by Chad D. Baus

WDTN (NBC Dayton) is reporting that Ohio's Castle Doctrine law helped two Clark county brothers to be found not guilty after they were prosecuted for defending their lives when attacked by an armed robber.

From the article:

Jordan and Anthony Hottenstein were found not guilty of murder Wednesday.

Their lawyer, Richard Mayhall, successfully argued that the brothers had a right to shoot Jamez Hall during an altercation in July 2011.

"They were in their car and the evidence showed that a robbery was taking place. The judge told the jury that the defendant was acting in self defense," Mayhall said.

The Castle Doctrine says that your home or your car is your castle and you have the legal right to defend it.

In the Hottenstein case, authorities found a semi-automatic weapon with a round in the chamber on Jamez Hall at the time of his death.

"It's a tragedy, but there was evidence that the deceased had been talking with his associates that day about robbing the Hottensteins. So that, combined with the gun, made it very clear that a robbery was under way," Mayhall said.

Under Ohio's Castle Doctrine law, which took effect in 2008, if someone unlawfully enters or attempts to enter the owner's occupied home or temporary habitation, or occupied car, citizens have an initial presumption that they may act in self defense.

Chad D. Baus is the Buckeye Firearms Association Vice Chairman.

by Chad D. Baus

Gun rights blogger David Codrea has discovered that for those wanting to help create a comprehensive list of dangerous "victim zone" businesses which prevent law-abiding customers from protecting themselves by posting 'no-guns' signs that alert criminals everyone inside is defenseless, there's an app for that!

From the article:

"Whether you want to shop in gun free zones as often as possible or avoid them altogether, this app will help you shop, play, and do business with like-minded people,” the app website states, linking to download pages at Google, Amazon and Apple. Importantly, their privacy policy pledges "The Gun Free Zone App does not collect or store any personal information. Your privacy is completely protected."

This is intriguing, because such efforts have been tried before, mostly resulting in a localized patchwork with gaping holes, dependent on website administrators to validate and update based on email tips, difficult for anyone not familiar with a specific site to even know about, let alone find, and that's assuming there's enough interest to warrant keeping such pages updated.

"I think it can change the gun debate permanently," John Peden, a Utah resident and the mind behind the app told Gun Rights Examiner.

"I thought up the Gun Free Zone app as a response to the newspaper in New York putting the names and addresses of the gun owners on a map on their website," he recalled. "I decided I'm not going to print the names and addresses of non-gun owners or the editors of the paper (like some folks did) but I can fight back economically since there are over 60 million gun owners in the US. I sat down with a friend who is a programmer, explained to him the basics of what the app does now, and we got to work.

"My initial goal was economic warfare against the left and I wanted to fight," he continued. "I still do. My end goal is to push policy towards ending gun free zones and strengthening the Second Amendment. I want to use the app to educate the low-information voters on what a gun free zone actually means to them.

According to the article, users of the app mark stores and businesses as either gun free zones or not gun free zones. That information is then stored and shared with other users. Peden is already planning various upgrades.

Click here to read Codrea's entire article.

Chad D. Baus is the Buckeye Firearms Association Vice Chairman.

Editor's Note: In keeping with the desire to deny glory killers the thing they desire most - notoriety - Buckeye Firearms Association replaces their names with the term "the little coward" - an appropriate term coined by Tactical Defense Institute's John Benner.

by Chad D. Baus

Fox News and The New York Daily News are reporting that a law enforcement source has said that Connecticut police believe the Sandy Hook elementary school spree killer specifically chose the "gun free" zones because he knew there would be no resistance.

Referring to a 7' x 4' spreadsheet produced by the little coward in tiny 9-point font, documenting past mass killings and attempted murders, the official stated:

"We were told [the little coward] had around 500 people on this sheet," a law enforcement veteran told the newspaper. "Names and the number of people killed and the weapons that were used, even the precise make and model of the weapons. It had to have taken years. It sounded like a doctoral thesis, that was the quality of the research.

