppose ammunition control laws and the banning of certain types of guns have a mental illness.

“I mean, do you have that kind of ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder)? I mean, are you in that kind of a hurry?,” he said. “You're like, 'No, no, no. I wanna shoot 100 bullets at the exact same time.’”

“Cannot we say with guns that…there can't be some common sense (law) that says, 'That one, probably, is out,' right, without infringing on anybody's rights?,” Moreno said. “Cannot we have universal background checks that say, "Hey.. if you're crazy, maybe you shouldn't have a gun right now?"

Gun crime down in Ohio's largest cities

Federal law bars "crazy" individuals from possession of firearms and ammunition.

"A person is 'adjudicated as a mental defective' if a court, board, commission or other lawful authority has made a determination that a person, as a result of marked subnormal intelligence, mental illness, incompetency, condition or disease is a danger to himself or to others, lacks the mental capacity to contract or manage his own affairs, is found insane by a court in a criminal case or is found incompetent to stand trial," according to the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF).

Last legislative session, State Sen. Cecil Thomas (D-Cincinnati) filed several bills that would increase gun control regulations in Ohio. They included bills to raise the minimum age to purchase a firearm from 18 to 21, allow cities in Ohio to bar guns, ban devices that increase the rate of fire on a semi-automatic gun and to repeal "permitless concealed carry" in Ohio.

Since Ohio enacted a "permitless concealed carry" on June 13, 2022, gun crime has fallen in six of the state's largest cities.

A study by the Ohio Attorney General's Office and Bowling Green State University tracked gun crime in Columbus, Cleveland, Cincinnati, Toledo, Akron, Dayton, Parma, and Canton. It found "significant" decreases in crime incidents involving a firearm in the eight cities collectively, and in Akron, Columbus and Toledo, specifically.

"This may come as a surprise to gun control advocates, but not to us," said Dean Rieck, Executive Director of Buckeye Firearms Association (BFA). "So-called gun crime is overwhelmingly committed by criminals, those who are prone to break the law and who are generally prohibited from possessing firearms in the first place." 

Last week, BFA endorsed Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose (R-Akron) over Moreno and State Sen. Matt Dolan, calling him "proud gun-owner and concealed handgun license (CHL) holder who has established himself as an ardent supporter of Second Amendment rights."