Caught: Gun Ban Lobby Attempts Rhetorical Revisionism

In an op-ed published in the Cleveland Plain Dealer, Columbus Dispatch and Toledo Blade, Ohio Coalition Against Gun Violence director Toby Hoover joins the chorus of opponents to concealed carry reform who are now backing away from dire predictions of what would happen in Ohio if concealed carry reform became law.

Hoover now says she and the rest of the gun ban lobby "never painted lurid pictures of bloody shootouts in the streets."

But as recently as last week, Hoover was quoted in several Gannett News Service papers as saying, "If we have more use of guns, then we're going to have more people who are injured and die."

In 2001, she told the Cincinnati Post "A person who has a gun sees danger. We will have more shootings, more accidents."

After hearing Hoover testify against concealed carry in 2001, one Columbus Dispatch reporter summarized her testimony like this: "Gun-control advocates said it would put too many guns in malls, parks and workplaces, causing fights and accidental shootings."

The record will show that Hoover has quite a long history of dire predictions, and she is attempting to distance herself from those claims because she now knows she is about to lose what's left of her credibility, when these predictions do not come to pass.

Not only is she attempting to revise her own rhetoric, Hoover claims that she has never heard others on her side making these predictions.

Yet just last year she sat next to Handgun Control Inc.'s John Shanks at the Statehouse, where Shanks told Senators "we believe immediate access and availability enhances chances for firearms violence. When you introduce firearms, a situation that would not normally result in deadly violence can be tragic."

Hoover is also quite familiar with Lori O’Neill of the Million Mom March in Cleveland. Last year, O’Neill wrote of pro-gun groups that "it's all guns all the time, regardless of how many children, law enforcement officers and ordinary people die each year because of easy accessibility to firearms.” O’Neill began backing away from her rhetoric before the law was even passed.

Hoover has also worked closely with a publicly-elected doom-and-gloomer: State Senator Eric Fingerhut. Perhaps because he is campaigning for U.S. Senator Voinovich's job, Fingerhut now claims "I never felt we were going to have some bloodbath on the street."

Yet on January 8, 2004, Fingerhut told the Cleveland Plain Dealer that "It's going to lead to tragedies and accidents of all kinds." And in 2001, he told the Cincinnati Post that "the presence of a gun is actually likely to escalate violence."

Hoover claims the reason why concealed carry laws are never repealed is because self-defense rights advocates have more money then gun control groups. Ohioans For Concealed Carry has no billionaire supporters as gun controllers do (Andrew McKelvey and George Soros, for instance). Instead, we depend on individual donations from the multitudes. So if Hoover is correct that we STILL have more money, the reason is quite apparent - the majority disagree with her, and are willing to give their hard-earned dollar to fight off her authoritarian attacks at freedom.

Hoover observes that since most Ohioans will not obtain licenses, the fact that some will is “not acceptable” to the rest. But a 2004 Zogby poll found that 79% of Americans support Right-to-Carry laws, although nowhere near that number actually obtain licenses.

Hoover closes her piece with this advice: "Ask any gun-violence survivors if the gun changed their life. Ask them about the life lost because a gun was accessible."

Yes, let's ask the family of 27 year-old Tony Gordon, who became advocates for concealed carry reform last summer after their son was murdered in a Dayton carjacking. Tony tried to follow the advice of the Highway Patrol to "just drive away" from his attacker, and was shot for it. Or let's ask my father-in-law, a Tennessee concealed-carry license holder who was able to save his own life during a carjacking, without even having to fire a shot at his homicidal attacker.

It seems the only thing Hoover and her friends have to fear these days is their past rhetoric, as yet another state is now safely and successfully licensing citizens to carry concealed handguns for their defense and security.

Following is the complete text outlining Hoover's rhetorical revisionism.

Slipping farther and farther away from reality...

Forum column misrepresented gun climate in U.S.

April 16 & 17, 2004
Cleveland Plain Dealer, Columbus Dispatch, Toledo Blade

The Ohio Coalition Against Gun Violence would like to respond to Brain Patrick’s biased Forum column on April 7, claiming the "concealedcarry gun law will disprove both sides."

The coalition has never painted lurid pictures of bloody shootouts in the streets, innocent bystanders struck down by stray bullets and vigilante-style justice. I think he has been watching too many movies because I have never heard gun-violenceprevention advocates recite such nonsense. I have heard the proponents repeatedly claim we say such things.

Anyone can skew numbers to support their arguments, and economist and lobbyist John Lott is a good example. His methodology has been challenged all over the country. Actual numbers of people dying and being injured by gunfire, however, cannot be altered.

According the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Ohio reported 316 deaths from firearm homicides in 2001 (the latest figures available), and another 671 Ohioans committed suicide with a firearm. Most of the victims and perpetrators knew one another. More guns will not reduce either number. Arming 100,000 fearful people, as has been projected, is neither warranted nor acceptable to the more than 7 million unarmed adult Ohioans.

Patrick also said permits are seldom revoked. Most states don’t make that figure public information, but Texas has had well over 5,000 revocations, and Utah now checks crimes committed with the CCW license holders database daily.

Next, Patrick made the claim that "licensees are a good deal more lawabiding than the norm, and they are well-socialized personalities who can rationally plan and conduct their own lives and actions."

Some must be like that, but if you could read my e-mails from the license wannabees, you would find it difficult to describe them with any of those terms.

Interesting that Patrick asks why no state has repealed these laws. He might consider the answer is because the violence-prevention movement cannot compete with the gun lobby’s money. If concealed carry were truly the will of the people, the legislators would be brave enough to put it on the ballot.

Ohio’s concealed-carry law allows for that same gun lobby to be teaching the training courses with no outside oversight of the instructors. It does not provide for an adequate database, therefore background checks cannot be completed as directed. Also, it will not allow public information to evaluate the effects of this law on firearm death and injury, and it protects the identity of the license holders.

This new privilege for the gun owner also prohibits communities from enforcing their own laws on carrying weapons, as if cities have no right or understanding of their own crime or safety problems. The law requires no reason from the gun owner for a license to carry other than a supposed fear of crime. The sheriff must issue the permit, unless he is willing to answer in court why he denied the license.

In giving more rights to this special group of Ohioans, we must now post signs or confront gun carriers to prohibit them from our businesses and property.

The most damaging result of this law is the contribution that concealed carry makes to the culture of fear, with no improvement to the safety and health of the community. Gunviolence-prevention advocates encourage Ohioans to exercise their right to be weapon-free. "Weapon Free" signs are available at www.ohioceasefire.org.

Ask any gun-violence survivors if the gun changed their life. Ask them about the life lost because a gun was accessible.

Carrying hidden, loaded guns in public is a distasteful infringement on our culture to appease a few fearful Ohioans. The rest of us do not have accept their behavior.

TOBY HOOVER
Executive director
Ohio Coalition Against Gun Violence
Toledo