Author: Buckeye Firearms Association

The Annual Big Yawn: Brady Campaign State Gun Control Scorecard 2011

Posted on by Buckeye Firearms Association

Year after year, the Brady Campaign’s state gun control scorecards have become the laughing stock of the gun control debate for at least three reasons. First, they typically give good scores to states that have high crime rates and bad scores to states that have low rates. The Brady Campaign’s scores aren’t based on whether anyone gets murdered, raped, robbed, or beaten in any particular state; the group is just happy if the state has its favorite gun control laws on the books.

Second, as federal, state and local gun control laws have been eliminated or reduced in their restrictiveness, the nation’s violent crime and murder rates have fallen to 37-year and 47-year lows, respectively, through 2010, and the FBI has preliminarily reported that crime decreased again in the first half of 2011.

Third, the FBI doesn’t include gun control in its list of “factors that are known to affect the volume and type of crime occurring from place to place” and studies conducted for the National Institute of Justice, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the Library of Congress have found no evidence that gun control reduces crime here or abroad.

A gun control study that doesn’t consider whether the laws have any effect really doesn’t deserve much attention. However, with over 300 million people in the U.S., it’s remotely possible that someone out there still gives a hoot about Brady’s nonsense, so here we go.

In Ohio, selling or providing a handgun to anyone under 21 is illegal, yet headlines claim it’s easy for a child to get a gun

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by Chad D. Baus

Ohio Revised Code 2923.21 says it plainly – it is illegal in Ohio to sell or furnish a handgun to anyone under 21 years of age, and it is illegal to sell or furnish a firearm of any kind to a person under 18 years of age. It is also illegal to sell or furnish a firearm to another person if the seller knows or has reason to know that the firearm is intended to be provided to an under-age person. Violating this law is a felony of the fifth degree, punishable by up to one year in prison and up to $2500 in fines.

It is also illegal to steal a firearm. It’s illegal to take a firearm on school property. And of course it’s illegal to shoot people with it.

Yet despite all of these gun control laws, if you just landed here from Mars last week and read the headlines, you’d be led to believe the State of Ohio’s laws are so loose we might as well be selling guns in school cafeteria vending machines.

Consider the following headline from The Washington Post:

“Why it is easier for a kid to get a gun in Ohio than in many other states”

Hmmm…so we know it was in all ways illegal for the 17 year-old Chardon, OH high school spree killer to be in possession of the .22 caliber gun he used to commit his crimes, but yet the author of this article claims “the state’s gun laws don’t make it hard for young people to get their hands on a gun.”

How much harder can we make it beyond banning it entirely, as we have already done?

Mitt Romney’s anti-gun record: He hopes Ohio voters forget

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Editor’s Note 9/28/12 – Please see the following follow-up article, also by Mr. Baus – Recently discovered report forces the question: Do I owe Mitt Romney an apology?

by Chad D. Baus

Although some gun rights activists who subscribe to the Buckeye Firearms Association weekly newsletter pay attention to politics affecting gun rights day-in and day-out, and can immediately identify which candidates and officials support the Second Amendment not only in word but also in deed, and which do not, there are many other voters who don’t start to pay attention until the eleventh hour. So for those of you who are just now checking into the record of the Republican presidential candidates, let me put it simply:

Mitt Romney has a record of being anti-gun.

The problem of smuggling guns south of the border is solved!

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by Chad D. Baus

The Houston, Texas CBS affilate is reporting that on February 17, Mexico President Felipe Calderon held yet another press conference in which he blamed America’s Second Amendment for his adminstrations’s failure to control its drug cartels.

From the article:

“Dear friends of the United States, Mexico needs your help to stop this terrible violence that we’re suffering,” Calderon said in English during the unveiling ceremony.

“The best way to do this is to stop the flow of automatic weapons into Mexico,” he added.

Before [the press conference], Calderon supervised the destruction of more than 7,500 automatic rifles and handguns at a military base in Ciudad Juarez.

Calderon said more than 140,000 weapons have been seized since December 2006, when he launched a crackdown against drug traffickers. More than 47,500 people have been killed since then.

One of the cities most affected by the violence is Ciudad Juarez, where more than 9,000 have died in drug violence since 2008.

Disappointingly, Calderon apparently didn’t specifically address his comments to where it could have helped the most – namely to the Obama administration’s Department of Justice and BATFE, which has been exposed for having allowed as many as 2500 weapons to “walk” across the border and into the hands of the cartels.

As the NRA quickly pointed out, despite Obama and the media’s clais that Mexico’s firearms problems are America’s fault, it has now been shown that many of Mexico’s traced firearms originate in Central America and other countries.

And besides, if anti-gun extremists are to be believed, Calderon has single-handedly solved the problem of smuggling on the U.S.-Mexico border.

He put up a no-guns sign.

Time to arm willing teachers to stop spree killers

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by Jeff Thomas

By now everyone has heard about the Chardon High School shooting that left three students dead and two others wounded this week.

Many believed it was just a matter of time before a school shooting reached Ohio. On Monday morning it happened. This just highlights the need to arm willing teachers to serve as the last line of defense of our children.

While a lot remains unknown about Monday’s shooting, had a willing and properly trained and armed teacher been present, this could have prevented multiple children from being shot.

I don’t know anyone who would argue against the notion that children are the most precious gift in life.

Nor would any able-minded parent stop at anything to protect their children. Having the ability and means to protect children should not stop when they leave the home or enter school where they will spend more than 10,000 hours to someday be able to graduate from high school.

While some may try to argue that targeting schools for massacres is a new phenomenon that began with the Columbine High School shooting in 1999 that left 12 students and a teacher dead, and 21 others wounded, that’s far from the truth. Bath Township, Mich., still holds the unwanted title for being the deadliest mass murder at a school in U.S. history when a man, enraged over property taxes to build a new school, set off a series of bombs. Killed were 38 elementary school children, two teachers, four other adults and the bomber.

There also have been countless other school killings that did not capture national headlines. On top of that, numerous plots have been foiled.

One thing is clear from history: school massacres have happened for many years and will continue to happen. While teachers have received training in how to lock down their classrooms, and police have changed their strategy to have the initial officers on the scene go in as opposed to waiting for a SWAT team, more needs to be done.

It’s time we arm teachers who are willing to stand guard between our children and someone willing to harm them. This in no way means arming reluctant teachers, but rather arming teachers who are willing to accept the responsibility.

A teacher willing to take the appropriate training and pass a qualification test could become the one who saves numerous lives.

Shootings at Chardon, Ohio high school prompt calls for answers, but first we need to ask the right question

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The most negligent, unprofessional, obscene words anyone can ever say are: “It will never happen here.” – Lt. Col. Dave Grossman

The nationwide media are reporting that five children have been shot at Chardon High School, and that three of the victims have died. Early reports indicate that the shooter used a .22 caliber handgun in the shooting.

Our thoughts and prayers go out to the victims, their family and friends, and all the students, teachers, and community in Chardon.

In the wake of this latest school violence tragedy, many will inevitably ask “How can we stop these events from happening?” While there are preventative measures that can and should be undertaken to “harden” the target, asking how we can stop these events is ultimately akin to asking “What can we do so that people are never mad, upset, distraught, or troubled?” The simple answer is that, ultimately, we can’t. As such, we had better focus on what we can do. With that goal in mind, a more productive question is “How do we stop these events quickly so that we can limit the damage when they do happen?”

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