Time Warp: Miss-Led writes as though the past two years never happened

And those were just her nice moments.

Two-years of experience having proven her so throughly wrong about concealed carry in Ohio seems not to have fazed Miss-Led one bit. Consider her latest op-ed, in which she turns her attention to HB347...

Click on 'Read More' for excerpts from the op-ed, with responsive commentary.

Miss-Led's December 8, 2006 Toledo Blade op-ed begins like this:

Changes to concealed-carry law threaten home rule

OBVIOUSLY Ohio midterm voters didn't go far enough in throwing the bums out of office last month. Republicans still control the state legislature, which means they can still pass laws at our expense.

If the opening sentence doesn't show you who truly has "aggressive tendencies", just keep reading.

Early in the op-ed, Johanek makes her first provably false assertion about a post-CCW Ohio:

[Ohioans'] only recourse with the legislated lunacy was to implement local prohibitions against guns to protect citizens from an influx of firearms where they live, go to school, work, and play.

...Across the state, cities enacted some 80 gun laws to mitigate the craziness Columbus lawmakers caused by their sellout to gun lobbyists. Several laws banned assault weapons and large-capacity ammunition magazines.

Others contained provisions for local gun licenses, local record-keeping of gun dealers, and trigger safety locks. The point is, many Ohioans supported stricter gun regulations than stipulated in the state's concealed-carry law because they felt safer that way.

The problem for Johanek is that the very, very few among the patchwork of 80+ local gun control laws legislators are seeking to address with HB347 were written after passage of Ohio's concealed carry law.

It doesn't take long for the next false assertion to surface:

Law enforcement also felt safer when armed motorists were required to keep their weapons in plain sight if stopped by police. Yet even though both sentiments were unmistakable in the two years after concealed-carry became law, the Republican-led legislature proceeded recently as if neither mattered.

In actuality, the legislature has worked tirelessly with the Buckeye State Sheriff's Association, Fraternal Order of Police, and Ohio State Highway Patrol on HB347, and not one of these organizations opposes its passage.

Johanek next focuses her aggression on the House's bi-partisan vote to override Bob Taft's veto of HB347:

House lawmakers, who anticipated the governor's rare display of fortitude, voted easily to override his veto just hours after he signed it. The Senate is still weighing the matter. But state Republicans are determined to override scores of local gun laws and allow motorists to keep handguns tucked away in purses, glove compartments, or closed cases when pulled over by police.

They are so in a world of their own, stunningly oblivious to the mandates of the midterms for moderate policy-making.

...Obviously, leading Republicans in the Statehouse need to experience the fury of last month's midterm voters. They managed to survive the recent beating at the polls only to reinforce what's wrong with the status quo.

Voters didn't go far enough in upsetting the power structure in Ohio by not demoting the legislative majority party to a minority one. But the unbelievable stunt by the GOP-controlled House and Senate to eliminate home rule on hidden weapons provides a most powerful incentive to do so next time.

Johanek seems eager to "credit" Republicans for this common-sense legislation, ignoring the fact that 14 Democrats joined 57 Republicans in voting to override the veto last week (17 Democrats originally voted to pass HB347, nearly half of the Democrats in the House!), and ignoring the fact that Governor-elect Ted Strickland has been calling for passage of the bill for most of the year. Clearly, among any other "mandates" voters sent in Ohio this November, Johanek must truly be pained to see that the pro-gun majority was given another mandate, even as more Democrats were sent to join pro-gun Republicans in Columbus.

What does it say about a writer who has to mislead or lie to her audience in order to push their agenda?

Since she was so wrong about what would happen after passage of concealed carry, why should anyone listen to her now?

Is Miss-Led trying to get nominated as the leader of all those who 'Rage Against Self-Defense'?

Her email address is provided at the end of her commentary, and I would invite you to ask her these questions, but then again, I'm still waiting for answers to the questions I posed to her almost two years ago.

Chad Baus is the Northwest Ohio Chair for Buckeye Firearms Association.