The liberal media and gun ban extremists are really trying to make something of the news that politicians' early predictions about the number of concealed handgun licenses were above actual application rates.

Gannett News Service reporter Jim Siegel has published an article entitled "Demand for gun permits low - Sponsor wants to change law", which has already appeared in most Gannett-owned Ohio papers, and by virtue of being picked up by the Associated Press, will be appearing in media reports throughout the state this weekend.

Siegel never bothered to call the OFCC PAC for a statement, but he did, of course, remember to call Toby Hoover.

Not to be outdone, the Toledo Blade's Marilou Johanek (not-so-fondly dubbed in a prior article on this website as "Miss-Led", is severely under reporting the numbers of Ohio licensees to try and support her claim that "most of the people" in Ohio do not support concealed carry.

The facts are these: from being proven right about the problems with the Senate version of House Bill 12 to getting businesses to take down discriminatory signs, we are winning - and they just don't like it.

Click on the "Read More..." link below to read Johanek's op-ed, with OFCC PAC commentary.

We do so enjoy when they help prove our arguments:

The Brady bunch's website, Jointogether, recently headlined a story which shouted "Despite Ban, Fake Guns Reemerge in Boston". The story goes on to say that "sales of fake guns have been banned in Boston, Mass., since 1988, but their presence in the city is increasing."

The Brady Campaign is funded by European-born billionaire George Soros, who has said he would spend his entire fortune if he was certain it would result in the ouster of President Bush this November.

Last week, the Toby Hoover Coalition Against Gun Violence sent out an email alert begging sympathizers to call Congress about the pending subset of the failed Clinton gun ban.

In the email, Hoover provided a list of eight crimes that occured in Ohio over the past ten years in which the violent criminals allegedly used a so-called assault weapon. That's right, these crimes occurred during the time there was a ban on these firearms.

Thanks, Toby, for proving once again that these bans do NOT work. Your research agrees with the anti-gun Centers For Disease for Disease Control, who admitted last October (after spending millions of dollars to research the effectiveness of these laws) that they found no proof they reduce firearms violence.

We doubt Hoover will have much more luck drumming up phone calls than she did during the days of debate on concealed carry. According to a February story in the Dayton Daily News, "gun advocates...sent 11 times as many letters, faxes and e-mails to Gov. Bob Taft and called his office 3 1/2 times as much as opponents of the concealed-carry bill did."

Related Stories:
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Gun Control Failure: British Residents Trained to Treat Gunshot Wounds

OOPS! Brady Campaign touts study proving OUR point (again)

Op-Ed: Whither Gun Control?

Toby Hoover falsely accuses State Representative and Sheriff of law-breaking

June 18, 2004
Cincinnati Enquirer

Your voice: Chad D. Baus

The specter of suicide bombers in shopping areas has long been a concern for citizens in Israel. That country has responded by encouraging citizens to be trained in defensive firearms use. Stories like this prove the success of Israel's efforts to curb terror:

• March 7, 2003 - The Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz reports that a young plainclothes cop named Salim Barakat was parked outside when a terrorist began to fire into a crowd of people. Officer Barakat shot and wounded the terrorist. But the gunman fought back, stabbing the policeman in the chest and killing him on the spot. Only then, reports Ha'aretz, did a "civilian on the scene shoot the gunman in the head, killing him."

• Feb. 22, 2002 - The Jerusalem Post reports an alert customer shot dead a terrorist who tried to set off an explosive device in a supermarket a few minutes ago in Efrat. The town is in Gush Etzion, a block of Jewish communities in Judea, south of Bethlehem.

Keith Batcher, chairperson of United Sportsmen of Maryland, has noted that having citizens armed does, in point of fact, translate into enhanced public safety. One of the most prominent, he noted, occurred in 1991 in Tel Aviv. Three Palestine Liberation Organization terrorists opened fire in a crowded restaurant, using fully automatic arms. They only managed to wound a couple of patrons before they were dispatched by Israeli citizens using their private arms.

The situation in Luby's Cafeteria in Killeen, Texas, also in 1991, had a much more distressing outcome, with 23 innocent lives lost. Texas legislators, not wishing any repeats of that incident, and comparing it to the occurrence in Israel, passed a "shall-issue" concealed-carry law, which allows citizens to carry concealed guns unless the state can prove a reason why they can't.

Already this year, the FBI has issued warnings that terrorists plan to target American shopping malls and city busses.

Yet some Ohio mall managers (listed at www.ohioccw.org) would rather disarm their customers than allow a law to work that just might save the lives of countless people should an attacker attempt to detonate an explosive.

Given the fact that the millions of concealed-carry permit holders in our nation are known as the most law-abiding of citizens, while terrorists continue to exhibit their desire to murder innocent Americans at will, why are some Ohioans more concerned about law-abiding citizens than they are about terrorists?

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Chad D. Baus of Archbold, Ohio is a spokesperson for Ohioans for Concealed Carry (www.ohioccw.org).

Related Stories:
Akron Beacon Journal: Targeting Ohio: the vulnerablity of malls in Columbus and elsewhere
Analysts have long pointed to the terror that an al-Qaeda might unleash by dispatching suicide bombers into public places from Seattle to Des Moines to Orlando.

Dayton Daily News: "People will not shop where they don't feel safe"
"As far as beefed up security goes, "we've been in that mindset process for a couple of years now", said he operations director of the Mall at Fairfield.

Cleveland Plain Dealer: Mall-rich Columbus reflects on terror plot
When terrorists target New York City, they pick skyscrapers. In the Midwest, they pick the mall.