Medina- Police Chief Dennis Hanwell fears he can explain the city's recent spate of robberies:

Medina has become easy pickings.

In less than four months, since layoffs shrank the police force by 25 percent, six armed robberies have been reported in Medina, as many as were reported in all of 2002, Hanwell said.

"Armed robbery is a high-risk crime," Medina Detective Scott Thomas said. "You have to feel real comfortable or real desperate. By comfortable I mean you have to feel like you're going to get away with it."

"Robbery is a crime of, first, opportunity and, second, of desire. We have no control over desire," Hanwell said. "But criminals will go where they think they have the least chance of getting caught."

OFCC PAC Commentary:
How true these words are, and they can be spoken of the entire state of Ohio, not just the Cleveland suburb of Medina.

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

Who's up for a smoke? Because after this article from PD associate editor Phillip Morris, some concealed carry reformers may be ready to buy stock...

04/15/03

The Ohio Supreme Court turns its attention today to guns and begins to ponder what the framers of the Ohio Constitution really meant when they wrote:

"The people have the right to bear arms for their defense and security; but standing armies, in time of peace, are dangerous to liberty, and shall not be kept up; and the military shall be in strict subordination to the civil power." Article 1, Section 4 of the Ohio Constitution.

The first 13 words seem as clear to me as any children's nursery rhyme: "The people have the right to bear arms for their defense and security."

Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall. What is the interpretive difficulty or confusion with either of these simple declarative statements?

Click here to read the entire editorial in the Plain Dealer.

Notes of thanks or encouragement may be sent to Phillip Morris at pfmorris@plaind.com