By Ed Killoran

Earlier this month I heard about a “discussion” of Second Amendment gun rights to be held March 20 at St. John’s Church in downtown Columbus. From the church’s website:

“What is the Role of Guns in America Today?

Join us for this provocative discussion as we explore the issue of gun control versus ownership rights.” and “Come separate fact from fiction and rhetoric from reality.”

Presenting the “discussion” was Dr. Saul Cornell, Professor of History at the Ohio State University and director of the so-called Second Amendment Research Center. He has delivered invited lectures at Oxford University, Columbia University, Duke, NYU Law School, UCLA Law School, Stanford Law School, and Vanderbilt University Law School. He has also written a couple of books, the most current being, A Well Regulated Militia: The Founding Fathers and the Origins of Gun Control in America (For an excellent review of this book from Second Amendment scholar and attorney David Hardy, click here to download in .pdf format.)

I arranged my evening schedule to attend, suspicious of how there could be discussion with only one speaker, but hoping to hear news of the recent D.C. court ruling or other “discussion” of Second Amendment issues. However, Cornell’s opening remarks previewed the tone of the remainder of the evening, that is, a LECTURE on the need for gun control!

By John R. Lott Jr.

It is a remarkable con job.

Over the last six months, the Police Executive Research Forum, the chief executives of primarily large police departments, has gotten the media concerned that the country is threatened by a sudden upsurge in violent crime and murder. A New York Times story on March 9th started the current round of hysteria with the headline that “Violent Crime in Cities Show Sharp Surge.”

An earlier front page story in January in USA Today caused a similar ruckus.

One wonders whether the reporters ever thought of getting a critical comment for their story.

The Police Executive Research Forum report sounded the alarm: “The FBI statistics reflect the largest single year percent increase in violent crime in 14 years.”

It becomes a lot less scary when one realizes that the violent crime rate fell for 13 straight years, a total drop of 39 percent, before increasing in 2005 by less than 1 percent.

Click here to read the entire commentary at FOXNews.com.

The Toledo Blade is reporting that the Ohio Supreme Court has refused to reconsider its prior decision not to hear a challenge to the city of Toledo’s authority to prohibit the carrying of concealed handguns in its parks.

From the story:

The court refused a second time by a vote of 5-2 [Justice Evelyn Lundberg Stratton and Justice Judith Ann Lanzinger dissenting] to hear an appeal sought by Bruce Beatty after he was convicted of carrying a holstered and loaded 45-caliber handgun into West Toledo’s Ottawa Park in open defiance of the city ordinance.

The larger issue may have been rendered moot earlier this month when a new state law went into effect to prohibit local governments from enforcing gun laws considered stricter than federal or state law. Ohio’s concealed carry law does not include public parks among the locations where guns are prohibited.

The Supreme Court, however, may eventually have to deal with the question of whether the new law unconstitutionally restricts local governments’ home-rule authority to enact their own gun laws. The city of Cleveland recently filed a challenge to the law in Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court.

While the impact of the Supreme Court's decision not to act was diminished by passage of HB347's statewide preemption provision, the fact is that there are still local laws on the books that are more restrictive than state law.

Click on 'Read More' for more.