Fear the guy with 3000 lb weapon, not the concealed one

By Chad D. Baus

The Columbus Dispatch recently published a graphic enumerating data involving arrests of aggressive drivers in 2006 (click on the thumbnail to view the full-sized graphic).

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According to the Ohio State Highway Patrol's figures as displayed by the Dispatch, 106,145 drivers were arrested for aggressive driving in 2006. (It is not clear whether this figure includes all arrests, or just arrests by the OSHP, meaning that this number could in fact be even higher!).

In 2005, the last year for which statistics are available, there were 8,802,906 licensed drivers and identification card holders (meaning that the actual number of drivers is somewhat less than 8.8 million). If that number held constant in 2006, that would mean that approximately 1.2% of all Ohio drivers were arrested for aggressive driving last year.

Click on 'Read More' for the entire commentary.

Want another scare? According to the Ohio BMV, more than 7.15% of Ohio drivers licenses were suspended in 2005! Compare that to Ohio concealed handgun licenses, where, in 2005, less than one half of one percent of licenses were suspended for any reason!

Judging by these numbers, the nanny state media is worrying about the wrong group of Ohio license-holders with when they rail against concealed carry. Obviously they be more worried about a license-holder behind the wheel of a 3000 lb. weapon than about a license-holder carrying a firearm for self-defense. But then we already knew that, didn't we?