Study: “Tough Targets – When Criminals Face Armed Resistance from Citizens”

Posted on by Buckeye Firearms Association

The Cato Institute is offering a special publication by Clayton Cramer and David Burnett, which uses an extensive collection of news reports from over an eight-year period to survey the circumstances and outcomes of defensive gun uses in America.

Federal and state lawmakers often oppose repealing or amending laws governing the ownership or carrying of guns. That opposition is often based on assumptions that the average citizen is incapable of successfully employing a gun in self-defense or that possession of a gun in public will tempt people to violence in contentious situations.

Those assumptions, illustrated in this report, are false. Such cases are an exceedingly small minority of gun uses by otherwise law-abiding citizens and a great number of tragedies – murders, rapes, assaults, robberies – have been thwarted by self-defense gun uses. The vast majority of gun owners are ethical and competent – and thousands of crimes are prevented each year by ordinary citizens with guns.

End of an Error: Canadian gun registry to be dismantled

Posted on by Buckeye Firearms Association

by Jim Shepherd

It was a government boondoggle from the very beginning. It cost multiples of the budgeted funding, ran years behind in development, caused nothing but problems for law-abiding citizens and, as it has come to an inauspicious end, has failed to save even one life.

Sounds like business-as-usual in Washington, doesn’t it?

Fortunately, this boondoggle wasn’t “made in America” it was created in Canada.

The Conservative government of Prime Minister Stephen Harper has had Canada’s Long-Gun Registry program in its sights for some time. Now, following votes in both houses of government, it seems the Royal Canadian Mounted Police will be doing some serious deletion work in their gigantic database of Canadian long gun owners.

Canadian Public Safety Minister Vic Toews pretty much wrote the obituary for the registry when he told reporters: “It does nothing to help put an end to gun crimes, nor has it saved one Canadian life. This is simply an attempt to make people feel safe, rather than doing something substantive in criminal law.”

Sounds like we need to borrow Minister Towes and send him to New York, Chicago, Washington, DC, San Francisco, and a few other “enlightened” cities where eyewash legislation followed by costly litigation and unfavorable rulings have become the rule rather than the exception.

Toews also characterized the death of the database as a turning point in Canadian life. “Unfortunately, Liberals and some New Democrats have attempted to turn a whole way of life into some kind of criminal conduct. That’s really what the long-gun registry is about…attempting to criminalize a way of life.”

Preach, brother Toews!

Fishing and Hunting Protection Bill Introduced in the U.S. Senate

Posted on by Buckeye Firearms Association

(Columbus, OH) – Protection of fishing, hunting, and shooting on national forest and public lands has taken a step forward with the Senate introduction of the Recreational Fishing and Hunting Heritage and Opportunities Act. Introduced by Senators Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) and Joe Manchin (D-West Virginia), the measure is backed by the U.S. Sportsmen’s Alliance, American Sportfishing Association, National Rifle Association, Safari Club International, Congressional Sportsmen’s Foundation, and others in the angling, hunting and wildlife conservation community.

The bill will protect fishing, hunting, trapping, recreational shooting and wildlife management practices on more than 400 million acres of public land across America managed by the U.S. Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management. The measure mandates that these public lands are open until closed for angling, hunting and shooting while enabling the agencies to make specific closures or restrictions determined to be necessary and supported by sound facts and evidence. The bill is patterned after the 1997 National Wildlife Refuge Improvement Act which made fishing and hunting “priority public uses” on federal wildlife refuge system lands and has helped protect fishing and hunting there from anti-fishing/anti-hunting zealots.

BOOK REVIEW: Encyclopedia of Gun Control & Gun Rights, 2nd edition

Posted on by Buckeye Firearms Association

by Chad D. Baus

Recently, Grey House Publishing, based in Amenia, NY, sent me a copy of the Second Edition of Encyclopedia of Gun Control & Gun Rights. According to an accompanying press release, the first edition was published by Greenwood Press in 1999.

Reviewing an encyclopedia may seem a bit of a tall order, especially since, I will freely admit, I have not read the 550 page volume cover to cover. But encyclopedias aren’t meant to be read page for page, but rather are to be used as a reference guide. I will also admit that, in this age of the Internet, I honestly hadn’t realized encyclopedias were still being published. (Indeed, in the preface the authors credit the Internet as an “extremely valuable source of information [used] in preparing this book.”) Judging by the press release, Grey House Publishing’s primary target market for the volume is libraries.

The authors of the Second Edition of Encyclopedia of Gun Control & Gun Rights are Glenn H. Utter and Robert J. Spitzer. Despite the extensiveness of the volume, I had to go to the Internet to determine just who these men are.

Glenn H. Utter, Ph.D. is Professor and Chair of the Department of Political Science at Lamar University, Texas. Utter was the sole author of the first edition of the encyclopedia in 1999. He has also written other articles and books, including The Evolving Gun Culture In America and Religion and Politics, which features a cover photo of the late Osama bin Laden.

Robert J. Spitzer is a political science professor at the State University of New York at Cortland. His other books include Gun Control: A Documentary and Reference Guide and The Politics of Gun Control. In the Chicago-Kent Law Review’s Symposium on the Second Amendment in 2000, Spitzer argued against the notion that the Constitution recognizes an individual right to bear arms. Spitzer has also published an article at The Huffington Post in 2011 criticizing Students For Concealed Carry On Campus. (Note: SCCC isn’t deemed worthy of an entry in the encyclopedia, but does get one mention in a lengthy entry about the Virginia Tech shooting. That entry concludes that a better way to have contained the violence at VT than concealed carry on campus would have been a better adherence to federal “requirements that educational institutions…publish a yearly report of campus security policies and crime data, and provide prompt warnings to the campus community about crime threads.”)

