Sometimes, I hate being right.

I’d said that the group pushing for a ballot initiative on universal background checks in Ohio would keep pushing until they got it on the ballot. That’s the way activist groups do things, unfortunately. They just keep going until they get it on the ballot, then keep pushing that until they get what they want.

They’ve now succeeded in the first step for getting their proposal on the ballot.

Backers of a proposed citizen-initiated law to require background checks for most gun sales in Ohio have gotten the green light to start collecting petition signatures to, ultimately, place the measure on the statewide ballot.

The bipartisan Ohio Ballot Board unanimously voted Monday that the proposal, titled “An Act to Close Loopholes in Background Checks on Gun Sales,” doesn’t contain more than a single subject. That certification means that Ohioans For Gun Safety, the group behind the proposal, can now start to gather the required 132,887 signatures from registered voters in at least 44 of Ohio’s 88 counties.

If they do, state lawmakers would have four months to act on the proposed law, which would make Ohio the 12th state (as well as the District of Columbia) to require universal background checks for firearms sales. Federal law already requires licensed dealers to conduct background checks before selling firearms.

The proposal, however, would allow a number of exemptions, such as gifts of firearms between family members, sales of antique guns, and temporarily giving someone a gun to use for hunting or at a shooting range.

So, just what does “state lawmakers would have four months to act on the proposed law” actually mean?

The way it works in Ohio, the measure first goes to the Ohio General Assembly where lawmakers there will vote on it. If they don’t pass the law, the group pushing this nonsense can then gather more signatures in an effort to drop it on the ballot where the people will vote on it.

The group, Ohioans For Gun Safety, are already preparing for just that to happen.

What they’re hoping is that they can get enough anti-gunners to come out for the election to ram this down the throats of the people of Ohio. This has to do with the belief that they’re actually the majority, a delusion that anti-gunners continue to labor under due to polling that says so. Of course, these are similar to the polls that had Hillary Clinton as a lock to win in 2016, so I wouldn’t put much stock in those.

They’ll continue to push to get it on the ballot, wasting people’s time and money in fighting this battle.

Meanwhile, there’s no reason to believe that universal background checks do anything except make life more difficult for law-abiding gun owners. We already know that criminals buy their guns illegally. If they’re buying via face-to-face transfers and will somehow be impacted, they’ll just shift gears and buy them on the black market. We already know this.

So why are they pushing this kind of thing? Because they want gun control. They’re scared of guns in our hands without having to get government permission, so they’re doing anything they can to fix that, even if it doesn’t impact crime.

Which will then be used to justify the next bit of gun control.