By Chad D. Baus

The silence is deafening.

On April 12, 2007, a spokesperson for Governor Ted Strickland told the Elyria Chronicle-Telegram that the governor "opposes allowing anyone — including journalists — to review who has a [concealed handgun license]."

Given their history of vocal, vehement advocacy on the issue of media access to the private, personal information of concealed handgun license-holders, one would think the Ohio Newspaper Association (ONA) and its members would have begun shreeking at the very utterance of these words from the governor's office.

Instead, they have said....nothing.

There have been no coordinated editorial campaigns condemning Strickland for even suggesting the notion, and no news headlines screaming about the imminent violation of some phantom "right to know".

What a difference being a Democrat makes when it comes to treatment by the Ohio media on a gun issue.

To illustrate the point, lets compare the current silence on the new governor's commendable position to how the media handled a Republican's proposal to close the media access loophole in March 2006.

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By Jim Irvine

It has been one month since HB347 went into effect, eliminating the need to carry your holstered firearm in "plain sight" in a motor
vehicle. That simple change still brings a smile to my face every time I get in a car.

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Editor's NOTE: This story was updated throughout the day Monday, April 16, 2007 as new information became available.

It is a story that is all too familiar, and it's happening again.

The Associated Press is reporting that a man opened fire in a 'gun free' dorm and classroom at Virginia Tech on Monday, killing at least 32 people and wounding many others.

Details are still being learned, but it seems clear than none of the students were able to defend themselves by use of a firearm, and many died while depending on campus security and police to find and stop the killer.

From the story:

The shootings spread panic and confusion on campus. Witnesses reporting students jumping out the windows of a classroom building to escape the gunfire. SWAT team members with helmets, flak jackets and assault rifles swarmed over the campus. Students and faculty members carried out some of the wounded themselves, without waiting for ambulances to arrive. A student used his cell-phone camera to record the sound of shots echoing through the stone classroom building.

The massacre took place at opposite sides of the 2,600-acre campus, beginning at about 7:15 a.m. at West Ambler Johnston, a coed dormitory that houses 895 people, and continuing at least two hours later at Norris Hall, an engineering building about a half-mile away, authorities said.