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Written by Jeff Garvas
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Monday, 23 April 2007 16:47 |
Damon Wells, a concealed handgun licensee from the Cleveland area, will not be charged with a crime after using his firearm to defend his life this past weekend. Prosecutors in Cleveland have decided that the 25 year old was justified and acted in self-defense.
Despite the Plain Dealer calling this the first time a criminal has died at the hands of a concealed handgun license holder in Ohio we believe it is the third case. The first took place in Warren, Ohio when a pizza shop owner was ambushed in an abandoned home. The second took place in Hamilton County when a license holder shot and killed a young teen who was stealing or carjacking his car.
In this most recent case two teenagers in the Kinsman area approached Wells Saturday on his porch and drew a gun. Well responded with deadly force, sending one of the teens running and the other stumbling to his untimely demise.
The deceased attempting to hold Wells up was just fifteen years old. Mayor Frank Jackson's gun control did nothing to disarm Arthur Buford, and nothing to protect Damon Wells.
Ironically, opponents of concealed carry such as Toby Hoover are looking past the fact that fifteen year old Buford pointed a loaded gun at someone and threatened their life and trying to begrudge the fact that concealed carry saved a life in this case. From cleveland.com:
Toby Hoover, of the Ohio Coalition Against Gun Violence, said she had not heard of any other fatal shooting involving a concealed-carry permit holder,
"This is one of the few where they actually used it to stop a crime," Hoover said.
But, she said, "there's still a dead kid here."
To follow Toby's logic you'd have to come to the conclusion that a fifteen year old "kid" surviving a robbery he started is somehow superior to the idea that a law abiding 25 year old contributor to society survived with his life.
A life where he will have to deal with the fact that, in a split second decision, he was forced to choose between the life of a fifteen year old thug and that of his own.
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Written by Jeff Garvas
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Tuesday, 24 April 2007 00:44 |
Since the adoption of concealed carry in Ohio Cleveland's Regional Transit Authority, and Toledo's equivalent, have put signs on their buses and claimed that carrying a firearm on a bus was prohibited. Prior to March 14th when carrying a firearm in a motor vehicle required it to be "in plain sight" made it somewhat hard to "get away" with the act.
Cities have no authority to prohibit concealed carry by the general public in a motor vehicle. They can prohibit their employees, however, through a non-criminal employer rule that risks termination.
Time and time again we're asked "Why do you want to carry a gun There?" and the answer is because you simply never know when you might need a firearm to defend yourself. Last Friday, in the once "safe" suburb of Garfield Heights, an eighteen and twenty year old involved in some kind of altercation left an RTA bus near the Turney Rd. fire station, or the intersection of Turney & McCracken Rd.
According to published reports the eighteen year old shot and killed the twenty year old in a nearby parking lot with a firearm he clearly had been carrying on the RTA bus the whole time. He fled the scene only to be apprehended later.
Despite the fact that neither man should have had a handgun under Ohio law due to their age this case highlights the fact that no matter how safe you think an area might be the potential for deadly violence exists everywhere.
Those of us who choose to be prepared to defend our lives are not paranoid, but merely taking responsibility for our own self-defense.
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Written by Mike Kinsey
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Monday, 16 April 2007 07:26 |
Today is truly a sad day due to the tragedy that took place earlier as the quiet campus of Virginia Tech reverberated with gunfire. The shootings began about 7:15 AM and continued for several hours before the gunman, Seung-Hui Cho, took his own life. The death toll stands at thirty-two and there are a large number of students and faculty who were wounded. It is reported that the gunman went from classroom to classroom shooting faculty and students. According to accounts, the gunman carried both a 9mm and .22 caliber handgun. He appears to have also carried several magazines of ammunition.
One student reported that the gunman entered their classroom and shot their teacher before firing at students who remained in their seats. The witness said that he and others in the room dropped to the floor and overturned their desks to protect themselves from the gunfire.
This stands as the worst shooting incident on a university campus in U.S. history. The worst shooting prior to this incident was in 1966 when Charles Whitman went to the clock tower on the University of Texas and began a 90 minute shooting spree that left sixteen people dead before he was killed by a law enforcement officer.
While the nation mourns this immense loss of innocent life, we must realize that two ways exist for looking at these terrible events. The manner that we choose will dictate how to best move forward. I wonder which will prevail:
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Written by Jeff Garvas
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Thursday, 19 April 2007 17:09 |
According to published news reports Butler County Ohio Sheriff Richard Jones is calling on the Ohio Legislature to mandate armed personnel in every Ohio school. We're not talking about college campuses, we're talking about every imaginable school including grade schools, private schools, and parochial schools.
Kudos to Sheriff Jones for going out on a limb and making such a controversial demand as an elected Sheriff. Forward thinking members of school boards have been shamed into resignation for making such a controversial statement, let alone a call to pass it into law!
In a state where School Funding is a constitutional hot potato that has been thrown back and forth between the Ohio Supreme Court and the Ohio Legislature the chances of funding such a mandate are slim to none.
The most cost effective and easily implemented solution is to pass legislation, possibly in the form of an emergency, that revokes every restriction on law abiding citizens licensed to carry a firearm from entering these facilities. Today adults twenty-one years and older including older students, faculty, and staff at major universities are prohibited from taking a firearm past the parking lot. Those who live on campus can't have firearms in most cases.
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Written by Mike Kinsey
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Monday, 23 April 2007 07:03 |
A Tennessee House Panel recently voted to send legislation to the floor of the Legislature that would allow licensed citizens to carry a concealed handgun on property owned by state, county, and city governments. This will include government owned buildings. Similar to Ohio, Tennessee law arbitrarily bans self-defense in those areas.
The proposed legislation was penned by Republican Representative Frank Nicely. Its original intent was to allow legal concealed carry on State Park property. In a refreshing move, Representative Rob Briley (D-Nashville) was quoted as saying, "We've been piecemealing this thing year after year. Why don't we just let you take your gun anywhere you want to?" Rep. Briley then proposed an amendment broadening the initial draft to include all state, county, and city property... including buildings.
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