by Chad D. Baus Columbus police say a man who died on August 10 was attempting to rob someone when he was fatally shot by the intended victim. From WCMH, reported that…
To the Editor: Plain Dealer overstates dangers of kids and guns
The following letter to the editor of the Cleveland Plain Dealer was submitted by Buckeye Firearms Foundation Board of Directors member Gerard Valentino in response to an editorial entitled “Kids and guns…
State Medical Board votes to allow its investigators to carry guns
by Chad D. Baus The Columbus Dispatch reported recently that the State Medical Board, responsible for licensing and disciplining physicians, has voted to allow its investigators can carry guns. From the article:…
Attorney General announces Second Quarter 2011 CHL statistics; Ohio Concealed Carry numbers hits new record
by Jim Irvine
Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine (R) has released the concealed handgun license (CHL) statistics for the second quarter of 2011. At the end of June, we set another all-time record of approximately 243,121 Ohio residents licensed to carry concealed firearms. (See chart)
There were 14,594 new CHLs, 19 temporary emergency licenses (TELs) issued and 749 licenses renewed in the April through June period this year.
There was a significant drop in the renewal numbers because we have transitioned from the licenses that were valid for a period of four years to the ones that are valid for five years. There were actually no regular licenses that expired during the second quarter. All 749 renewals were licenses that had expired in previous quarters, but had not yet been renewed. The bottom line is that total renewal rates increased, rather than decreased. Raw renewal numbers will remain very low for the next few quarters because no regular licenses will expire until March of 2012. TELs are only valid for 90 days and cannot be renewed.
Only 79 licenses were revoked. Less than one-half of one percent of all CHL’s have ever been revoked for any reason, including death or moving out of state.
Concealed carry works.
UK Mayhem Leaves Disarmed Citizens at the Mercy of Criminals
By now you have seen the headlines and images of destruction: the rioting, looting, violent assaults, and arson. London and other UK cities look like war zones and their citizens are afraid to venture out, because the danger is very real. It’s a view of the temporary breakdown of society. It is gut check time; a time when the concept of being able to defend oneself gives way to the stark reality that few viable options to do so exist.
Gun laws in the UK are among the most restrictive in the world. In March of 1996, a deranged man walked into a school in Dunblane, Scotland and killed 16 children and one teacher. In the aftermath of this tragedy, British politicians sought to reduce violent crime by enacting a ban on all handguns. Handgun owners were given a February 1998 deadline to turn in their firearms–and they did. The UK was supposed to become a much safer place–but dramatic increases in crime following the gun ban proved it didn’t.
A July 3, 2009, Daily Mail article reported that “Britain’s violent crime record is worse than any other country in the European Union, it has been revealed. Official crime figures show the U.K. also has a worse rate for all types of violence than the U.S. and even South Africa.”
And the current bedlam has proved it further. Restrictive laws concerning long-guns, combined with the outright ban on handguns, leave the country’s citizens largely defenseless (it was reported this week that sales of one type of aluminum baseball bats on Amazon UK rose 6,541 percent). In many places, it was reported that police were unable to stop the mayhem. As a result, panicked, defenseless law-abiding citizens were forced to flee their homes, while others watched as their businesses were destroyed. Compare this to the 1992 Los Angeles riots, when armed citizens were able to protect their lives, families, and property from looters and violent mobs.
Dayton gun show arrests are proof that pro-gun rights advocates are right
by Gerard Valentino
Recently, at a gun show in Dayton, Ohio several people were arrested for violating the law by buying a gun when they knew it was illegal for them to do so. As usual, the media tried to hang the arrests on gun show promoters and stirred up discussion about the mythical gun show loophole.
From the article:
“The gun show loophole is a deadly serious problem — and this undercover operation exposes just how pervasive and serious it is,” New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg said following the 2009 investigation funded by the city.
A fact that anti-gun zealots will never admit, however, is that gun sales are regulated the same regardless of location. So, whether someone buys or sells a gun at a gun show, or whether a grandfather gives a family heirloom shotgun to his grandson, the laws are the same. Mayor Bloomberg and people of his misguided ilk also refuse to admit that unbiased studies show criminals rarely buy guns at a gun show.
