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“Proposed Ohio ballot initiative would require background checks for all gun sales,” NBC4i Columbus reported Thursday. “The newly formed group calling itself ‘Ohioans for Gun Safety’ says they want ‘common sense’ background checks to stem the number of gun deaths.” They’re looking at how they can make that happen politically through a ballot intiative.

“Newly formed”? Who are these guys?

It’s essential to know who you’re up against.

Do they have big backers? Do they have the resources to run a professional PR campaign, buy TV time and become a credible threat? Can we follow the money, assuming there is any?

Ohioans for Gun Safety is still pretty obscure, so we need to work a bit to find out who’s behind them. I’m going to go through the steps I took in the hope that it may turn some reading this on to things you can do to check out hostiles making noises about going after our rights.

The first thread I pull is to try to see who is behind their website. In this case it’s registered by proxy, so that doesn’t help. And as a new group, they don’t yet appear on the Guidestar nonprofit information resource, so I don’t see anything about officers, revenues, tax filings/financials and the like.

Dead ends are a routine part of the process.

Next, because they are an Ohio group, I go to the Secretary of State’s corporate listing – that’s how Bloomberg’s infiltration of the states was first discovered and reported. Doing that let me find the Articles of Incorporation. They in turn listed an agent and an address, both of which pointed to a Columbus law firm.

So we know they’re setting up professionally, and in earnest.

And the organization’s “Groundbreaker” list provided plenty of names of members who have left internet trails to follow, many of them leading, along with an acknowledgment to the Cleveland chapter of the National Council of Jewish Women. They’re into all things “social justice” with a special place in their hearts for citizen disarmament – what my friend and founder of Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership, the late Aaron Zelman, deemed “bagel brained.”

The group’s IRS filing says “NJW is a grassroots org of volunteers and advocates who turn progressive ideas into action,” and its 2016 “end of year” assets is just short of $16M.

They can do some damage with that, above and beyond the $31K the NBC4i report says they’ve collected to date via “house parties.” Meaning gun owners had best be aware of their presence and intentions, and prepared to counter the anticipated disinformation campaign that will surely accompany their ballot initiative effort.

In this case, going back to the NBC4i report, they offer nothing new and plenty that can be disputed, starting with the chosen face of their effort, a man whose son was murdered, and wants to do something to keep anyone else from suffering as he has.

That’s a noble desire. Every decent person can agree with that goal and sympathize with his loss. That said, the group he’s being exploited by doesn’t stand a chance of achieving that goal with their co-called “background check” bill.

His son’s murderer, with “prior drug convictions,” did not obey existing “gun control” laws ostensibly put in place to prevent people like him from even possessing a gun, let alone carrying one — and let alone then using it to hunt down another human being and execute him. What “law” could possibly compel compliant behavior on the part of monsters?

Besides, no less an authority than the National Institute of Justice concluded:

“Universal background checks … Effectiveness depends on the ability to reduce straw purchasing, requiring registration…”

So it’s not just “background checks” they want? But they’ll take that beachhead if they can and then use it as the launch point for their next incursion?

Lather, rinse, repeat, and with each gain decry the lack of “common sense gun laws” and accuse “the gun lobby” of refusing to “compromise.” And assure everybody that no one is talking about taking their guns.

Watch this group. Chances are nothing may come of it, at least in Ohio as things are at the present (and with only a handful of Facebook and Twitter followers). But you never know, and you never know how quickly things can change, especially now that the media has noticed and is helping them appear to be more than they are.

And watch for similar efforts emerging where you live. When they do, start pulling threads to gather intel on who they are, and on their alliances, capabilities and strength.

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David Codrea’s opinions are his own. See “Who speaks for Oath Keepers?”