How to keep gun rights for the long term

Students of history and pro-gun advocates know that every case or genocide or political oppression was preceded by the confiscation of privately owned firearms. We also know that it wasn't the immortal words Thomas Jefferson crafted into the Declaration of Independence or the words used to define the Bill of Rights that secured American liberty.

In reality, George Washington's army, which bled and used their guns to make the British bleed, is responsible for our freedom.

History also tells us that a very small percentage of the population took an active role in the American Revolution, while just as few people in America today take an active interest in politics. An even smaller percentage accepts that the government might try to destroy civil rights as we know them.

That means the vast majority of Americans, and a sizable percentage of gun owners, simply don't accept that genocide or governmental political repression is possible in today's America. So, when pro-gun advocates use the argument that guns help keep us safe from the government our audience quickly dozes off. Only by connecting the Right to Keep and Bear Arms to the lives of today's Americans in a tangible way can we hope to continue the expansion of pro-gun reform that began in the late 1990s.

To be fair, both arguments have validity and are rational reasons to defend the Second Amendment. However, defending people from their own lack of foresight about the possible misdeeds of government is part of being a pro-gun activist. Only by accepting that reality can the active pro-gun community overcome the apathy of the masses.

Whenever shocked into action the pro-gun voting bloc is among the largest and most powerful in American political history. That fact causes a huge change in the political world whenever gun voters are stirred to action – as it did in the aftermath of the Clinton "assault weapons" ban and the Sandy Hook murders.

The Clinton ban was the catalyst for the Republican Revolution that broke the Democrats' longtime control of the House of Representatives and made Newt Gingrich a household name. A record of anti-gun votes also cost Democratic presidential candidate Al Gore Jr. his home state of Tennessee and ultimately the 2000 presidential election.

Even the most anti-gun presidential candidate in history, Barack Obama, campaigned as pro-gun in order to win in 2008. In Ohio, for example, he used the pro-gun credibility of Democratic Gov. Ted Strickland as a way to trick gun owners and sportsmen into thinking Obama wasn't a threat to gun rights.

When President Obama didn't aggressively attack gun rights during his first term it appeared he was true to his word – a fact that played into his campaign for re-election since it fooled enough of Ohio's gun owners to carry the state in 2012.

After the Sandy Hook tragedy, President Obama's anti-gun impulses burst forth, exposing him true viewpoint after he was safely in his second term and politically untouchable. By running away from his anti-gun history as a candidate, President Obama was admitting that gun control is a losing political position.

As the 2016 presidential silly season begins, nobody can doubt the important role gun rights will play in the upcoming election.

Only by winning the public relations battle, winning at the ballot box, in the courts and in the legislatures can we hope to protect the Right to Keep and Bear Arms – an American legacy that our children, and grandchildren deserve to inherit.

Usually, this is the place in a column like this where the writer uses guilt to shame the rank-and-file gun owner into action, but that tactic has failed for years.

Instead, we simply need to accept that a small dedicated band of gun advocates has to carry the torch for the huge number of gun owners in America.

Shifting the debate is paramount to our success because it pares the various talking points into a precise message. To that end, we need to stop quoting long-dead presidents, the Founding Fathers, Hitler, Stalin and other historical ghosts, and instead focus on how expanding the Second Amendment will help keep America safe.

We also need to rally behind that idea that the Second Amendment protects an individual right that the government can infringe only when there is an overwhelming public need. Since we have more guns on the street than ever before and gun crime continues to plummet, it eliminates the government's justification to restrict gun rights.

Shifting the debate will also force gun-control advocates to prove why they need to take our guns, instead of forcing us to explain why we need to keep them.

The simple truth is that once we can get America to accept that premise it will guarantee victory.

Such a decisive win will not only carry us for this election cycle, or this legislative session, but for the foreseeable future. Securing such a decisive victory means we can pass down the torch of American liberty to our children in better condition than when we received it.

Gerard Valentino is a co-founder of Buckeye Firearms Association, BuckeyeFirearms.org, and is a member of the Buckeye Firearms Foundation Board of Directors. He is also a former military intelligence analyst in the U.S. Army and a communications staff officer in the Ohio National Guard.