By Gerard Valentino

The scourge of violent crime is tearing apart our communities and often strikes in our poorest neighborhoods. Often, it is the children that bear the brunt of the violence and often live in terror because of their neighborhoods are under the control of violent gangs.

Each day countless Ohioans in such neighborhoods are victimized due to their lack of access to the best self-defense tool ever devised – the firearm. But, it isn't just gun laws that are responsible for the success criminals have enjoyed over the last 30 years.

Those among us willing to pass laws that empower thugs and murders have also used a vile smear campaign that vilified guns and scared many people aware from the best possible choice to keep them safe. False statistics and shrill cries of children being killed in epidemic numbers by gun accidents left people confused about the benefit of gun ownership. The net effect was that innocent citizens were left at the whim of armed criminals without the means to fight back.

By Jim Shepherd

Senators Jon Tester and John McCain have introduced bipartisan legislation that would repeal most gun laws in the District of Columbia. The Second Amendment Enforcement Act, would overrule the District's deliberately complicated registration requirements and would prevent enactment of regulations that prohibit the carrying of firearms in public places. It also puts the bridle on Police Chief Cathy Lanier's discretionary power to deny licenses to law-abiding citizens.

Companion legislation was introduced in the House by Representatives Travis Childers (D-MS) and Mark Souder (R-IN).

Today, Washington Mayor Adrian Fenty, Chief Lanier and the District Council continue to thumb their collective noses at the Supreme Court's Heller decision from 2008. If the District had abided by that ruling, this new legislation would have been unnecessary. Of course, expecting the District's government to do anything responsibly might be setting the bar a bit too-high.

"The city's resistance to change has been both obstructive and childish, " says Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms Chairman Alan Gottlieb, "it's time for grown-ups in Congress to stop this nonsense."

Other than his generous representation of Congress, I couldn't agree more.