Columbus' NBC4i.com is reporting that two off-duty and unarmed officers were "going out for an evening" when they came across an armed robery in progress. As Ohio's defenseless citizens are all too familiar with after having suffered a 150-year ban on bearing arms for self-defense, the cops quickly became targets themselves when they tried to assist.

From the story:

Police were searching for a pair of armed robbers who they said fired on two unarmed Columbus police officers late Wednesday.

Investigators released surveillance photos of the robbery that took place shortly before 10 p.m. at AmeriStop, located at 442 Walford St. in northeast Columbus.

Police said that two armed men entered the store and took some cash from the business. During the robbery, police said one of the men fired a shot into the store's ceiling.

According to police, two off-duty officers said they heard gunshots near the store. When the officers arrived, they saw a man running out of the business. A second man then came out, stopped and fired multiple shots at the officers, NBC 4's Elizabeth Scarborough reported.

One of the bullets pierced their windshield and lodged in the dashboard, coming within inches of the officers, Scarborough reported.

No one was hurt and investigators said the officers were lucky they were not struck by the gunfire, Scarborough reported.

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This is the second time in three weeks that a defenseless off-duty officer in Ohio was caught unprepared in the vicinity of a shooting.

On April 19, Butler Co. Sheriff’s Deputy Brandon Roberts was shot in the abdomen with a 12-gauge slug, fired by a fleeing bank robber. Nearby, Camden police chief Mike Croucher, who was off-duty and had been following the criminals for miles, found himself unable to do anything but phone for help, because he had chosen not to carry his sidearm while off-duty.

In a news report that followed, Chief Croucher said his "only regret was not having his gun with him at the time".

The Dayton Daily News is reporting that police have put out a bulletin to all area police agencies concerning a reported carjacking and potential kidnapping that occurred following a purse-snatching outside a "no-guns" victim zone in Dayton.

From the story:

Police fear a driver could have been carjacked Wednesday night by an armed purse snatcher.

The incident began shortly after 9:40 p.m. Police were dispatched to Dot's Market, 2274 Patterson Road, on a report that a woman's purse was snatched as she walked out of the store.

Two clerks tried to pursue the suspect, but relented when he told them he had a gun. The white male suspect then ran around the store toward Rembrandt Boulevard and entered a maroon or purple Chevy Lumina with temporary tag number J442102. Witnesses say they saw the purse snatcher put an object to the driver's head and tell him to drive.

According to the "no-guns" sign posted on the door of Dot's, owner Rob Bernhard is still misleading customers by telling them his discriminatory signs are required because he has a Class D liquor license. Of course, the question of whether groceries had to ban concealed handgun license-holders was settled long ago, and OFCC can report that Mr. Bernhard has been so informed.

Just two months after a collective of Ohio's liberal editorial boards screamed "we're melting!" at Representative Bill Seitz's proposal to close the Media Access Loophole and protect CHL-holders' private information, another editorial board collective appears to have been coordinated with regard to Ohioans For Concealed Carry, Inc. v City of Clyde.

Last week, OFCC announced that it had filed motions in a suit that seeks the beginning of the end for local gun ordinances. In and of itself, the news media would likely have chosen to ignore these new developments, and planned on simply covering the final outcome (which they no doubt hope favors the City of Clyde). But the news became impossible to ignore when, two days later, Attorney General Jim Petro announced that his office had also filed motions in the case, and that he is arguing strongly against the stance the City of Clyde has taken with regard to enforcing firearms bans on public property.

This week, the Columbus Dispatch, Fremont News Messenger, Port Clinton News Herald, and Sandusky Register have all published editorials whining about these developments.

Ken Hanson, Litigation Chair in Ohioans For Concealed Carry's Office of General Counsel, has submitted a version of the following reply to each of the newspapers in question:

To the Editor:

By L. Kenneth Hanson

The May 11, 2005 Dispatch editorial “Safety is a local issue” at least got the title right. Safety is a local issue. For me, safety is an issue that is very localized around my family, wherever we happen to be. Unfortunately, after the title of the editorial, The Dispatch was sidetracked into agenda driven emotionalism, and the balance of the editorial was as irrational as The Dispatch would have their readers believe gun owners are.

Ohioans for Concealed Carry, Inc. brought the lawsuit against the City of Clyde after months of professional, calm, reasoned discussions with law directors across the state. The overwhelming majority of these elected officials recognized the law for what it was, and advised their legislative bodies that a local municipality could not ban what the state had licensed. Decades of case law support this conclusion.

Strangely absent from the editorial and any of the discussions statewide is an example of why licensed concealed carry in a park is a danger. When I taped a debate with Senator Miller over his bill to allow parks to ban license holders, I pointed out to him that his introductory remarks in announcing the bill recited how many criminal acts occur in our parks. I asked him to cite a single example of a license holder committing those crimes in the park. His response was that he shouldn’t have to wait for that to happen, he was being proactive.

If that approach works, why don’t we just skip to the bottom line and post signs banning all crime in parks? In fact, we should just go ahead and make all crime in parks illegal by local ordinance. That will surely cure the crime problem in parks, right?

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