After reading this summary of the regulations required to purchase a firearm in Ohio, as published in the Cleveland Plain Dealer, you'll realize the real question everyone should be asking is:

Why should ANYTHING anti-gun groups say be taken seriously?

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

The federal government is once again guilty of irresponsibility when it comes to the safe storage and protection of firearms.

The Dayton Daily News is reporting that more than 1,000 artifacts are missing from the United States Air Force Museum at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton.

Auditors reported three Russian-made 23 mm anti-aircraft cannons missing in March 2002.

On the latest list: Bombs, bomb fuses, and guns.

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

Rick Jones, OFCC PAC Senate District 14 Coordinator, had two letters to the editor published recently:

Citizens should support concealed carry - Zanesville Times-Recorder

Portsmouth Daily Times - Hand guns should be legal for family protection

If you live in Senate District 14, which is represented by Senator Doug White, please contact Rick at rljones@zoomnet.net)

The 2003 National Crime Victimization Survey, which is released by the Dept. of Justice, reveals long-term declines in victimization are at the lowest per capita rates in nearly 30 years.

Highlights:

* Overall violent victimization and property crime rates in 2002 are the lowest recorded since the inception of the NCVS in 1973.***Footnote 1: Based on adjustments to pre-1992 estimates to account for the 1992 redesign of the NCVS.***

* In 2002 the rate for rape was 0.4 per 1,000 persons age 12 or older, 60% of the 1993 rate.

* For the decade the rate for robbery was down 63%, falling to 2 per 1,000 in 2002.

* From 1993 to 2002 victimization by aggravated assault, associated with serious injury or weapons, declined 64% to 4 per 1,000. The rate of simple assault -- a crime that involves neither serious injury nor weapon -- fell 47%.

* The rate of violent crime dropped 21% from the period 1999-2000 to the period 2001-02.

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In the past 20 years, a "right to carry revolution" has swept much of the nation, leaving a handful of states like Ohio in the age of defenselessness and victimization.

Ohio's gun grabbers claim that "more hidden, loaded guns" on our streets will lead to more violence. But the facts from NCVS prove otherwise. In the same time that violent crime has fallen to record lows, hundreds of thousands more firearms have been put on the nation's streets in right to carry states, in the hands of law-abiding citizens.

The gun grabbers won't like this NCVS data either:

Last year, 93% of violent crimes against innocent citizens were carried out without the criminal use of a firearm. 96% of rapes and 75% of robberies were committed by criminals without firearms. So why is the anti-gunners' answer to violence is to make it more difficult for law-abiding citizens to obtain firearms, or the right to bear them for self-defense?

If their real goal was to prevent violent crime, groups like the Million Mom March-Brady Campaign-Handgun Control Inc. would be fighting for the right to choose armed self-defense instead of spending all their time, money and effort preventing the 4% of rapes in which a firearm was misused.

Click here to read the 2003 National Crime Victimization Survey.

The American Association of Retired Persons (AARP) admits that criminal gun violence is making many of it's urban members "prisoners in their own homes".

Their answer to members who would wish to carry a concealed firearm for self-defense? While they offer a lot of Clintonian (or should we say Taftonian?) rhetoric about supporting citizens' right to own firearms, their legislative answer is to spend membership dollars to "eliminate gaps in and strengthen enforcement of the
Brady Act and other federal gun laws."

If you're an AARP member, or are considering becoming one, please consider instead becoming a member of Ohioans For Concealed Carry, or donating to OFCC PAC. What good are prescription drug benefits if you are defenseless when attacked?

Click on the "Read More..." link below to read the entire position statement from the AARP.