By Ken Hanson

The Cleveland Plain Dealer recently reported that Cleveland Mayor Frank “Blame the Guns” Jackson has announced a new crackdown on crime. With skepticism, I dove into the story, only to be astounded with the details.

Cleveland has finally launched a crime crackdown that will crackdown on criminals rather than inanimate objects! Maybe the years we have spent screaming at the ocean that is Cleveland’s anti-gun groupthink is finally breaking through.

The story goes on to detail actions and plans that will, in my humble opinion, actually crack down on crime - things like targeting criminals who use guns for stiffer sentences, aggressive community policing, enforcing existing laws and good record keeping. Blissfully absent from the program is any call for new laws or blame shifting. It appears, for once, that Cleveland is going to hitch up their belt and do some tough work rather than engage in political grandstanding.

We at Buckeye Firearms Association applaud this approach, and look forward with guarded optimism to continued reports. Our concern all along has been that Mayor Jackson is all too ready to blame mere objects rather than the people who wield them, and the recent months have provided no shortage of evidence that Jackson was more interested in declaring a war on guns rather than a war on crime.

By John R. Lott

A lot of Americans who believe in the right to own guns were very disappointed this weekend. On Friday, the Bush administration’s Justice Department entered into the fray over the District of Columbia’s 1976 handgun ban by filing a brief to the Supreme Court that effectively supports the ban. The administration pays lip service to the notion that the Second Amendment protects gun ownership as an “individual right,” but their brief leaves the term essentially meaningless.

Quotes by the two sides’ lawyers say it all. The District’s acting attorney general, Peter Nickles, happily noted that the Justice Department’s brief was a “somewhat surprising and very favorable development.” Alan Gura, the attorney who will be representing those challenging the ban before the Supreme Court, accused the Bush administration of “basically siding with the District of Columbia” and said that “This is definitely hostile to our position.” As the lead to an article in the Los Angeles Times said Sunday, “gun-control advocates never expected to get a boost from the Bush administration.”

As probably the most prominent Second Amendment law professor in the country privately confided in me, “If the Supreme Court accepts the solicitor general’s interpretation, the chances of getting the D.C. gun ban struck down are bleak.”