On May 5th, voters in Ohio will go to the polls to vote in their primary elections. This will decide who the nominees will be come November, and this is kind of the time when candidates have rallied their endorsements and are in the home stretch. Most have an idea of where things will go, and while there's always the chance for a surprise popping up, one Ohio Republican likely didn't expect this.
It seems that a state representative who had a strong pro-gun resume is also taking money from the anti-gun side, according to a state gun rights group.
Ohio Gun Owners downgraded State Rep. Gary Click (R-Vickery) from a C-minus to an F rating Thursday, citing what the organization says are campaign contributions from gun-control lobbyists that Click accepted and refused to return — a last-minute escalation in a feud that has defined the final weeks of the House District 88 Republican primary.
The downgrade was posted to Ohio Gun Owners’ 2026 voter guide five days before the May 5 primary. Click’s primary challenger, Eric Watson of Tiffin, maintained the organization’s “Aq” rating — its highest grade for non-incumbent candidates.
Ohio Gun Owners’ Facebook page announced the change Thursday morning, calling it “BREAKING” news.
“In the HD88 race (Sandusky and Seneca Counties), candidate Gary Click, who was already a shameful C-, has been downgraded to an F RATING for undisclosed, unreturned campaign contributions from gun-control lobbyists in his campaign reports,” the organization wrote. “TERRIBLE!”
That's...interesting.
Now, I've looked at Click's disclosures, and nothing seems to stand out to me. Of course, individual lobbyists who made a donation as individuals, rather than with the organization they represent, would look very different on those disclosures. It would just be a name, and unless you know all of the players, you wouldn't know who to look for.
So, executive director Chris Dorr might well have a point, and I can't see it because I don't know which names are the concerning ones. He's not naming names, after all, which doesn't make it easy to verify what he's saying.
Plus, interestingly, Ohio Gun Owners gave Click an F, but another group sees it differently.
The Buckeye Firearms Association regularly publishes voting guides before Ohio elections.
The group’s website gives Click an “A” rating. It gives an "Aq" rating to Watson, explaining that the rating is based on answers to a questionnaire, not on votes.
The voting guide also lists Click as the candidate endorsed by the Buckeye Firearms Association in the primary.
The letter grade and the endorsement are two separate actions, explained Dean Rieck, executive director of the Buckeye Firearms Association.
Rieck, who said he double-checked Click’s voting record in the Ohio House before talking to the Register, said the letter grade is based on voting records, answers to a survey and other research. Click has a 100% record of support for bills backed by the Buckeye Firearms Association, Rieck said.
“To the best of my knowledge, he’s never failed to support a Second Amendment bill,” Rieck said.
Ohio Gun Owners has been on the attack for a while, claiming that Click has refused to fill out the group's questionnaire. Meanwhile, Click is firing back. (From the first link above):
The F downgrade is the latest chapter in an escalating conflict between Click and Ohio Gun Owners that has played out publicly since early April. Ohio Gun Owners first gave Click a C-minus rating for the 2026 primary cycle, citing his refusal to complete the organization’s candidate survey in both 2024 and 2026 and his vote in December 2024 against advancing the Second Amendment Preservation Act on the Ohio House floor.
Click responded by calling Dorr a “fraud” and a “stalker” on his official state representative Facebook page, alleging Dorr had altered his survey answers and harassed female legislators — allegations Dorr denied, calling Click “a damned liar.” Several of Click’s specific claims remain unverified; Dorr has denied each of them.
Look, I'm critical of the Dorr brothers and have been for some time. I've seen way too many pro-gun people share their stories with me about them, and I trust them about as far as I can throw J.B. Pritzker. But this is kind of a big leap to make, accusing a sitting official of voting against the state's SAPA bill. I had to look and see if they had a point.
And honestly, I can't find it.
So, I'm not sure where Dorr is coming from here. I want to believe he's basing this on something, but I don't see what it might be.
The truth is that a lot of people don't trust the Dorr brothers or their organizations. Not filling out a questionnaire might not be the wisest move a politician can make, but since it didn't seem to hurt his re-election bids in past years, I see why he might not be interested in filling it out this go-around.
The allegations that Click has made are even more serious, but because they're unverified, we have nothing to go on but the fact that both sides are getting ugly about the whole thing.
Honestly, Dorr needs to start naming names of lobbyists who supposedly donated to Click so the rest of us can understand what he's talking about there, and maybe be a little more specific about this supposed vote in December, 2024 that doesn't show up on databases that track such things, including the state's record of votes on SAPA itself.
If he's taking money from lobbyists and, upon learning they're gun grabbers, refusing to give it back, that could be a problem, at least without some kind of explanation voters can find satisfactory.
But this could be the Dorr brothers being the Dorr brothers again.
Editor’s Note: The radical Left will stop at nothing to enact their radical gun control agenda and strip us of our Second Amendment rights.
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