OGO’s Freedom to Carry Act, introduced in both chambers of the Ohio General Assembly, is rock solid, tier-1 pro-gun legislation.

And this week, we got a full-blown floor vote on the Freedom to Carry Act (FTCA) in the Ohio House of Representatives.

RINO Republicans voted it down, and I’ll get to that in a minute.

But first, as a reminder, the Freedom to Carry Act is fabulous because it:

• Converts Ohio to a Concealed Weapons License state.
• Restores carry rights for citizens 18-20 years old.
• Makes knives legal to carry as self-defense tools.
• Removes state restrictions on SBR’s & Suppressors
• Restores all-points vehicle transport for all firearms (not just handguns)
• Strengthens state preemption to cover all legally owned weapons
• Extends current permitless carry to all legally owned weapons
• Maintains the current license system for those who want it

Here’s some of the “inside baseball” on everything we’ve been doing and tracking in the fight to get this bill passed.

THE GROUNDWORK

The Freedom to Carry Act was first introduced for OGO’s members by Representative Jennifer Gross back on October 1, 2025.

A week later, Speaker Matt Huffman sent the bill, HB495, to his “kill committee,” the House Public Safety Committee, chaired by Representative Cindy Abrams.

For the last eight months, the bill sponsor, OGO and gun owners statewide have been pressuring Cindy Abrams to hold hearings on the bill, but she refused.

For the last eight months, we’ve been pressuring Speaker Matt Huffman to order the bill forward in committee, but he’s refused.

Because Huffman and Abrams refused to let HB495 progress through the normal process, in late May Rep. Gross drafted the bill as a floor amendment to another “public safety” bill, HB689, that was scheduled for a House floor vote.

When Rep. Gross filed the amendment, every RINO in the building was put on notice that they were going to have to vote for a gun bill.

THE LIE

But Speaker Huffman is desperate to protect the RINOs in his caucus because he desperately needs their vote to get reelected as Speaker later this year after the November elections.

So Huffman had his chief of staff, Mike Dittoe, promise Rep Gross that they would yank her bill out of the Public Safety Committee and re-refer the bill to the House Government Oversight IF she promised to withdraw the FTCA amendment.

The House Government Oversight committee is stacked with pro-gun legislators, so Rep. Gross agreed to the deal and withdrew the FTCA floor amendment to HB689.

But the next week in the House Rules committee, Speaker Matt Huffman refused to re-refer the Freedom to Carry Act to the Government Oversight Committee as he had promised.

In other words, Speaker Huffman lied straight to Rep. Gross’ face, broke his promise and left the Freedom to Carry Act in Cindy Abrams’ committee.

So Representative Gross went right back to the drawing board and on Wednesday this week submitted the FTCA as a floor amendment to HB667, another “public safety” bill passed by Abrams’ committee.

THE RULES

Now, it’s important to understand that amending legislation is routine and ordinary.

Sometimes it happens in committee, sometimes it happens on the floor, but floor amendments are a normal part of the legislative process.

It’s also important to understand that amending legislation is fully permitted and acknowledged in the House Rules for the 136th General Assembly.

On January 22, 2025, every single Republican voted YES on House Resolution 9 and agreed to the rule allowing floor amendments to legislation.

THE FIRE

On Wednesday afternoon, Representative Jennifer Gross stood and called up her amendment to House Bill 667.

As she was introducing and explaining what the amendment would do, our statehouse sources tell us the Speaker’s Staff was texting the Republican caucus demanding that they vote no.

In fact, they even made last-minute requests that Rep. Gross withdraw her amendment, but she stood strong and refused, telling the whole chamber, “if you oppose this, vote no.”

Now, in moments like these, there is intense pressure to vote however the Speaker tells you to vote because if you don’t, the Speaker has tremendous power to make your life a living hell.

The Speaker can yank you from your Committee Assignments, and often has.

The Speaker can blackball the other bills you are working on for your district, as he often does.

