When Dan Williamson broke the story that Senator White admitted he had the votes to override a Taft veto on HB12 back on November 27, we had hope that he was one of the more objective reporters in Ohio. But in this, his latest story on the subject, it's more of what we've come to expect from Ohio's liberal media elite.

It's tough to know where to begin with this piece. At times, it reads more as if Senator Fingerhut did the writing than Williamson, because the extreme rhetoric doesn't quit outside the quotation marks.

Williamson/Fingerhut's main points, in summary:

• the poor farmer-types are good for some things in state legislature, but they are really a bother when it comes to defending the Constitution as it pertains to guns.

• the 'enlightened' urbanites are worried about country yockels coming into the big city and negligently shooting people because they "misperceived the situation".

• urban Republicans who voted for HB12 didn't do it out of conviction or because they thought it would deter crime. They were "scared of the gun lobby" or of their Republican colleagues.

• that stuff from the Ohio Supreme Court about bearing arms for defense and security being a "fundamental individual right" never happened. Figment of country boys' imagination.

Of course, these claims are totally baseless.

One bright note in the story - it highlights what we've been lamenting for months and years - liberal Republicans are as much responsible for keeping Ohioans defenseless as are gun abolitionists like Fingerhut.

We'd like to think that most of Ohio's urban dwellers are aware of the fact that it is they who will benefit the most from concealed carry legislation. Experience in other states has proven that crime drops more rapidly in cities than in urban areas. City dwellers like Taft, Fingerhut, Goodman, etc. ought to be thanking their rural colleagues for their considerate effort to put others before themselves.

If you have the stomach for it, click on the "Read More..." link below for Williamson's piece.

Handgun secrecy is a cynical joke

Dayton Daily News Editorial
December 26, 2003

A MEMORABLE SCENE IN A CLASSIC MOVIE SET in the old West has comic legend W.C. Fields holding forth in the back of a moving passenger train that's clacking past desert cactus and sagebrush.

He regales fellow travelers with a tale of personal bravery. The exchange goes something like this:

"I was surrounded by 20,000 Indians," he said. "And all I had was a knife and a revolver."

A small man, eyes narrowing, interrupted: "Why, they didn't have revolvers in those days."

Mr. Fields was taken aback, but only for half a beat. "I knew that," he said. "But the Indians didn't know it."

And, so, Ohio House Speaker Larry Householder tries to justify keeping Ohioans in the dark about who receives licenses to carry concealed handguns under legislation now before Gov. Bob Taft.

Click on the "Read More..." link below for more.

As you read this article, we recommend you keep these words at the front of your mind: "Ohio's gun control laws are a colossal failure."

Former police officer's son 75th victim in city

By Jane Prendergast
The Cincinnati Enquirer

(edited for space- click here to read the entire story in the Cincinnati Enquirer)

BOND HILL - A day after a bullet made his stepson Cincinnati's 75th homicide victim of 2003, former assistant police chief Ron Twitty was making plans for two things: A funeral and a new community effort to stop the city's escalating violence.

Cincinnati has seen its most murderous year in 26 years. And for the fifth straight year has recorded more killings than in the year before.

Click on the "Read More..." link below for more.