..."They don't believe this was just a spreadsheet. They believe it was a score sheet," the unidentified career cop told [columnist Mike] Lupica. "This was the work of a video gamer, and that it was his intent to put his own name at the very top of that list. They believe that he picked an elementary school because he felt it was a point of least resistance, where he could rack up the greatest number of kills. That's what (the Connecticut police) believe.

The unidentified officer also told Fox News that investigators also believe the little coward's affinity for violent video games influenced his determination not to be killed by responding officers.

The following article was originally published by The Lima News. Republished with permission.

by Greg Sowinski

ADA - Although his name is on a landmark Second Amendment Supreme Court ruling firmly establishing people have the right to have a gun in their home, Dick Heller said Friday the fight is far from over.

Politicians and power-hungry people are constantly trying to come up with ways to take away a person's right own a gun and the right to self protection, something every citizen should guard against, he said.

Heller spoke at Ohio Northern University to a mostly pro-Second Amendment group about his 15-year battle to overturn Washington D.C.'s gun ban outlawing a functioning and loaded gun in the home. Heller lived across from a crime-plagued apartment complex where shootings often occurred, sometimes with bullets shot into his home. He wanted a gun for self protection and took a stand against the gun ban.

The case made it to the U.S. Supreme Court which ruled in favor of Heller.

Heller said anyone who does not question politicians and government officials' attempts to ban handguns, at minimum do not understand history and at worst, are not very intelligent.

History has shown controlling leaders of countries first disarm its citizens.

by Jim Irvine

On Saturday, March 16th, a group of 400 teachers, administrators and school board members gathered at Villa Milano in Columbus, Ohio to listen to Lt. Col. Dave Grossman talk to them about violence. It was the most powerful event I have ever witnessed and a day which will remain in my mind for as long as I walk this earth.

These were not "gun nuts," as the media likes to call those who devote time to improving the life saving skill of marksmanship, but rather teachers, coaches, and principals who work with our kids every day, and love our kids and will sacrifice everything for them, just as those in Newtown, Connecticut did for their students.

As I greeted people, I found they were excited to learn something new, but a little guarded about what we would present to them. Some were nervous about being seen at a gun group function or concerned if they could handle the gruesome details of something as horrible as the mass murder of children.

In my opening remarks, I said that they were a special audience and they shared a sacred mission. I knew this as I read through over 1,400 applications they submitted to our Armed Teacher Training Program. But in talking with them throughout the day, I began to understand the depth of how special they are, and just how deeply they love our kids.

Col. Grossman started with a basic talk about safety. He compared how we prepare for fire in our schools to how we prepare for violence, and then asked attendees to look at the results.

The clear lesson is that we have worked hard to address the real issues of fire and have done a great job reducing risk. But our society has clung to failed ideas on violence, and introduced new ideas that have proven to fail our kids in their time of need, and thus we have not done a good job of protecting them from violence. We must change.

The National Rifle Association's Wayne LaPierre delivered a rousing speech to the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Washington D.C. on Friday, and was given several standing ovations.

LaPierre opened by noting the NRA's strong history of gun safety education and reiterated the NRA's desire to put armed protection in America's schools.

The NRA Executive CEO then fired attacks at the Department of Homeland Security's suggestion that scissors are the answer to fighting back against spree killers. He also attacked gun control extremists suggestion that "universal" background checks are anything other than a federal database to make it possible for the government to "tax them or to take them."

Speaking of the effects of sequestration, LaPierre observed that "instead of rational belt-tightening ... the first thing the government does is let criminal illegals out of jail. It's as if insanity itself has been sequestered in Washington."

LaPierre also addressed Vice President Biden's recent suggestion that an effective answer to a home invasion would be to fire two shotgun blasts into the air on the back porch.

"That's their answer?" LaPierre repeatedly observed as he addressed each proposal. "And they say we're crazy?"

LaPierre then spent the balance of his speech providing proposals on this that actually will work to cut crime and prevent the mentally ill from gaining access to firearms.