The Speaker can recruit primary opponents to run against you, as he did in this last primary election.

The Speaker can put the word out to the donor class that a legislator isn’t to be donated to. That’s very routine.

And the Speaker can get some of a legislator’s “friends” to turn against you.

SABOTAGE

In spite of all of this pressure, Representative Gross stood firm and triggered the vote.

Sensing he was losing total control of the situation, Huffman ordered choke-artist Rep. Josh Williams (previously a cosponsor of the bill!) to speak against the amendment to try to derail it.

And Williams obeyed.

(Side note: Quite frankly, gun owners dodged a bullet in the recent Ohio CD 9 primary, where pro-gun champ Derek Merrin beat Williams resoundingly.)

Then Speaker Huffman ordered House Majority Floor Leader Marilyn John (R-76) to make a motion to “lay the amendment on the table,” which is a motion to kill the amendment.

And this was telling: as I overwatched Marilyn John make her tabling motion from the House Gallery, the gun-grabbing Democrats all cheered!

Quite frankly, nothing gives Democrats more pleasure than watching Republican “leadership” kill pro-gun legislation.

THE VOTE

At this point, with the tabling motion on the board and the Speaker’s staff ordering everyone to kill the amendment, I only expected six or seven Republicans to vote right.

But I was wrong.

A staggering TWENTY-ONE members voted pro-gun by voting NO on the Speaker’s motion to kill the Freedom to Carry Act, and here they are:

✓ Tim Barhorst

✓ Jamie Callender

✓ Thaddeus Claggett

✓ Levi Dean

✓ Ron Ferguson

✓ Tex Fischer

✓ Jennifer Gross

✓ Thomas Hall

✓ Mark Johnson

✓ Angie King

✓ Jeff LaRe

✓ Beth Lear

✓ Brian Lorenz

✓ Adam Mathews

✓ Ty Mathews

✓ Ty Moore

✓ Diane Mullins

✓ Jean Schmidt

✓ Jason Stephens

✓ D.J. Swearingen

✓ Michelle Teska

These members stood with gun owners when it counted.

They stood for their districts instead of the corrupt House “leadership.”

They didn’t run from the vote, they didn’t make excuses about process, timing or the underlying bill.

They voted for the Freedom to Carry Act, and gun owners should thank them for it.

NAME & SHAME

But now it’s time to see who broke from the Conservatives and joined the Democrats to kill the Freedom to Carry Act.

Here are the RINOs who voted YES on the “motion to table,” which killed the FTCA amendment:

☒ Cindy Abrams

☒ Adam Bird

☒ Gary Click

☒ Meredith Craig

☒ Rodney Creech

☒ Jack Daniels

☒ Kellie Deeter

☒ Steve Demetriou

☒ Mike Dovilla

☒ Haraz Ghanbari

☒ Mark Hiner

☒ Adam Holmes

☒ James Hoops

☒ Marilyn John

☒ Matthew Kishman

☒ Roy Klopfenstein

☒ Brian Lampton

☒ Gayle Manning

☒ Riordan McClain

☒ Kevin Miller

☒ Melanie Miller

☒ Johnathan Newman

☒ Mike Odioso

☒ Scott Oelslager

☒ Justin Pizzulli

☒ Phil Plummer

☒ Sharon Ray

☒ Tracy Richardson

☒ Kevin Ritter

☒ Monica Robb Blasdel

☒ Bill Roemer

☒ Jodi Salvo

☒ Nick Santucci

☒ Brian Stewart

☒ David Thomas

☒ Jim Thomas

☒ Andrea White

☒ Josh Williams

☒ Bernard Willis

☒ Heidi Workman

☒ Tom Young

☒ Matt Huffman

There is no way to dress this list up as anything but a total betrayal.

These Republican NO votes voted no on the biggest pro-gun vote of the year.

Like clockwork, a lot of them are shouting excuses now about timing, about how we shouldn’t be passing gun bills after a thug went on a shooting spree, etc, etc, etc.

