Buckeye Firearms Foundation

by Chad D. Baus

As we reported in February, Shelby Co. Sheriff John Lenhart's office has implemented a concealed carry/ firearms training course for school administrators and select teachers.

WDTN (NBC Dayton) is reporting on a range session that was recently conducted as a part of this important training:

by Chad D. Baus

The Middletown Journal is reporting that Ohio schools are analyzing the results of a recently-released $1 million, 225-page study on school safety funded by the NRA.

From the article:

OGCA check presentation - From left to right: Larry Moore, BFA;
Robert Ray Preston, OGCA First Vice President; Joe Eaton, BFA;
Fred L. Kolb, OGCA BoD; and Charles D. Rush, OGCA Second
Vice President

by Larry S. Moore

The momentum behind the Buckeye Firearms Foundation's efforts to train our teachers to respond to school violence continues to grow. The program received a major boost when the Ohio Gun Collectors Association (OGCA) Board of Directors stepped up with a very significant contribution to the effort. But the organization wasn't done yet. The OGCA Civil Rights Defense Fund, which is a separate 501(c)3 entity, Board of Directors also approved another contribution to the Armed Teacher Training Program. The OGCA Civil Rights Defense Fund was established in 1995 to fill a niche within Ohio for the education and defense of firearms rights.

Buckeye Firearms Association leaders Larry Moore and Joe Eaton attended the recent OGCA meeting and show to receive the checks. Meeting with the various OGCA Board Members was an absolutely wonderful conversation about the importance of taking bold steps in these times to protect our children. We know that no gun signs and other current methods are not working to protect our most precious ones. While law makers threaten to reduce our rights to the whims of favors from politicians and the President calls for action while emotions are high, the OGCA Directors applauded and encouraged the steps Buckeye Firearms Foundation is taking to address the real world problems we face. The OGCA expressed how thankful they are for the training and what the Foundation is doing.

Everyone at Buckeye Firearms Foundation and Buckeye Firearms Association are very grateful, excited and humbled by the donation from the OGCA. It is exciting to note that so many are overwhelmingly supportive of the efforts to train teachers to respond to active shooter threats. When this support is coupled with the over 1400 school personnel statewide who have responded to be part of the program, we know that we have hit on the right track. Of course we knew a nerve was hit on that fateful night when Buckeye Firearms Association legal chair Ken Hanson made the announcement in Columbus during a Town Hall meeting and anti-gun activist Toby Hoover gasped for air!

In addition to its much-publicized Armed Teachers Training Program, Buckeye Firearms Foundation is supporting various types of educational opportunities all over the state of Ohio. Following are just a few of the many responses we have received from people who have attended the training.

...I received a rare chance to be a guest of yours for the teachers conference Saturday morning [March 16]. I would like to personally thank you for that great opportunity. This was my first time seeing Lieutenant Colonel Dave Grossman speak and surely not the last. What a great guy, and strong freedom fighter for our rights! Every word he spoke touched a prism of my heart that I truly wasn't expecting.

During these times of struggle, and an outright war for what we are God, and lawfully, given, it warms my heart to see a group of individuals so dedicated and driven to fight for what is rightfully ours, the second amendment!

In the face of the recent rash of mass murders, you not only rhetorically and generically say "It's unconstitutional to start banning and registering firearms!" you also stand for a more radical approach. That approach being arming and empowering teachers, administrators, and school board members with KNOWLEDGE. The knowledge about firearms and firearm safety. About situational awareness, building safety and security, and about crisis management! I could see the transformation unfold before my eyes, from SHEEP to SHEEPDOG [that day]!

You and your administration at BFF have an awe inspiring gift. You touch my very soul from start to finish. You inspire me to keep fighting the good fight not only for our fellow Americans, but for the future generations, the children, of this great nation as well. You are doing such great things and I will forever continue to support and pray for you all.

Again, I want to give you a personal and heartfelt, thank you so very much, for the opportunity to be your guest at the teachers conference yesterday. I will forever be enriched by the emotion, and the knowledge that I was able to experience that day. I pray that you have a positive outcome with what you are doing this coming week, training the teachers, and that it is only the beginning!

by Jim Irvine

On Saturday, March 16th, a group of 400 teachers, administrators and school board members gathered at Villa Milano in Westerville, Ohio to listen to Lt. Col. Dave Grossman talk to them about violence. It was the most powerful event I have ever witnessed and a day which will remain in my mind for as long as I walk this earth.

These were not "gun nuts," as the media likes to call those who devote time to improving the life saving skill of marksmanship, but rather teachers, coaches, and principals who work with our kids every day, and love our kids and will sacrifice everything for them, just as those in Newtown, Connecticut did for their students.

As I greeted people as they were excited to learn something new, but a little guarded about what we would present to them. Some were nervous about being seen at a gun group function or concerned if they could handle the gruesome details of something as horrible as the mass murder of children.

In my opening remarks and introduction, I said that they were a special audience and they shared a sacred mission. I learned how special they were reading through the over 1,400 applications they submitted. But in talking with them throughout the day, I began to understand the depth of how special they are, and just how deeply they love our kids.

Col. Grossman started with a basic talk about safety. He compared how we prepare for fire in our schools to how we prepare for violence, and then asked attendees to look at the results.

The clear lesson is that we have worked hard to address the real issues of fire and have done a great job reducing risk. But our society has clung to failed ideas on violence, and introduced new ideas that have proven to fail our kids in their time of need, and thus we have not done a good job of protecting them from violence. We must change.