Kasich wants advocates to hash out gun issues

BALTIMORE, Md. — Ohio Gov. John Kasich traveled to Baltimore on Monday to insist that despite others’ assertions and descriptions to the contrary, he is, in fact, a conservative.

Kasich, speaking at a student-run symposium at Johns Hopkins University, has become a fixture on Sunday talk shows by bucking President Donald Trump, decrying hyper-partisanship and, at one point, hinting that he might run for office again one day as an independent.

“I’m not a moderate,” he said, answering a question on his politics. “I’m a conservative.”

That means, he said, that he’s for “low taxes, common-sense regulations, helping people who can’t help themselves, making sure we balance the budget.”

His latest effort appears to involve gun control. Kasich has begun calling for putting gun-rights advocates and gun-control advocates in a room and hammering out an agreement.

“I want them to sit in a room, and I want them to say, ‘We have to find some common ground,’” he said. “‘We have to change some things that are going on.’”

But his record on the issue is clear: Although he ran afoul of the National Rifle Association as a member of Congress by supporting the 1994 federal ban on assault weapons, he returned to the organization’s good graces in this decade by signing bills as Ohio’s governor that expanded the ability to carry a concealed weapon into bars, the Statehouse parking garage, colleges and day cares, for example.

On Monday, he said he felt it necessary to not weigh in on the gun issue, saying it’s better if people who hold disparate opinions work it out.

“If you sit them down and there’s goodwill, it’s amazing what you can work out,” he said. “Let’s see if we can make some real progress. If I can do it in my state, perhaps we can spread it to other states, maybe even spread it to the national government. If I were president, that’s what I would’ve done.”

Kasich was grilled by some of the Johns Hopkins students, including a few who questioned his decision to sign bills restricting abortion. “I’m pro-life,” he said, adding, “If people don’t agree with me on the issue, that’s OK; I respect them. It’s a very, very tough issue.”

He said he’s “always been a Republican,” in part because “I don’t like to stand in line. I don’t like rules. I don’t like any of that stuff. I like to freewheel it.”

Now, he said, he views his job as trying to pull the party in the right direction on issues such as the environment, trade and immigration.

“I’m concerned people just consume that which they agree with,” he said. “I’m concerned we have siloed ourselves, where we can’t listen to one another, where we may disagree on an issue, but we can’t hear one another.”