Spitzer appears the encyclopedia he co-wrote, in an entry on Gary Kleck – the University of Florida professor of criminology and criminal justice whose research in the 1990’s famously concluded that firearms are used defensively as many as 2.5 million times each year. Spitzer is listed in the encyclopedia entry as a critic of Kleck’s, and citations to his book The Politics of Gun Control are listed in the Kleck entry as well as in a later entry on Suicide.

So now that we have established a better idea of who the authors are, let us consider what type of information they deem worthy of being included in the encyclopedia.

Deer hunting with rifles using pistol cartridges – bring on the debate

Posted on by Buckeye Firearms Association

by Larry S. Moore

The Ohio Department of Natural Resources’ (ODNR) Division of Wildlife is holding open house meetings in all five districts to discuss season dates and bag limits of game species, which will include Ohio’s most popular game animal, the white-tailed deer. The meetings will be Saturday, March 3, from 12 – 3 p.m. and are open to the public.

For many people the open houses are an opportunity to talk with the Division of Wildlife personnel. Sadly the attendance statistics reflect that most sportsmen stay home. Is this because Ohio’s sportsmen think the Division is doing exactly what they desire? Or is it that Ohio’s sportsmen are just too complacent to drive a few miles to the nearest open house? Judging by the letters to the Ohio Outdoor News the concerns are well articulated and debated. Writing a letter to the editor is easy in our electronic world. Driving an hour or more for a short meeting is much more difficult. But it is making the appearance and submitting your concern directly to the Division personnel that gets things moving.

A couple of dedicated hunters have been leading the efforts to bring rifles into the toolkit for Ohio’s deer hunters. Buckeye Firearms Association Minutemen Dan Allen and Aaron Kirkingburg have spent hours researching material. They have attended previous open house events, met with Division of Wildlife personnel several times in 2011 and are presenting their case to sportsmen organizations. The upcoming open houses on March 3 could be pivotal in their efforts.

Boehner allegations fast & furious, but also false

Posted on by Buckeye Firearms Association

by Sean Maloney

In recent days allegations have been made in a number of Internet publications that Speaker of the House John Boehner was somehow sabotaging the Fast and Furious probe. Any number of reasons were given for Speaker Boehner’s opposition to the Oversight Committee investigation, all of which are false.

When I first came across these allegations, I was confident they were not true. I have hunted with John Boehner; had in-depth discussions with John concerning our Second Amendment rights; studied his politics; and have a clear understanding of how he views our God-given right to keep and bear arms. With all this in mind, I called his office to inform him of what had been published about him, in relation to the House Oversight Committee’s Fast and Furious hearings. I also asked for some information to share that would help my fellow Second Amendment activists understand his position on Fast and Furious.

From the Congressional Record, and from statements made by Speaker Boehner himself, it is obvious that none of the allegations suggesting that John Boehner has “cut a deal” with Attorney General Eric Holder are true, as stated by House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform Chairman Darrell Issa, R-California.

As Chairman Issa confirms, Speaker Boehner supports an aggressive investigation into President Obama’s Justice Department’s Fast and Furious operation. I have substantiated these statements on Speaker.gov, Facebook, Twitter, and elsewhere, and I invite you all to do the same.

Fishing, Hunting and Trapping Licenses will be available March 1

Posted on by Buckeye Firearms Association

COLUMBUS, OH – Ohio’s 2012-13 fishing, hunting and trapping licenses and permits will be on sale starting March 1, according to the Ohio Department of Natural Resources (ODNR), Division of Wildlife.

“Ohio’s new license sales system performed very well in its inaugural year,” said Scott Zody, chief of the Division of Wildlife. “Customer identification (ID) numbers should be used whenever possible to help streamline the license purchasing process. People can find the number at the top of last year’s license.”

Licenses purchased online or at retail outlets will be printed on paper that can be folded down to credit card size, but will not be waterproof and must be protected. Licenses and permits will be printed along with additional information relevant to the license or permit purchased.

Each license buyer must have a Social Security Number (SSN) recorded in the system. People who purchased licenses last year can now use their customer ID number and will not have to supply their SSN again.

SSNs are required to purchase a recreational license, regardless of age, for the purpose of child support collection enforcement under Federal Statute 42. As a recreational license provider, the Division of Wildlife is obligated to comply with this law and cannot issue a license or permit without the SSN of the purchaser. The division will see that a proper security system is in place to protect SSNs and any databases that contain them.

The license will be valid March 1 through Feb. 28, 2013. The 2011-12 licenses will expire on Feb. 29. Licenses and permits can be purchased online at wildohio.com and at hundreds of agent outlets throughout the state. A complete list of participating license sales agents can be found at wildohio.com.

ODNR ensures a balance between wise use and protection of our natural resources for the benefit of all. Visit the ODNR website at www.ohiodnr.com.

Diminishing the Constitution

Posted on by Buckeye Firearms Association

It is certainly no surprise for gun owners to see the New York Times run a story belittling the United States Constitution. After all, the Times has worked for decades to devalue our founding document.

“[I]ts influence is waning,” opines the Times. It is “terse and old, and it guarantees relatively few rights.” The paper faults the Constitution for being difficult to amend and reflective of the times in which it was written. While the Times does not go so far as to claim the U.S. Constitution has been bad for America, it does lament that it is of “little current use to, say, a new African nation.”

But it was a much bigger shock when the Times reported in the same story that Ruth Bader Ginsburg, a sitting associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court and grande dame of the Court’s liberal voting bloc, shares the Times‘ dim view of the Constitution. Ginsburg said “I would not look to the United States Constitution if I were drafting a constitution in the year 2012.” Her personal recommendations would instead include “the South African Constitution, the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and the European Convention on Human Rights.”

© 2002-2024 Buckeye Firearms Association