GOP Senate candidate Bernie Moreno believes gun safety laws cannot prevent gun violence

Millionaire businessman and Ohio Republican Bernie Moreno says he’s running for the U.S. Senate in part to “vigorously defend our constitutional rights, especially the Second Amendment.”

The National Rifle Association ally has repeatedly suggested that he sees no need for any gun laws.

On June 3, Moreno hosted a table at a Friends of the NRA Banquet in Mentor, Ohio. The pro-gun organization held a raffle and auction for guns at the fundraising event, including a Sig Sauer M400 AR-15, the same type of AR-15-style semi-automatic rifle that was used in a July 2022 mass shooting at an Indiana shopping mall.

“Awesome night at the Western Reserve Friends of NRA Event in Lake County tonight,” Moreno’s campaign tweeted. “The 2nd Amendment is alive and well in Mentor and across Ohio!”

In a video of a Moreno campaign appearance posted on Twitter on May 23 by the progressive group Patriot Takes Research Fund, the candidate defended firearms and opposed gun safety laws:

It’s also not controversial to say that guns don’t kill people. People with problems kill people, and we have to solve those problems and ask them to point to one gun law that they think would prevent any crime. Because the reality is, if I want to murder somebody, I don’t have standards that say, I’ll murder somebody, but I won’t violate a gun law. That’s craziness. And we know that. So we can’t go backwards on that issue also.

He made similar remarks at an April 19 town hall event in Greene County, Ohio:

The reason we didn’t look like Australia during COVID is because of our Second Amendment. Guns don’t kill people; people kill people. So banning guns, putting restrictions on guns, all of that is lazy politicians that want to look like they’re doing something, when in reality they’re not addressing the actual problem. Why is somebody that has so much darkness in their souls that they’d want to murder somebody else? And by the way, if you are that person… they don’t say, Well, I’ll murder somebody, but absolutely will not violate a gun law. You know, I have ethics. I don’t think that’s the way that works. Right? So don’t buy into the propaganda about that. Our Second Amendment wasn’t there by accident. Madison was very, very adamant of the importance of that. And I’m an absolutist on the Second Amendment.

It is unclear whether he believes other criminal laws are ineffective. A campaign spokesperson for Moreno did not immediately respond to an American Independent Foundation inquiry for this story.

Contrary to Moreno’s argument, data shows that gun laws prevent people who may go on to commit violent crimes from obtaining weapons in the first place and allow law enforcement officials to disarm those who are an imminent threat.

According to the FBI’s 2021-2022 NICS Operations Report, the National Instant Criminal Background Check System has been used more than 2 million times to block disqualified individuals from purchasing firearms.

In the 21 states that have adopted extreme risk protection order laws, commonly known as red flag laws, tens of thousands of people have been temporarily disarmed after being adjudicated to be a threat to themselves or others, according to research by Everytown for Gun Safety.

Multiple studies have suggested these laws have prevented a significant number of gun deaths.

Since two people were fatally shot following a Richmond, Virginia, high school graduation on Tuesday, the number of mass shootings in 2023 in the United States is now up to 279, according to the Gun Violence Archive, after at least 646 mass shootings in 2022.

On June 1, 2022, Moreno tweeted a Wall Street Journal opinion piece that charged gun safety advocates with overstating the frequency of school shootings. He called the op-ed a “very well reasoned and thoughtful opinion piece.”

When a commenter responded accurately that the United States has significantly more mass shootings and gun violence than any other country, Moreno answered, “Read more, troll mess.”

He also has repeatedly suggested an armed population keeps the federal government in check.

On Oct. 1, 2021, Moreno tweeted: “As James Madison warned in Federalist 46, an armed citizenry ‘forms a barrier against the enterprises of ambition.’ As I warned last year, Covid opened the door to lots of ‘ambitious’ leaders and a willing media. America without the second amendment would be Australia today.”

On Aug. 27, 2021, he shared a now-deleted tweet about gun confiscation by the Taliban in Afghanistan and wrote: “This is why the second amendment is absolutely essential to American Democracy. This is what the government did in Cuba and Venezuela to control their people.”

Moreno is seeking his party’s nomination to challenge incumbent Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown, who has advocated and voted for commonsense gun safety legislation.

Republican state Sen. Matt Dolan has also announced his candidacy for the GOP nomination. Secretary of State Frank LaRose, an election denier, reportedly told donors in May that he also plans to run in the primary.

Published with permission of The American Independent Foundation.