By Ken Hanson Esq.

Edited by Jim Irvine and Dean Rieck

I worry about my children.

I am only 37 years old, yet I am already worrying about what kind of adults my kids’ generation will be. My generation, by and large, did not fight any wars, as there were no real conflicts when I was growing up. My first recollection of conflict was that some scraggly looking people took a group of American’s hostage for over a year and we did nothing about it. All I remember beyond that is some footage from a small island in the Caribbean that hosted a medical school. I vaguely remember the Falklands and Panama. Next thing I knew the Berlin wall came down and Saddam committed the Mother of All Mistakes. The Great Cold War we were raised to be ready for ended without a whimper.

Against this backdrop, I am raising children that are not allowed to play dodge ball in gym class, since that would be teaching them violence and aggression. My kids are forced to go to bullying workshops, and there is “zero tolerance” for them handling bullies in the time-honored fashion. Schools routinely agonize over whether it is okay to give grades to a student when you consider the emotional scarring it might cause to call someone a failure. I cannot understand my daughter’s report cards because all of the grades are like “meets expectations, exceeds expectations, progressing….” Um, so is she doing okay in school? Is this an A, a B…?

The Athens (OH) News reported earlier this week that, as a part of Firearms Awareness Week, the Ohio University Second Amendment Club hosted University of North Carolina Wilmington criminology professor Mike Adams as a guest speaker. Adams is a regular columnist for conservative news and opinion Web site Townhall.com.

From the story:

A criminology professor from North Carolina last Thursday told an Ohio University audience how a personal tragedy jolted his political assumptions and persuaded him to abandon his long-held anti-gun position.

"The thing that began to drive me away from that position was actually a very tragic event," Mike Adams said of his former liberal, gun-control beliefs.

...His speech, entitled "The Failures of Gun Control," differed from Adams' usual lectures. It was the first time that he was asked to give a speech specifically on the Second Amendment. Last year at OU he spoke on freedom of speech and the First Amendment.

But rather than criticizing gun-control supporters as the title of the speech suggested, Adams gave an account of how his political views have dramatically changed over the years - all rooted in his perspective on guns.

The entire story, which recounts Adams' conversion to a pro-gun point of viewpoint, is well worth the read, and can be accessed from the Athens News website.

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....

And so it Begins.....Again

By Gerard Valentino

Karen Smith is one of America's heroes for gun rights, and I bet nobody remembers her, or what she did. Gun owners and gun rights advocates aren't going to get off that easy. I'm not going to disclose her story in this article as a way of making each and every reader more cognizant of the information available through a little research on the Internet, or at the local library. In this case, simply watching the news and having a good memory will easily give it away.

Karen Smith's place in the lexicon of the gun rights world was thrust upon her, she had no choice in that matter. Yet, when it came down to making the right decision, at the right time, she proved what gun rights advocates have claimed for years -- that law abiding citizens will do the right thing.

Even though it was her first experience with a gun, Karen Smith is the reason groups like The National Rifle Association and Buckeye Firearms Associations exist. It is also the reason that politicians who defend the Second Amendment should be rewarded for showing how deeply they care about honoring freedom and the safety of all Americans. They do so despite the flak from false-dogooders willing to blame a gun for all of society's ill, and open hostility from the establishment media.

Click on 'Read More' for the entire commentary.

By Chad D. Baus

NewsChannel5 (ABC Cleveland) is reporting that police officers will volunteer their time to protect an Ohio CHL-holder who shot and killed an armed 15-year-old who was attempting to rob him.

Since the April 21 shooting, the CHL-holder's home has been vandalized by friends of the dead robber, who already had a criminal record. Both Cleveland Plain Dealer columnist Regina Brett and NewsChannel5 have reported that the family has been staying at undisclosed locations and living in fear. The ABC affiliate now says repairs are under way to the home.

Within 48 hours of Plain Dealer columnist Regina Brett calling for "No sympathy for thug culture", Cleveland NAACP President spoke out in defense of the CHL-holder's right to bear arms for self-defense, and against the thug culture, saying "the black community failed 15-year-old Arthur Buford"

The NewsChannel5 story indicates that the Cleveland NAACP and Cleveland police union are now working together to, as Regina Brett recently put it, "stand up to thug culture" by organizing volunteers to protect the CHL-holder's home.