Columbus Dispatch finally finds ''CCW legislation'' it likes, and it's D.O.A.
May 24, 2004
Columbus Dispatch
Editorial: Promote peace in parks
Cities need right to stop carrying of guns onto playgrounds, ball fields
The state’s wrongheaded new law that allows Ohioans to carry concealed handguns is especially onerous in its failure to put public parks and playgrounds on the list of places where packing heat is prohibited. Parks bring people together for many different reasons, and allowing any number of these folks to bring their weapons along to ballgames, picnics and hikes isn’t good public policy.
State lawmakers should approve legislation introduced this month by Sen. Ray Miller, D-Columbus, and Rep. Tyrone Yates, D-Cincinnati, that would allow cities to ban the carrying of guns in their public outdoor areas, including parks, swimming pools and sports fields.
Currently, the law allows cities to exclude firearms only from public buildings, such as recreation centers and town halls. The law prohibits the carrying of weapons into schools and day-care centers, and private businesses may bar firearms from their property.
For the same reasons that guns are banned from schools and day-care centers, they should not be taken into public outdoor areas, which are frequented by children. People of all ages converge at city parks, and few of them wish to be put into the position of wondering whether the man working himself into a lather over a soccer ref’s call or the quarreling couple at the picnic table might be armed and dangerous.
Click on the "Read More..." link below for more.
Statistics consistently show that the vast majority of people killed by guns nationally are shot by someone they know or are suicides or accidents. Very few gun deaths are linked to felony crimes: The figure is less than 8 percent, according to the Violence Policy Center, a gun-control organization that tracks shootings.
The gun lobby sold the law to the legislature on the basis of a faulty idea that the public’s greatest fear should be of getting shot by a criminal, so average law-abiding citizens ought to arm themselves for protection just about anywhere they go. A key, hidden goal has been the boosting of flagging gun sales for the firearms industry.
Yes, concealed carry allows only law-abiding people to carry guns. But because so many shootings are committed by accident or in the heat of passion by people who otherwise are law-abiding, cities ought to be able to ban concealed carry in parks and public playgrounds.
Commentary:
The Dispatch is quoting from the rabidly anti-gun Violence Policy Center (proving, by the way, just what kind of anti-gun bias we are dealing with at this newspaper - as if we needed further proof), and of all things they are now arguing that guns aren't often used in felony crimes, so there is no need for self-protection in parks!
This is quite a swing from their usual venomous rhetoric about how dangerous guns are, and how gun control is worth it "if we can save the life of just one child".
The Dispatch says it believes cities should be allowed to stop carrying of guns onto playgrounds and ball fields. But they don't want to discuss how Ohio's 150 year-old ban on concealed carry in parks (and everywhere else) has failed the some 6,000 people who are victimized in Ohio's state parks every year (the number would be far higher if the statistics included municipal parks).
What this editorial does NOT reveal is the real issue behind the Yates/ Miller bills - the repeal of Section 9 of House Bill 12, and the abolishment of any chance at self-defense in many parts of the state:
- "H.B. 496 Section 4. That existing Section 9 of Am. Sub. H.B. 12 of the 125th General Assembly is hereby repealed."
Section 9, the preemption clause, was considered a key provision by the overwhelming majority of lawmakers who voted for House Bill 12, which is why this "corrections" legislation, which has earned fewer than 20 co-sponsors in both chambers combined, is dead on arrival.
Related Stories:
Big-city Mayors uniting against Ohio's CCW law (buried in a story about their support for John Kerry)
Gun ban extremists to offer first concealed carry ''corrections'' bill?
Park flasher problem highlights needs for armed self-protection in parks
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