“Is Kevin Coughlin here?” my wife asked the ticket seller Sunday at the Summit County Fairground-hosted Gun, Knife and Military Show.
“I don’t know Kevin Coughlin,” the attendant replied. And therein lies a problem.
“While Ohio has lost its presidential battleground state status for the 2024 election cycle, there is one horse race that could be the ultimate upset and the seat that determines control of the U.S. House of Representatives,” former chairman of the Ohio Republican Party, Robert Paduchik, wrote July 9 in The Columbus Dispatch. “A new district since 2022, Ohio’s 13th Congressional District is one of only eleven true swing House districts in the country.”
That’s my district. My former Congressman used to be Republican Dave Joyce, hardly a 2A go-getter but nonetheless A-rated by NRA. Somehow, after census reapportionment, a state where the GOP controls both houses and the governorship sacrificed my district to be reshaped, and I now find myself in the newly formed Democrat-controlled 13th District, misrepresented by anti-gun extremist Emilia Sykes. (As an aside, that census reapportionment factored in foreign nationals, legal and illegal, further exposing the self-defeating blindness of Second Amendment groups when they use the “single issue” excuse to avoid the threat immigration poses to RKBA.)
With that as a backdrop, you would think a Republican candidate in a district the Democrats are desperate to keep would-be courting the gun owner vote to remind them of what they have to lose and what he has to offer. Instead, there not only was no presence for his campaign, the Republicans, or even the NRA (at a gun show that’s been advertised for months weeks before the election), the attendant, who does Ohio gun shows for a living, had never even heard of him.
And that avoidance of the issue appears to be calculated and deliberate. Because you really have to know what to search for to find out Coughlin’s position on guns.
True, Buckeye Firearms Association, the state NRA affiliate, gives Coughlin an “A” in its 2024 BFA-PAC Grades and Endorsements, but we don’t see why. Presuming they take their lead from NRA’s Political Victory Fund, we see Coughlin has been assigned an “AQ” grade, meaning its based on his answers to a questionnaire, which they won’t show us. Apparently, rather than being able to defend the Second Amendment, they believe the details of being “pro-gun” will be used against their candidates.
The closest they come is an unlisted YouTube video that appears as an ad in other videos, but is otherwise hidden from public view unless you know how to look for it.
“Kevin Coughlin, father, husband, and fierce defender of the Second Amendment,” the announcer declares. “Count on Kevin to put the safety of you and your family first. Defend your freedom. Vote Kevin Coughlin for Congress.”
How is he “a fierce defender of the Second Amendment”? We’ve heard such unsubstantiated words before, and they’ve backfired on us more times than I can count.
“Others have words, but I have a PROVEN record of backing up my promises to protect our Second Amendment rights!” Coughlin assets in a February post on X. “That’s why I’m proud to say that I have received the HIGHEST rating of ANYONE in this primary from the Buckeye Firearms Association. #OH13.”
Now go through his current X account and find something more recent. Then scroll through his Facebook page and see if you can find declarations of fierceness on 2A and a proven record there.
That’s further compounded by the “Issues” page on his campaign website, which doesn’t mention the Second Amendment under the heavy-on-the-“Only Ones” category of “Crime and Safety,” or even under “Defend the Constitution.”
Why?
Doing a Google search for “Kevin Coughlin guns” doesn’t yield much more—there’s the aforementioned February Twitter post, a recent news article where you have to scroll deeply not it to read he told the Akron Press Club “he’s a supporter of the Second Amendment and it’s language prohibiting the infringement of gun rights,” and an On the Issues entry for “Kevin Coughlin on Gun Control”:
Defend Our Ohio Values: Protect our Second Amendment rights and ensure Ohio’s sporting heritage remain strong for years to come.
Source: Campaign website, www.kevincoughlin.com, “Issues”, Jul 17, 2011
That’s it?
Look, the guy may be great on guns, but it shouldn’t be this hard finding out. If a candidate wants gun owner support—and in this race, it’s hard to imagine him competing without it—it’s not out of line to expect him to actually be “a fierce defender,” instead of a tepid equivocator hiding from the issue because it either embarrasses him or he doesn’t know enough about it to debate the issue.
The BFA endorsement shows he’s got people who can help him with that if he’s interested, or he can continue to duck and cover and hope somehow, gun show attendees who don’t know who he is will be motivated to not just vote for him but do all those other things needed to win a to-the-hilt campaign, like make donations, walk precincts, man phone banks…
I’ll be voting for Kevin Coughlin on November 5. Or I should say, until he convinces me otherwise, I’ll be voting against Emilia Sykes as a matter of self-defense and hoping that will be enough.
If you believe in an issue, you’ll fight for it.
CORRECTION UPDATE
BFA is not an NRA state affiliate, it is an independent organization, and bases its grades and endorsements on data, surveys, voting records, and experience with the candidates in the Statehouse.
About David Codrea:
David Codrea is the winner of multiple journalist awards for investigating/defending the RKBA and a long-time gun owner rights advocate who defiantly challenges the folly of citizen disarmament. He blogs at “The War on Guns: Notes from the Resistance,” is a regularly featured contributor to Firearms News, and posts on Twitter: @dcodrea and Facebook.
Any kin to Father Charles Coughlin?
what does a table at that gun show cost for the weekend, as a non-vendor? Prolly forty bucks? Even if four HUNDRED, he could not get a bigger ROI than booking a able and being there.
And I’d be high dollars at long odds the gun show organisers would COMP him a table if he’d ask. I know my local outfit sure would, as badly as we need to promote good candidates who support our right to arms.
Now you know what probably half of the electorate feels like. Not every citizen, whether R or D is guaranteed to have a representative that agrees with their beliefs. The stark differences and toxic divide within our political system makes one wonder how much longer we can last as a republic. The division, spurred on by never compromise, never discuss the issues, is fair game for the biased media and the reason for the UNIPARTY that we are now saddled with. I lived most of my life in a democratic controlled state, I now reside in one that’s divided mostly… Read more »
When you consider that the 13th District has not elected a Republican representative since 1976 it makes sense to NOT campaign on an issue that will cost votes. As people fled the rust belt and some States gained non-citizen population, Ohio has lost representatives and districts have changed borders to cover more geography. That just sucks for some people. Since population growth has not kept pace and the population has aged, Ohio may be a good destination for conservatives fleeing deep blue States or cities. The 6th district, bordering PA and WV catches my attention. If Rep. Michael Rulli is… Read more »
Typical NRA, secrecy on how they do things, and as may or may not be the case here, endorsing Republicans who suck on 2A rights. Also, this guy in particular sounds just like the Republicans they run here in Minnesota, both for congress, senate and the state legislature, only a single line or two once or twice about 2A, and nothing more. Plus the fact that they never campaign, then wonder why Minnesota’s got Tim Walz and Ilhan Omar… Try campaigning? Oh, and NRA, do some background research once in awhile before giving out an “A” or “AQ”… And maybe… Read more »