But they made their beds, and now it is time to lay in them.

Here’s the facts:

◉ The Freedom to Carry Act was introduced over eight months ago.

◉ Every single Republican NO vote was given a detailed explanation of the FTCA by OGO along with an urge for them to ask us clarifying questions.

◉ Representative Gross and OGO pursued the committee process, but were stonewalled.

◉ Representative Gross filed the floor amendment on time and in accord to the House Rules every Republican voted for and agreed to.

◉ The amendment was on each legislators’ laptops in front of them to read for hours before the vote.

◉ Representative Gross explained the amendment clearly on the floor.

◉ Not a single Republican NO vote legislator asked a clarifying question about the policy in the amendment.

◉ Not a single Republican NO vote legislator even asked to delay voting on the amendment so they could ask questions about the policy from the amendment sponsor.

Those are the facts.

And those Republicans joined the celebrating Democrats to kill the Freedom to Carry Act.

THE PLEDGE BREAKERS

But there is one group on this list that deserves extra scrutiny, because some of these Republicans didn’t just vote wrong.

Some of these legislators explicitly campaigned on and told gun voters that they supported and would vote yes on the Freedom to Carry Act, IF gun owners elected them.

They told gun owners they would sponsor it, co-sponsor it or vote yes on it.

But when the bill was put right in front of them, they voted to bury it.

Here are those pledge breakers:

✘✘ Heidi Workman

✘✘ Rodney Creech

✘✘ Kellie Deeter

✘✘ Adam Holmes

✘✘ Justin Pizzulli

✘✘ Jodi Salvo

✘✘ Brian Stewart

✘✘ David Thomas

✘✘ Bernard Willis

Voting with the gun-grabbing Democrats to kill the biggest gun bill of the year is bad enough.

But telling gun owners at election time you’ll support the bill if they elect you, only to turn around and do the opposite once they elected you, is something else entirely.

That isn’t just a bad vote at that point, I think it’s a total character problem.

OUR PROMISE

If politicians think they can fill out the OGO survey, check the right boxes, claim they support our legislation and then vote like Democrats in Columbus with no consequences, gun owners will get played for fools every single time.

Ohio Gun Owners will not allow that to happen.

We are going to expose this vote.

We are going to make sure that gun voters in particular know who stood with them, and who voted with the gun-grabbing Democrats in this vote.

We’re going to start with the most vulnerable Republicans on this list, because they’re the most susceptible to public pressure.

And the pledge breakers?

The pledge breakers are going to get extra scrutiny, because when someone tells gun owners one thing to get elected and then votes with the Democrats on the House floor, that cannot be ignored, explained away or rewarded.

This is why Ohio Gun Owners exists.

We aren’t here to kiss the politicians’ ass.

We aren’t here to protect the Republican brand.

And we sure won’t pretend that a Republican majority means anything when enough RINO’s join enough Democrats to kill the biggest pro-gun bill of the year.

GET IN THE FIGHT

Like we’ve done for over a decade, we’re here to defeat gun-control bills, pass pro-gun bills, and hold each and every one of these politicians accountable for what they do and don’t do to our members.

Please donate to Ohio Gun Owners now so we can go into these legislators’ districts to mobilize the gun vote to ACTION.

>>> DONATE HERE

And to all of you backstabbing RINOs who are hoping this will blow over?

It won’t.

For Freedom,

Chris Dorr
Director
Ohio Gun Owners

P.S. Any organization who sings Republicans’ praises without drawing the hard lines, forcing the votes and naming the names is just part of the corrupt political class.

We name the names like we did in the email above because we represent you to them, not them to you.

Twenty-one members voted with gun owners, but a lot of RINO’s joined the Democrats to kill the biggest gun bill of the year, the Ohio Freedom to Carry Act.

It’s judgement day for the pledge-breakers, so please get in the fight with us and chip in today.