Jeff Monroe, Ph.D., is the chairman of the Warren County, Ohio Republican Party and the county board of elections. He owns a firearms store and is about to open an indoor range.

You’d probably guess that he’s driven by a deep concern for Americans’ Second Amendment gun rights. You would be wrong.

Not completely wrong – he certainly stands for the Second Amendment, no question about that. His real passion, though, is for the biblical principles upon which American liberties are founded. What other gun store, after all, is named for a Bible verse?

So, what about the name 22three? As a gun policy researcher, Jeff knows that firearms provide the most effective means of self defense. In the end, though, firearms are just a tool and ultimate protection and security come from someone much greater than ourselves. The name 22three, based on 2 Samuel 22:3, reminds us of this point.

Making Things Happen

Monroe isn’t exaggerating to call himself a gun policy researcher. His doctorate is in Criminal Justice, and among other work, he has published an academic treatise showing that the Brady Bill, the 1993 federal act mandating background checks and waiting periods for many purchase, has had no discernible impact on homicide rates.

He was well on his way toward tenure as a professor at Xavier University in Cincinnati when someone asked him, “Who is going to read your research?” His thought was, “Probably a few grad students with an interest in statistics.” That was when he recalled a conversation he’d had with his grandfather years earlier. Jeff had told him he was about to start working on his Ph.D. His grandfather answered, “Don’t get too smart. Don’t get so smart you forget how to make things happen.”

Jeff decided that for him, the ivory tower was not the place to make things happen. So in 2010 he “jumped off ,” as he put it, not knowing where he would land. Shortly afterward he opened 22three in Lebanon, Ohio, a quiet northeastern suburb just outside the reach of the heavy traffic of Cincinnati and Dayton.

The Stream interviewed him on Friday morning, November 4. Some excerpts:

On our Constitutional rights:

It’s important to remember where the rights in our Constitution rest: they rest in inalienable rights, rights that can’t be taken away by anybody — or granted by anybody. They are simply truth. …

Some people treat the fight for the Second Amendment as a fight for “what the guy said 200-some years ago.” That’s not it at all. When you’re a good student it’s not enough to understand what the guy wrote. You need to understand why he wrote it. The liberty movement we’ve seen over the past ten years or so is making a good argument, except they’re losing track of the fact that there’s a reason why the Founders said what they said. They’d rather rest on the Founders, and the Founders aren’t enough, you have to go deeper than that.

The Founders aren’t enough, you have to go deeper than that.

On his jump from the ivory tower:

I still don’t know what the end goal is, except pursuit of things that matter, and to actually make them happen, rather than writing about things in a cloud.

Do I fight exclusively for the Second Amendment? No. I fight for the foundation of why our country is exceptional. As party chair, my conversation with the party here wasn’t about whether we stand for the Republican platform. It was about why we stand with it. I want to be able to hold folks accountable to that.

It’s not just education; it’s bigger than that. It’s about life change. And Jesus Christ is core to that.

We live in a time when we look at what’s going on around us, but not why. And what I try to do is look around globally and ask what’s going on, and try to create a reaction to that, that rests on the inherent goodness of who Christ is.

So when I wake up, it’s, “Where we are we on the planet today, and what’s going on with Christ in my life? How can I be impacted by that, and how can I impact others by it? How can I best serve people in the way Christ would serve them, to draw them closer to Him?”

I’m in the gun industry, but really it’s about, “How can I help people come closer to Him? What’s that really look like when it involves guns, which are destructive if used wrongly?”

This approach is simply who I am.

In the firearms industry there are quite a few people who think and believe the same way I do [spiritually and on core principles], and we’re in the same fight together.

Is there anything you wish was different about this election, from the beginning until now?

I think it’s critically important that we have civility in society, and I think civility comes from understanding how to treat people according to the way that we were designed, and the way that Christ wants us to behave.

I think it’s critically important that we have civility in society, and I think civility comes from understanding how to treat people according to the way that we were designed, and the way that Christ wants us to behave. I would love to see that in the political realm.

I think that if we’d seen that all along, it would have changed the dynamic of what our primaries looked like, and what our election looks like on Tuesday.

As a party leader it’s critically important to accomplish the goals of the party. The conservative party is an important one, and our platform is solid. We need to support the platform. We need to go deeper, though, too.

What do you see happening if Hillary Clinton is elected?

Much of what we’ve been seeing. If that’s what the country is after, then she’ll be elected.

The country has been resilient in many ways. … My concern is that over my lifetime it’s been going in the same direction — still bigger government, still less inclusive of who Christ is, still less of what I care about or represent, so as a liberty-minded person I would love to see a slow bend back in that direction.