Watch the entire video here:

As reported by Breitbart.com this week, anti-gun U.S. Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.) was interviewed at a rally on February 13, and admitted to the reporter that proposed gun and magazine ban legislation (S. 150, the "Assault Weapons Ban of 2013") is "just the beginning" of a broader gun control agenda that will eventually include handguns.

According to the article, Schakowsky--who has a well-deserved "F" rating from NRA's Political Victory Fund--told the reporter, "We want everything on the table. This is a moment of opportunity. There's no question about it."

"We’re on a roll now," Schakowsky continued, "and I think we've got to take the--you know, we're gonna push as hard as we can and as far as we can."

The reporter asked, "So the assault weapons ban is just the beginning?"

To which Schakowsky replied, "Oh absolutely. I mean, I'm against handguns. We have, in Illinois, the Council Against Handgun... something. Yeah, I'm a member of that. So, absolutely."

BELLEVUE, WA - Thursday's strict party-line vote by the Senate Judiciary Committee to move anti-gun Sen. Dianne Feinstein's measure banning so-called "assault weapons" was an insult to millions of law-abiding American citizens who own such firearms and have harmed nobody, the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms said.

"Instead of banning the most popular firearm in the country," said CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb, "we need to ban politicians who assault our rights. We are appalled and disappointed that Sen. Feinstein and her cronies have advanced this measure, which demonizes firearms that are used thousands of times each year to protect lives and property from criminal attack."

Gottlieb noted that FBI crime data says that rifles of any kind are used in only a fraction of violent crimes annually, "yet Democrats on the Judiciary Committee have allowed this legislative travesty to move forward."

"Demonizing certain firearms, and by default the people who own them, has become a scapegoat strategy by politicians who have allowed a broken justice system to release violent offenders back on the street while disarming their potential victims," Gottlieb said. "By focusing their energy on disarming law-abiding citizens, politicians like Sen. Feinstein are perpetuating a myth that firearms cause crime. That's as foolish as believing that cars cause drunk driving."

Sen. Feinstein acknowledged that her legislation faces an uphill battle when it reaches the full Senate.

by Chad D. Baus

The Lima News is reporting that another training class for armed teachers is being made available as the effort to offer greater protection for school children continues to grow in the wake of the Sandy Hook massacre.

From the article:

"It is something that needs to be addressed," said instructor Mike Goff. "When Sandy Hook took place, that really lit a fire that we need to do something right away."

Insight [Firearms Training Development] will offer its first Armed Teacher Program April 20 and 21. Teachers may sign up for training now, but a Ohio Concealed Handgun License is a prerequisite.

The program, which costs $797, will provide teachers with active shooter training from the Ohio Peace Officer Training Academy. Besides learning advanced gun fighting skills, teachers and school staff will learn how to manage obstacles inside a structure such as intersecting hallways and open doorways, and how to shoot safely with others around.

EATON, Ohio—The Larry A. Hart Memorial Scholarship Committee is pleased to announce they are accepting applications for the Larry A. Hart Memorial Scholarship.

This scholarship is funded by the Ohio Wildlife Officers' Lodge 143 of the Fraternal Order of Police and Twin Valley Rod and Gun Club of Preble County.

Larry A. Hart was a thirty-year veteran of the Ohio Division of Wildlife. For most of his career, Larry served as a wildlife officer assigned to Preble County. Later, he worked as a Wildlife Officer/Field Supervisor in southwest Ohio. The legacy of integrity and commitment to Wildlife Management and Law Enforcement set by Officer Hart still serves as the gold standard today's young officers strive to attain.

To receive the $500 scholarship, applicants must be Ohio residents who have or will graduate from an accredited high school, or, any person who is or will be enrolled in an accredited college, pursuing a career in the field of law enforcement or natural resources.

Interested applicants can obtain the scholarship application by contacting the Larry A. Hart Scholarship Committee, P.O. Box 1553, Middletown, Ohio 45042, or by sending an e-mail request to randyt@reagan.com. Please provide the name, address, and phone number of the applicant (include e-mail address if using USPS). The deadline for applications and recommendations is April 25, 2013.

For Further Information Contact:
Larry A. Hart Scholarship Committee
randyt@reagan.com