Letter to the Editor: Scream their rage

January 21, 2004
Middletown Journal

‘Scream their rage’

Newspapers across the state have used their editorial page to scream their rage at passage of Ohio’s new concealed carry law. Many predict blood in the streets, shoot-outs among family members, increased accidents, etc.

Proponents of these crime-deterrent laws have pointed to other states (as examples of how this doesn’t happen) until they are blue in the face, but the editors seem to be unable to escape Ohio’s borders in their mind.

In a different kind of editorial, the Toledo Blade just reported that each year nearly 20,000 people are injured in accidents caused by fatigued truck drivers. Last summer, another newspaper editorialized that, according to the Insurance Information Institute, about 75,000 people per year require emergency room treatment for injuries caused by lawn mowers.

So why am I writing about 75,000 accidental lawn mower injuries or 20,000 injuries from tired truck drivers in a letter about self-defense rights?

Because, according to the Centers for Disease Control, fewer than 17,700 people received non-fatal injuries due to a firearms accident in 2001.

Because when you add to that accidental number those injured intentionally, due to violent attack, the total number is still less than those injured by accidents with lawn mowers — 63,000.

Because there is no Ohio Coalition Against Lawn Mowers or America’s Nightmare Due to Tired Truck Drivers.

Because the Million Mom March isn’t ambulance-chasing and holding press conferences every time someone is injured with their Lawn Boy or run over by an 18-wheeler.

Because Bob Taft isn’t dictating legislation requiring that lawn mowers be stored safely and/or that trucks not be operated in the presence of children under 18.

But most of all, I’m writing this because, unlike a firearm, no one’s life has ever been saved with a lawn mower, and no rape has ever been prevented by a Peterbilt.

CHAD D. BAUS
Archbold

Editor’s note: Chad Baus is a member of Ohioans for Concealed Carry.

Click on the "Read More..." link below to read a letter about 'paranoid lunatics' with guns from, seemingly, a paranoid lunatic.

‘Armed, drunken lunatics’

Oh, wonderful. We’re going to have a concealed carry law in Ohio. That’s delightful! Now all of the paranoid lunatics who supported it can go around shooting at anyone who disagrees with them. Let’s repeal all the DUI laws while we’re at it. Then we can have a bunch of armed, drunken lunatics careening from gunfight to gunfight. Yee-haw!

The state of Ohio, on any given Saturday night, will now be reminiscent of the “good old days” of the OK Corral. Now we can all be out playing cowboys and Indians for real. Whoopee!

Restaurants, and any other establishments serving alcohol, will now be required to have a gun-check booth — just like the Old West. Cool. This should create more high-paying jobs for unemployed Ohioans.

Some folks will be packing pistols now, not because of any real personal danger but rather merely because they are allowed to and because it makes them feel good. Just the type of upstanding, stable and well-adjusted citizenry that we all want to see armed and roaming the streets. Hey, guys, let’s all meet up at the local tavern, get drunk and compare pistols, eh? I can just see these exemplary pillars of society shooting apples off of each other’s heads at 30 paces in the parking lot at the local liquor store. Eeeee-ya-hoo!

Hey, look at it this way: Everybody will be much more polite to each other now — because you never know who might be packing. I can’t wait! Dang, life is good.

FRED GILLESPIE
Middletown

Related Story:
Op-Ed: The anti-gun male