By Chad D. Baus

Jockeying for position for the 2008 Presidential primary race began earlier than ever this election cycle, and for gun owners in both parties, the signs have been bleak.

However, pro-gun voters who will vote in the 2008 Republican primary got a lift in their spirits last month when actor and former Senator Fred Thompson announced that he was considering a Presidential run. But what of the Democrat primary? With the establishment media filled with talk of gun-ban extremist Senator Hillary Clinton (NY) and the equally scary Senator Barack Hussein Obama (IL), Democrats who vote freedom first may be unaware that there is a pro-gun candidate who could use their support.

Click 'Read More' for the entire commentary.

By Jacob Sullum
Townhall.com

Despite his promise to appoint "strict constructionists" to the Supreme Court if he is elected president, Rudy Giuliani recently said he has no interest in overturning Roe v. Wade, the 1973 decision that discovered a previously unnoticed constitutional right to abortion. Offending social conservatives (and strict constructionists) even further, he told CNN this constitutional right may require government financing of abortions for women who otherwise cannot afford them.

Since Giuliani also claims to support "the right to bear arms" (a right that is actually mentioned in the Constitution), he should, by similar logic, advocate the use of taxpayer money to buy guns for poor people. But the idea would never occur to him, because his sudden interest in the Second Amendment, like his sudden interest in strict constructionism, is merely an affectation intended to allay the concerns of Republican primary voters.

In his stump speeches, Giuliani, whose campaign Web site calls him "a strong supporter of the Second Amendment," praises the federal appeals court decision that last month overturned the District of Columbia's ban on keeping guns in the home for self-defense. Yet that ban is only slightly stricter than the gun laws that Giuliani still brags about vigorously enforcing when he was mayor of New York.

Giuliani tries to reconcile his support for strict gun control in New York with his newfound commitment to the Second Amendment by saying that different jurisdictions should be able to choose the gun laws that are appropriate for them. As his Web site puts it, "Rudy understands that what works in New York doesn't necessarily work in Mississippi or Montana."

But the right to keep and bear arms has no meaning if politicians are free to impose any kind of gun control they think "works."

Click here to read the entire op-ed at Townhall.com.

Click 'Read More' for details on Giuliani's 1990's talks with President Bill Clinton on establishing uniform national gun control laws.

By Chad D. Baus

Ohio Attorney General Marc Dann (D) announced today that at least some Ohioans applying for concealed handgun licenses (CHLs) since 2004 have not been properly screened to determine if they have been found mentally incompetent by a judge, or involuntarily committed to a mental institution. Such screens are required by state law.

Mr. Dann, who initiated a check of the state’s database in the wake of the Virginia Tech massacre, said he learned late last week that the database containing the names of mentally incompetent individuals was not being reviewed during the background check process. He immediately directed the staff of the Bureau of Criminal Identification and Investigation to conduct the required screening.

That review revealed that two people in Lucas County (out of the nearly 87,000 Ohio CHLs that have been issued across the state) had been issued licenses when they should not have been - one a Temporary Emergency License (TEL), and one a standard Concealed Handgun License. Neither license was active at the time of Dann's discovery, and Dann, who supports Ohio's concealed carry law, said neither had committed gun crimes or were considered a danger to others.

Click 'Read More' for the entire story.

Readers passionate about shooting

By Regina Brett
April 27, 2007

Off. The. Scale.

The reaction to the shooting of 15-year-old Arthur Buford has everyone up in arms.

More than 400 readers told me Damon Wells had every right to shoot and kill Buford. Only 20 disagreed.

Wells was not sitting on his porch when he was attacked, as I wrote Wednesday. He was returning from the store and walking across his yard when two teens approached. At the porch, one pulled a gun and said, "Don't move or I'll pop you."

Wells, who has a concealed-carry permit, fired his Smith & Wesson at "Ace Boogie" Buford, who was still on probation for aggravated robbery.

Black and white, male and female, Clevelanders and suburbanites are tired of thugs - thugs of any race - terrorizing neighborhoods.

Both Wells and Buford are black. Both black and white readers asked why the black ministers and politicians hadn't shown support for Wells. Someone smashed all the front windows of Wells' home.

A 71-year-old widow called me to offer money to help fix them.

Eleanor R. from Cleveland Heights wanted to be the first to help Mr. Wells. A widow on a fixed income, she offered $25.

Bless her heart.

Click here to read Brett's entire op-ed.

Click 'Read More' for a few letters to the editor that the Plain Dealer chose to publish.

By Alan Gura

"Fear and disinformation have long been the hallmarks of the movement to end private gun ownership. Not surprisingly, the D.C. Circuit's decision in Parker v. District of Columbia, confirming that people have an individual right to keep and bear arms, has elicited outrageous predictions of doom from gun prohibitionists. The Violence Policy Center’s Josh Sugarmann neatly summed up the hysteria in warning that Parker 'may mark the beginning of a long, national nightmare from which we will never recover as a nation.'

Allow me to offer a more optimistic view: Parker not only marks the beginning of the end of gun prohibition, it might also reverse the erosion of our individual rights by re-enforcing the primacy of judicial review and preventing sophists from defining rights out of existence.

