The following are excerpts from a Christmas Day article in the Lima News by outdoors writer Al Smith.

Deer hunters who will participate in the annual muzzleloader season will be prepared for a frigid wait for a shot at their prey. ...The muzzleloader deer season...runs from Tuesday through Friday.

This season has become more popular in recent years probably because modern in-line muzzleloaders are easier to handle and clean.

The most traditional hunters still use the flint lock muzzleloader. It is a more complex gun that was used during the Revolutionary War. The side hammer models that use blackpowder were used during the 1800s.

Using a primitive weapon poses a challenge for the hunter. With only one shot, it takes more patience to squeeze the trigger at the right time.

During deer-gun week, hunters who use a shotgun have three slugs available to them.

Bitter cold weather and snow are usually a part of the muzzleloader season. Thus, it takes a hardy hunter to sit and wait for a deer. Sitting on the ridge of a ravine for several hours or in a deerstand takes quite a bit of patience.

A plus to having snow is that it makes it easier to track a deer.

Legal hunting hours during the statewide muzzleloader deer season are one-half hour before sunrise to sunset. Deer must be checked by 8 p.m. on the day after harvest, except those killed on Friday, which must be brought to a deer check station by 8 p.m. that day.

Click here for the complete article by Al Smith.

In April 2004, just a few weeks after passage of Ohio's concealed carry (which thanks to Bob Taft and the Ohio Newspaper Association included a provision allowing the media access to license-holders' private information), Governor Taft insulted gun owners by ordering the names of former prison inmates removed from the Internet to avoid "stigmatizing" the convicts.

No mention of a fabled 'right to know' from Taft. No fears that the 'wrong people' might get jobs at the 'wrong places' because this information is hard to obtain. No insistence that it's in the public good for people to be able to easily look up their neighbors or co-workers potential status as ex-cons.

Fast forward to an Associated Press story published in the waning hours of 2005, and the State of Ohio and Ohio Newspaper Association's concern for privacy of criminals' privacy is still being exposed, while the right to privacy for Ohio's law-abiding citizens is still being violated...

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By Gerard Valentino

Liberals blame low self-esteem for a litany of social ills ranging from teen pregnancy to turning people to a life crime. They also have an attachment to failed social experiments and gun-control in particular.

High murder rates in Chicago and Washington D.C. are proof that handgun bans are abysmal failures at keeping the populace safe. Assault Weapons bans in Columbus, OH, and California are also useless in lessening the crime rate. We also know what happened when the police were unable to protect citizens of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina.

Never before has the American public been faced with a clearer example of how criminals continued to rape, rob and pillage after the law-abiding are disarmed. The same is true along the gulf coast where mobs took what they pleased from citizens unable to defend themselves.

At the opposite end of the spectrum are Florida’s “Castle Doctrine” and “Hold Your Ground” statutes that lessen the potential legal burdens on law-abiding citizens who use deadly force in their home or in public. Once again the anti-gunners claimed mass chaos would ensue and once again it didn’t materialize (pro-gun advocates often sound like a broken record on how often our adversaries cry wolf but we’re forced to point out how often they are wrong).

If attacked the anti-gun movement recommends that you run away, submit, or simply call the police - all of which are bad options because a victim has to turn their back on an armed thug to run away, simply give up, or expect the police to arrive before it’s too late. In each instance the criminal is likely to succeed - and that seems to be exactly what the anti-gun movement wants, otherwise they would advocate an effective means of self-defense.

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