May 17
Thursday
image image
OFCC Sues City of Cleveland Heights, Ohio The sign you see here is posted in Cleveland Heights Parks implying possession of a firearm is a crime. On Friday August 12th, 2011 Ohioans For Concealed Carry Filed a lawsuit against the City the City of Cleveland Heights. The litigation comes after many attempts to resolve concerns over laws that Cleveland Heights not only allowed to remain on their books, but also posted signs at their parks that continue to imply it is illegal to be armed. The City of Cleveland Heights has chosen to ignore our attempts at civil discourse. When individuals have contacted them representing themselves as residents of the City of Cleveland Heights their concerns apparently fell on deaf ears. When representatives of the organization have formally contacted the city's legal representation they've been laughed at and hung up on by the Law Director. It is this arrogance and refusal to work with Ohioans For Concealed Carry that has forced us to seek a remedy through the courts.
Our press release follows. Read the Full Story
Canton PD Event Leads to New OFCC Legislation When officer Harless of the Canton, Ohio police department came upon a vehicle stopped in the roadway most of us were focused on getting restaurant carry legislation signed into law. What took place that evening has become an international viral video, calls for the resignation of the City Council president, and criminal charges against a man who is clearly heard trying to state that he has a license. Ohioans For Concealed Carry has not just raised thousands of dollars in a legal defense fund, but we've written legislation to resolve this matter that Representative Danny Bubp has stated he's going to introduce this fall Read the Full Story

Search OhioCCW


Join OFCC Today!

Upcoming Events


2012 Party In The Park
When: August - TBD

Letter Writing Wizard Re-vamped

  • Print
Published on Wednesday, 30 November -0001 00:00
Written by Administrator
Have you ever written your state representatives? There is no question about the fact that our website has generated a significant amount of email for legislative aides to read and inform our elected officials about. However, in the past few weeks, we've heard a cry for help from overwhelmed aides in Columbus. You see, our old system used to send your letter to every single person we could find in the Senate and the House of Representatives with an email address (less than 1/3rd of the Senate has email, and we don't know how many people in the house actually read theirs) (See "Newbie Action Items") Thanks to our amazing webmaster Greg Kopp who does a very good job of fitting OFCC items into his already busy schedule, we now have re-written and re-designed the letter writing wizard OFCC provides.

By clicking on the "E-Mail YOUR law makers" link on the left side of just about any page of our website you will immediately be taken to the new letter writing wizard/tool. It'll ask you the same familiar questions, and maybe a few more. For instance, your zip code. When you enter your zip code the software determines exactly who your representatives in the House and Senate are. Then, it sends your letter to each of them and the Governor!

Now if you live in a very populated district/county you may notice the system bringing up more than one Senator or Representative. The only way to prevent this is to determine your zip+4 -- but don't worry, our website will help you do that, or you can look at almost any bill or junk mail you get. If you can't figure that out, just send your letter with the 5 digit zip code. A few extra law makers will get your letter, but just not all of them.

You'll also notice our system sends your letter to Governor Bob Taft's address. We're relatively sure his aides read the letter, process your address, and keep a running "count". Exactly what impact this has is unknown, but we have processed many letters.

The new system comes with some extra perks -- for instance you can and are encouraged to modify the subject line of the message you send. In the past every letter went out with the same static subject chosen by OFCC staff. This made it really easy for someone to highlight and delete every letter with the same subject -- they knew they came from our website. Make your subject unique and they'll be required to read your message now! (And they should -- the letters are going ONLY to your elected officials now!)

The old system would "crash" if you re-wrote the message we provide and used non-alphabetical characters. This shouldn't be an issue or a concern anymore -- the new system handles just about any character you can throw at it. However, we can not stress enough that you should use common sense when constructing your letter. Ohioans For Concealed Carry does screen letters from time to time, processes them for threatening or "nasty" language, and reserves the right to bounce and/or delete any message for any reason. Additionally, all use of the system is logged, documented, and stored in a database -- down to the exact letter you send to your elected officials. Recipients are given a tracking number and an address to contact if the system is abused.

We're working on some additions to the software. For instance, we want to "mark" all mail that we know is undeliverably. Nearly 2/3rds of all Senator email WILL bounce back to you as undeliverable or non-existant. We're aware of this, you don't need to tell us. What you do need to do is pick up the phone and call your Senator. In a short period of time we will have the system capable of informing you of if your senator does read his or her mail, and at which number you can contact them at. Until then, use the State of Ohio Website to find your representatives number after our website tells you which district you live in!

Remember: -- Writing a email is convienent, easy, and very likely to be used frequently. If you pick up the telephone and call your elected officials -- or if you print out the letter you generate on our website and mail it to them, it will have a much more significant "weight" in the tally process. The next step of our project is to automatically fax your letters to elected officials who do not accept email. Expect to see that within the next month or two!