Columbus Alive: Gun rights activists take aim at Taft

Published immediately prior to the Bexley 'Defense' Walk outside the Governor's Mansion, this story hasn't even begun to be dated.

November 27, 2003
Columbus Alive

OK, so Republican leaders are on top of preemptively striking down same-sex marriage and promoting an anti-abortion agenda (separation of church and state be damned). But on other issues that are important to conservative Ohioans, they’re failing miserably.

The most obvious is taxes, on which “Tax Hike Taft” has proven to be the most liberal governor in Ohio history, and the other is guns. Taft has yet to approve concealed-carry legislation in Ohio, and has threatened to veto bills that don’t meet his specific qualifications.

Activists have since devised a clever and attention-grabbing tactic, with which they’ll target the governor’s mansion in Bexley at 2 p.m. on Sunday, November 30. If they can’t carry concealed firearms in Ohio, they will carry revealed ones. In these so-called “defense walks,” the group Ohioans For Concealed Carry marches while wearing handguns in clearly visible holsters.

Which, by the way, is perfectly legal in Ohio. The point is to show how absurd state gun laws are.

Click on the "Read More..." link below for more.

“What’s going to change about putting a coat over that firearm? Why is that suddenly unsafe?” Chad Baus, spokesperson for OFCC, asked rhetorically. “The truth of the matter is it’s more safe because it’s concealed, because someone with an intent to get a hold of it would never know it was there, and citizens, unlike police officers, are not trained in retention techniques… Police officers aren’t encouraged to carry openly when they’re off duty, they’re encouraged to carry concealed when they’re off duty because it’s the safest method for carrying a firearm for self-defense.”

Should the governor feel a little threatened by a large group of activists—many of whom are currently pretty ticked off at him—walking around his neighborhood brandishing firearms?

Not physically, Baus says.

“The threat to Taft is more to his party and to his legacy and to future efforts such as Issue One, because conservatives in Ohio are starting to sound off about the fact that they’re sick and tired of Bob Taft’s liberal politics,” he said.

Greg Valentino, OFCC’s central Ohio coordinator, who organized the upcoming event as well a recent defense walk at the Statehouse that drew over 100 supporters, agrees.

It’s getting to the point where many conservative don’t necessarily see Republicans as “the lesser of two evils,” Valentino said. “Why would I make sure I vote for a Republican to be the next governor of Ohio when some of my biggest core issues—lowering taxes and getting concealed carry—aren’t going to happen under a Republican governor? The Republicans no longer own the gun issues.”

The governor may be a lost cause when it comes to supporting a concealed-carry law in Ohio, Baus says, but that doesn’t mean the legislature should tune out OFCC’s Taft-targeted activism. After all, the Statehouse could override his veto, party solidarity be damned.

“I find that extremely ironic that it’s Republican Party solidarity that is keeping people from defending themselves, because that’s not what they say they’re about,” Baus said.