OFCC supporters have reported that signs have been posted today at two FirstMerit branches (Massillon and Mentor), and OFCC has learned that the Akron-based corporation made the decision to post them some weeks ago, and that it is just now being carried out.

The irony of the timing for their order to be carried out cannot be more finely pointed out than by simply reading the last few days' headlines in the Akron Beacon Journal:

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

By Dave Workman

Separated by several states and an obvious cultural gap, two recent
stories about crime - one from Ohio and the other from Oregon - perhaps
best illustrate why a growing number of American citizens have concluded
that the police can't protect us, and neither can gun control laws or
anti-gun corporate policies.

align="right">
Police were quick to apprehend a suspect in the May 4 armed
robbery of a Dairy Mart convenience store in Akron; perhaps much quicker
than many Ohioans were able to grasp why so many of their neighbors are
arming themselves, getting licenses to carry concealed handguns, and
choosing not to shop in establishments that ban their legal firearms.

Clerk Mustapha Taoufik was struck in the head by an armed bandit
who ignored the sign posted in the glass double door of the Dairy Mart
on West Market Street. That's the sign warning customers: "No Weapons.
Pursuant to the Ohio Revised Code, no person shall knowingly possess,
have under the person's control, convey, or attempt to convey a deadly
weapon or dangerous ordnance onto these remises. A valid license does
not authorize the licensee to carry a weapon onto these premises.
Violators will be prosecuted!"
align="right">

That sign certainly did Taoufik's head, and the nerves of six
unarmed customers in his store at the time, a lot of good, didn't it?
Such signs are being posted by gun-phobic businesses in Ohio, Minnesota
and elsewhere. They accomplish two things: They tell law-abiding
firearms owners that the management thinks social bigotry is okay, when
practiced against armed citizens, and they alert thugs to a risk-free
environment.

In the Buckeye State, a group called Ohioans for Concealed Carry
has established a "Do Not Patronize" list on its website of businesses
where armed citizens are not welcome, and neither, evidently, is their
money. Smart economic move, turning away potential customers simply
because they choose to exercise a civil right; they might as well post
signs reading: "Gun-Free Zone. Armed robbers welcome. Come in, plunder,
and assault anyone because nobody will be able to stop you."

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

May 13, 2004
Cincinnati Enquirer

WASHINGTON - November's killings at a West Chester trucking company helped make 2003 the deadliest year for workplace shootings in the past decade, an anti-gun group said Wednesday.

Sixty-nine people were killed and 46 wounded in 45 workplace shootings last year. Workplace shootings nearly doubled from 2002 to 2003, according to "Terror Nine to Five: Guns in the American Workplace," the report from Handgun-Free America.

"The unifying factor amongst all these tragedies is the availability of firearms, especially semiautomatic handguns, which are the weapons of choice for rampage and workplace shooters," said Chris McGrath, executive director of Handgun-Free America. The Arlington, Va.-based group favors a ban on privately owned handguns.

Commentary:
Uh, actually, the unifying factor about these tragedies is that they usually happen in places where the right to carry firearms is prohibited, as it was in Ohio last year.

Gun prohibitions do not stop criminals, period. Just ask residents of Washington, D.C. or Chicago, IL. Ohioans have their own experience with how gun control has failed to protect the innocent, after having just won their right to self-defense and overturned a failed 150-year ban on concealed carry.

Related Story:
The Truth about Concealed Carry and Business

May 10, 2004
Jointogether.org

Calif. Survey: One in Five Teens Live with Guns

A survey by the University of California at Los Angeles finds that nearly 20 percent of 5,801 California adolescents polled live in homes were firearms are present, the Health Behavior News Service reported April 29.

According to the survey, white, male Americans ages 14 to 17 living in higher-income or rural households were the most likely to live in homes where guns were present. The most common guns found in households were rifles, followed by handguns.

However, the poll also found that only 3 percent of adolescents have their own gun. These teens were generally from lower-income homes or teens that had jobs.

The survey found that black and Latino teens were less likely to live in a home with guns. However, they wrongly perceive that their peers have guns. "If these findings are confirmed by subsequent research, interventions designed to change perceptions and expectations among black and Latino adolescents about handguns among their peers could be a focus of prevention," said Susan Sorenson, Ph.D., and Katherine Vittes, M.P.H., who led the research.

The study's findings are published in the May 2004 issue of the American Journal of Public Health.

Commentary:
20% of California teens live in homes with guns, yet a tiny fraction ever commit crimes with them.

May 15, 2004
Columbus Dispatch

"Dr. Johnston," a colleague asked me yesterday, "Aren’t you going to fill out the application to keep concealed weapons out of your office?" A physician wouldn’t want guns in his office, right?

I walked into the hospital to see a patient yesterday, and I saw one of the placards: "No weapons of any kind are allowed inside this building."

Buses have them posted. We have seen the signs outside of our public schools for years, forbidding even teachers from carrying concealed weapons onto the property.

Columbus’ mayor has been whining to the public that parks are now dangerous to children, and should be added to the list of places that can ban state-sanctioned concealed carry.

At least now, if there are any mass murders in Ohio, we know where they will occur.

Bad people have always carried the means of assault on their person, regardless of the law. A placard outside of a school or hospital is not going to prevent a criminal from carrying a gun onto the property, though they will be more likely to use it.

Gun-control statutes only disarm good people.

Until recently, Ohioans have been intimidated by state law and have not been keeping and bearing arms in public.

Thus, state law has facilitated the crimes perpetrated upon them by criminals, who prefer a disarmed population.

Where do all the mass murders occur? "Gun-free zones!" Criminals aren’t stupid.

Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, Charles McCoy, and Joint Malvo aren’t stupid. Public schools, states that forbid concealed carry, and Washington, D.C., are the safest places to kill people, and most of the mass murders in our nation take place at these locations.

Like statist liberals, criminals warm to the idea of the government keeping their victims defenseless with gun control legislation.

Mao, Hitler, Stalin — the three most infamous mass murderers in history — only succeeded in their diabolic tyranny because of the tyrannical statutes that usurped the Godgiven right to keep and bear arms. Gun control is job security for criminals and tyrants.

No, my dear patients. My office will not be a "gun-free zone." I care too much about your health — and mine. Good people have nothing to fear from good people keeping and bearing arms. Only bad people need fear that.

I only wish that the state would stop trying to grant permission to Ohio’s citizens for them to do what the God of nature and the U.S. Constitution already permits them to do: keep the means of self-defense on their person.

Ever since a drug-abusing patient threatened my office staff in Portsmouth in 2000, I’ve always kept arms — under the affirmative defense of the old law, I was justified. But now I’m going to have to turn in my fingerprints and get permission from the state to do it, for fear of state sanction. When will Ohio’s government stop treating good Ohioans like criminals? It’s time we get these tax-and spend, pro-gun-control pseudo-conservatives out of office and put servants, instead of masters, at the helm, who will let us be free and make others let us be free.

Dr. James P. Johnston
Dresden

Click on the "Read More..." link below for more wisdom, from a college girl who says "I highly prize[s] respect for others, but if you attack me, you have rescinded any such respect. I will not enjoy doing it, but I have the right to fight back and, if necessary, to kill."