The pro-gun side of the gun debate chafes at the mere mention of the so-called gun show loophole because it is driven by the anti-gun movement’s desire to destroy gun rights, to vilify gun shows, people that attend gun shows and the gun culture. Destroying gun shows and how they benefit the gun culture is the true goal of anti-gun leaders, not keeping criminals from buying guns.
Op-Ed: Bloomberg Will Not Rest In His War On Firearm Freedoms
A look at how this billionaire bankrolls his vision of a disarmed citizenry by Raquel Okyay Philanthropist and New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg is the kind of anti-freedom politician every gun…
Report: Firearm background checks up 17.7% in 2011 – Record number tied to politics, economy
by Chad D. Baus
As regular readers of BuckeyeFirearms.org are aware, National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) firearms sales checks have seen a steady increase for more than a year. The Ohio media are now catching on to this trend as well, thanks to a Dayton Daily News article published on August 17.
From the article:
The record number of firearm background checks performed by the FBI this year signals that gun sales are on the rise in Ohio, an increase that gun-rights advocates and local store owners attribute largely to political and economic fears.
Meanwhile, even though the number of concealed handgun licenses issued to Miami Valley residents fell in 2010, firearm groups said 2009 was a record year and the popularity of carrying continues to trend upward.
During the first seven months of this year, the FBI conducted 247,847 background checks for firearm purchases at gun sellers in the state, up 17.7 percent from the same period in 2010, 9.2 percent from 2009 and 42.4 percent from 2008, according to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System.
Background checks are one of the best measures of gun sales because federally licensed gun-sellers are required to perform them during a sale. Not all checks lead to purchases, but most do.
Andrew M. Molchan, director of the Professional Gun Retailers Association, told the DDN that gun sales have steadily increased nationwide in the last six years following the U.S. Supreme Court overturning gun bans in major cities, such as Chicago and Washington, D.C., on the grounds they violated the Second Amendment.
Headline: Camp Perry is on target with national shooters
The News-Herald of Willoughby, OH has published an excellent article on the World Series of shooting sports that occurs here in the Buckeye State each and every summer.
From the article:
The light popping sound was coming from slow-moving lead projectiles released from their brass prisons and sent sailing down steel tubes.
Looking at the long row of nearly 200 rimfire shooters indicated each person on this relay was engrossed in the paper targets set 50 meters away.
To heck with a pesky reporter snooping around, trying to find out why a person is so willing to dress up in tight-fitting leather jackets that overlay skin-gripping synthetic undergarments designed to “wick away” moisture.
All in 90-degree heat.
Yet young, old, civilian, military, men, women and kids all flock to the shores of Lake Erie for five weeks each summer.
There they participate in a lengthy series of shooting events that range from pistols to small-bore rifles to high-power rifles of all kinds, shapes and sizes.
Targets are arranged from up close and personal all the way out to 1,000 yards, seemingly too far for those of us with aged eyes that have difficulty seeing the sunset, much less cap out over the shores of Lake Erie’s Western Basin.
These are the National Rifle and Pistol Matches, a vital component of the National Rifle Association, an organization the general public all-too-often mistakes as being concerned only about Second Amendment rights.
Cooperating with the NRA is the quasi-governmental Civilian Marksmanship Program that is designed to foster small-arms training by civilians, partially through an aggressive competitive format that culminates with the National Matches.
While the right to keep and bear arms is a vital mission component of the NRA, so is the opportunity to help improve the public’s shooting skills and promote the gun sports among like-minded individuals.
Nowhere does this all come together any better than at Camp Perry, located west of Port Clinton. The camp is a slice of the Ohio National Guard.
The article goes on to document that the shooters come from all over the United States and several foreign countries (and yet most gun owners from Ohio haven’t made it!), and provides quotes from John Harper of Phoenix, a chaperone for a group of 12- to 20-year-old shooters.