Ohio Gov. John Kasich (R) vetoed protections for gun owners on Wednesday and criticized Republican lawmakers for not giving him a firearm confiscation bill to sign.
NBC4 and the AP reported that the bill Kasich vetoed would have put the onus on the state in situations where a Ohioan claimed self-defense in shooting incident.
Kasich said:
This bill would reverse the burden of proof in criminal cases in which the defendant alleges he or she acted in self-defense. The bill would require the prosecution to disprove, beyond a reasonable doubt, the defendant’s self-defense allegation. This has never been the law in Ohio; the defendant has always had the burden of proving self-defense.
He also pointed to his past support of pro-Second Amendment bills as a way to offset his veto of protections for gun owners who may have to shoot in self-defense.
Kasich listed a number of high profile public attacks and used them to express his disappointment in not receiving a gun confiscation bill to sign. One of the shootings he listed was the November 7, Borderline Bar & Grill attack which occurred in California, a state with firearm confiscation laws. The laws did not nothing to prevent the attack. He also noted the February 14, school shooting in Florida. He did not mention that Florida thereafter passed gun confiscation laws, but those laws were impotent to stop the August 26, Jacksonville Landing attack.
AWR Hawkins is an award-winning Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News, the host of the Breitbart podcast Bullets with AWR Hawkins, and the writer/curator of Down Range with AWR Hawkins, a weekly newsletter focused on all things Second Amendment, also for Breitbart News. He is the political analyst for Armed American Radio. Follow him on Twitter: @AWRHawkins. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com. Sign up to get Down Range at breitbart.com/downrange.