Anti-Gun Columbus Dispatch Rears Ugly Head - Shows True Colors Again

At last. After months of hard work by Ohio's Legislators and many Committee hearings on HB347, the concealed carry reform bill sponsored by Representative Jim Aslanides (R-94) of Coschocton, the Columbus Dispatch has entered the arena with it's usual liberal, anti-gun blathering by printing one of the most uninformed editorials to date on this subject.

The rabid anti-gun bias is prevalent from the start of this editorial. Couple that with the obvious lack of understanding of the issues at hand and the fact that they have deemed themselves the self-appointed authority as well and we once again have a mainstream media outlet misleading their readers with half truths and idiocy.

The Editorial "Aiming to please whom?" can be found in it's entirety here.

Following is a preview of just one of the many responses that we will be eagerly waiting for the Dispatch to print.

By Ken Hanson

Re: Aiming to Please Whom? February 21, 2006

With regard to attacking HB 347, perhaps the Columbus Dispatch should read the bills, or at least have a good understanding of what is in them, before editorializing against them.

HB347 would not, as your editorial states, prohibit news papers from learning about when someone involved in a crime has a concealed carry license. For instance, in the two examples given in your editorial, this information was in the police reports about the incident, which is already a public record. The only thing HB 347 would do is clamp down on the abuses committed by newspapers across the state who have anointed themselves the keepers of the public records. These newspapers have been performing the "vital public service" of publishing lists of
license holder's names, dates of birth and county of residence.

These are the same news organizations that went to the Ohio Supreme Court over their "right" to obtain the home addresses of all public employees.

Similarly, the Dispatch does not appear to understand home rule under the Ohio Constitution when the editorial wails about state laws walking all over a municipal government's home rule rights. Again, perhaps the editors should read the Constitution before opining that a law tramples on it. Police powers are granted to municipalities ONLY to the extent they do not conflict with state laws. There is no absolute right for a municipality to pass police power laws. We would not let a municipality pass a law saying a red light means go, why should we let them pass laws
to trap unwary gun owners with local ordinances that criminalize what is legal every other place?

Where Municipalities DO have an absolute home rule right is in deciding how local government operations will be conducted. Since nothing is more fundamental to this power than determining which government records are public or private, how they will be released, and what will be charged for this service, I assume I can count the Dispatch as being on record supporting a local government's right to decide how they are going to deal with public records requests from news organizations? Or is the Dispatch going to ignore the plain wording of that provision of
the Constitution and take a logically inconsistent position by stating that the local governments should have the one power but not the other.

In his personal time, attorney and author Ken Hanson volunteers as Buckeye Firearms Association's Legislative Chair