Click 'Read More' for the entire story.

by John Longenecker

I want to elaborate a few principles in connection with how we will meet and manage future School Shootings, and the emphasis is to meet them.

Let's talk a little bit now about the Constitution, about Rights and about Authority, three distinct concepts in this country.

Let us imagine our nation is a charitable Foundation. It's purpose is to educate, or bring up the next generation and to pass down values. It is a charity because of its blessings shared, and it has other purposes of education in Liberty as a magnet to the world.

It is endowed: it is endowed by its Creator with inalienable rights in order that it carry out its mission. With me so far?

In America, we have only a small bundle of rights. They are granted us by our Creator, the ultimate founder of the nation, and memorialized in our Constitution throughout, and primarily within the first ten amendments, the bill of Rights. We have many, many limits on government, and this combination of the two is enough to live in freedom.

In Rights, the government may not grant human rights - it can only protect them - nor may it legally take them away, except under very special circumstances. It would go against the purpose of its Founder, the one who provided the original endowment.

But Government can make law, and in accord with public policy. When it comes to self-defense laws (with some exception where one has a duty to retreat) many laws are constituent-friendly and prevail over many so-called gun laws which run counter to this legal philosophy.

Click 'Read More' for the entire commentary.

Buckeye Firearm Association's web site is seeing an amazing growth in visitors and new articles are being posted several times a week.

This week's "Friday Flashback" is....

Feet On The Ground

By Jim Irvine

Of the many praises of Buckeye Firearms Association and our volunteers this year, the one we are most proud of is, "While other groups sent money and made in-kind donations, yours was the only endorsement that brought volunteers to my campaign."

The significance of that compliment can not be understated. Volunteers are how a political race is won.

Jim Tressel might be a great football coach, but his talents would be wasted if there was not a team of players who were devoted to the work it takes to execute his game plan. Winning a game or a National Championship is a team effort. Many people must work together for a common cause, and do it better than every other team set on the same goal.

Click on 'Read More' for the entire commentary.

Now that Toledo Blade editorial board member Dan Simpson has written his "The disarming of America" tirade, we guess you'd call it ("rant" probably being too mild, and more accurate words being inappropriate to print), we can finally understand some of the anti-gun editorials that the Blade has spewed over the past 3-4 years.

Thanks to NBC's sick attempt to lift their dismal ratings, we've all viewed and heard the video tapes of the Virginia Tech mental case and his little tantrums against his schoolmates. After reading Mr. Simpson's words, we're at a loss to decide which author is more psychotically disassociated from the world the rest of us live in.

We're leaning towards Mr. Simpson.

Commentary by Buckeye Firearms Association Northwest Ohio Chair Chad Baus in crimson type.

Wednesday, April 25, 2007
The disarming of America

By Dan Simpson

Last week's tragedy at Virginia Tech in which a mentally disturbed person gunned down 32 of America's finest - intelligent young people with futures ahead of them - once again puts the phenomenon of an armed society into focus for Americans.

Actually, despite how hard you anti-gun media elitists have tried, the focus has actually been more correctly focused on the murderer, who could just as easily have used a pipe bomb as a gun.

In the wake of having been notified by Buckeye Firearms Association that three news stories in the past week have contained significant errors, the Cleveland Plain Dealer has thus far refused to answer to the Indictment of Cleveland Plain Dealer - Violation of Journalist Code of Ethics.

A href="http://www.cleveland.com/corrections/plaindealer/index.ssf?/base/other/1177057847243560.xml&coll=2" target="_blank">correction has only been issued for one out of the four errors previously detailed on this website. Further, the online edition of that story (as well as the three others containing errors) remains incorrect, apparently in perpetuity.

Meanwhile, the Plain Dealer has published another story on Ohio gun laws, and made yet another error!

Click 'Read More' for details.

By Chris Chumita

David Blaine is a master illusionist. When he performs his amazing street magic, he makes you believe in the unbelievable. He spins his illusions so well that you don't see that they are really just cheap parlor tricks.

In a way, the gun-grabbers are also illusionists. Unfortunately, their illusions often lead to the loss of innocent life, instead of astonishing you. Their illusion is a simple one. They trick people into believing that strict gun control laws will make everyone safer. In essence, they create an illusion of safety.

A good example of this are the so-called "gun free zones." Examples of such are schools, post offices, and highway rest stops. The gun-grabbers manage to trick people into believing that simply posting a sign or passing a law that bans guns in certain places will prevent violent crime. They spin their illusion so well that some people actually believe that a "No Guns" sign will prevent a homicidal maniac from turning a "gun free zone" into a war zone.

Unfortunately, their illusion of safety is exposed at the cost of innocent life. That is why gun rights/self-defense advocates refer to "gun free zones" as "victim zones" or "criminal protection zones." These zones do NOT offer any real safety to the innocent, becasue criminals do NOT obey the law or gun bans. The only person who benefits from the "safety" provided by these zones is the criminal. They ensure that the criminal can rape, rob, and murder, without worrying about a victim fighting back with a firearm.