By Tim Inwood

I have had enough experience with the anti-gun /self-defense bias in the press to begin to wonder if there is something wrong with the water used at major journalism schools in this country - some toxic agent that it wipes out all logical function of the brain.

As I read “Use Of Deadly Force: Store Owners Fighting Back” by Brendan Keefe, an article done for WCPO Channel 9 (Cincinnati's ABC affiliate), this notion was reinforced. The article complains that store owners were actually taking up arms to fight the criminals who robbed their shops. It went on to bemoan that Hamilton County Prosecutor Joe Deters was letting this happen by not prosecuting the store owners, even when they chased down the criminal off property after the robbery.

By Larry S. Moore

The 70th Ohio House District (representing Xenia, Beavercreek, Fairborn and Bath Township) has a crowded field of entrants in the Republican primary. I’ve met all the candidates. They are all good men with a variety of backgrounds, small business owners, professionals and family men.

So what sets Jarrod Martin apart? What made the difference that would cause me to volunteer to help him even though I reside in the neighboring 84th Ohio House District?

By Chad D. Baus

Regular readers of this website will recall that the last time a member of the media from Cincinnati went to a gun show, the results were atrocious.

A November 2007 hatchet-job by NBC Cincinnati's Eric Flack contained ridiculous references to everything from 90-round SKS rifles to the Columbine school massacre, all in an effort to aid his gun ban lobby friends in their efforts to ban all private sales of firearms at gun shows.

Recently, another member of the Cincinnati media attended a gun show. Only this time, the coverage was far different.

By Karl Spaulding

On April 16, 2007, 32 people were murdered by a fellow student at Virginia Tech. On Feb. 14, there was another college shooting with five people killed. In the week previous to that, several more shootings at colleges and high schools made the news.

Anyone who reads the Virginia Tech Review Panel report (available on the Internet through the Virginia governor's Web site) will find an extensive examination of various preventive measures, from better counseling services to campus-wide warning systems. Many schools, including Ohio State, have done a lot of work revamping their responses to campus emergencies. Most of this is good.

Because mass shooting events are still rare, the authorities correctly deduced that any improvements in campus security that would help deal with shootings should also be useful for other emergencies. They recognized there is no one answer to a particular emergency, including violence emergencies. Response plans should be multilayered and adaptable to circumstances.

Last week, Buckeye Firearms Association volunteer Bob Harsanje and Dave Graham, Chief of the Ohio Department of Natural Resources’ (ODNR) Division of Wildlife, offered proponent testimony before the Ohio House Finance & Appropriations Committee on House Bill 473.

Proposed by State Rep. Peter Ujvagi (D - Toledo), at the urging of and guidance from Harsanje and fellow hunter, HB473 would, among other things, create mobility impaired access lanes on various public hunting lands of the Ohio Division of Wildlife. The bill also would allow mobility impaired, licensed individuals to hunt from such lanes with a special permit via electric-powered all-purpose vehicles or in a stationary road vehicle.

"Mobility impaired hunters deserve the same rights to enjoy their pastime as any other Ohioans," Ujvagi notes. "This plan will help clear some of the obstacles in their way."

After nearly five years of effort by NRA-ILA, the U.S. Department of the Interior has finally responded to the many requests for a change in its policy on carrying and transporting firearms in national parks and wildlife refuges. In a letter hand-delivered today to the U.S. Senators who wrote him asking for this policy change, Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne has directed Lyle Laverty, Assistant Secretary for Fish, Game and Parks, to “develop and propose for public comment by April 30, Federal regulations that will update firearms policies on these lands to reflect existing Federal laws (such as those prohibiting weapons in Federal buildings) and the laws by which the host States govern transporting and carrying of firearms on their analogous public lands.”

“This announcement represents an important and overdue change to now-outdated federal regulations imposed 25 years ago. Once this new federal regulation is proposed, published for public comment and then finalized, law-abiding citizens will have their right to self-defense restored and be able to legally carry and transport firearms through national parks and wildlife refuges for a variety of lawful purposes -- just like in national forests and BLM lands,” said NRA-ILA Executive Director Chris W. Cox.

"I’ve been a hunter all my life" and other phony appeals

By Brian S. Stewart

In the pantheon of cringe-worthy attempts to fabricate 2nd amendment bona fides, presidential candidates of the last several years have provided more than their fair share. From the infamous "Small Varmints"-Gate of the early Mitt Romney campaign to Hillary Clinton’s desperate revelation that she too used to be quite the hunter, I find it fascinating that a love of firearms, however phony, has become part of the electoral checklist for every viable presidential candidate. Unfortunately, too often these displays are just shallow rhetoric by candidates going through the motions.

February 21, 2008
Columbus Dispatch

The Sunday article "Gun-permit renewals near" contained a statement that must be addressed. Dispatch Staff Reporter Randy Ludlow rightly quoted Chief Deputy Steve Martin of the Franklin County Sheriff's Office that there had been no incidents involving concealed-carry license holders during the first four years under the law.

But then Ludlow added, "On the other hand, neither does Martin recall any incidents locally in which a concealed-carry permit holder prevented a crime or captured a criminal."

Concealed-carry license holders -- they are not permits, by the way -- are not law-enforcement officers, nor are we vigilantes. Per the handbook published by the Ohio attorney general, "The law specifically discourages citizens from taking matters into their own hands and acting as law-enforcement agents. This is true even if the person thinks he is performing a good deed by protecting someone or helping law enforcement."

We are law-abiding, responsible Ohioans who rely on ourselves in order to protect ourselves and our loved ones. We are nothing more than that, and any reference otherwise is unfair.

Michael Bott
Westerville

By Chad D. Baus

My story "Perfect storm for gun owners? McCain, DeWine and Giuliani join forces", was published at BuckeyeFirearms.org only a little more than 24 hours after the outcome of Super Tuesday was known.

In that commentary, I wrote about how anti-gun former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani's endorsement of Senator John McCain, and anti-gun former Senator Mike DeWine's work as McCain's Ohio campaign chair (as a prelude to a possible Attorney General nomination) are clear signs that the perfect storm that we've been warning gun owners about for the past year is nearly overhead.

Hoping to get a pulse on what Ohio gun owners who vote in the Republican primary are planning to do given the dwindling options, I asked for feedback, and promised a follow-up story. The results of my little survey are overwhelmingly clear:

The Republican party has lost the trust of the Ohio gun owner.

Four months after Peter Hamm, spokesperson for The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, verbally attacked the college-based, grassroots organization Students for Concealed Carry on Campus, telling a Fox News reporter, "You don't like the fact that you can't have a gun on your college campus? Drop out of school," he is stepping up the rhetoric. Not content with encouraging college students to forgo their educations, rather than fight for a cause in which they believe, Mr. Hamm has resorted to baseless conspiracy theories and slander.

In a February 19, 2008 interview with Anna Hipsley of Australia's ABC News radio, Mr. Hamm made the following statement about SCCC:

"We know very clearly that they were organized and they are funded by the gun industry, by the companies that are selling the guns. This is not some spontaneous, grassroots organization."

Scott Lewis, media coordinator for Students for Concealed Carry on Campus, responded, "In a way I kind of envy the Brady Campaign. It must be so much easier to run an advocacy group when you don't feel obligated to substantiate anything you say."