Tax $$$ at work: Columbus program lets students debate gun bill with lawmakers

Thursday, July 31, 2003
THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH

Eight Columbus Public Schools students attempted yesterday to do what Ohio lawmakers could not — decide whether Ohioans can legally carry concealed weapons.

The students were role-playing in front of real senators and representatives as part of a summer leadership program designed to teach them what it’s like to work in the field of law.

Each was assigned to research either for or against concealed weapons, the subject of a hotly contested piece of legislation this year. The bill stalled after the House, Senate and governor’s office couldn’t agree on some provisions before the legislature’s summer break.

The students read the testimony they prepared and faced tough questions from four Columbus lawmakers, just like in a real committee hearing.

Students in the Summer Leadership Intern Program, sponsored by the Columbus Bar Association and Columbus Public Schools, work for eight weeks at paid internships with law firms and government agencies around Columbus. They spend Saturdays working on their concealed-weapons testimony and researching for a mock trial, which will be the final project, said Dwight Groce, co-coordinator of the program.

OFCC PAC Commentary
Sounds like a great project, right? It might have been, and we'd know better if it was or not, had the media coverage had been the least bit impartial.

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

Dispatch writer Shelley Davis notes that four legislators participated in the mock-debate, but she only mentions three: Rep. Joyce Beatty, a Columbus Democrat, Sen. Ray Miller, a Democrat from Columbus, and Sen. David Goodman, a Republican from Bexley. All three are vehemently anti-self-defense, and voted against Am. Sub. HB12. We had to contact Ms. Wheeler to assertain the identity of the fourth person, Rep. Larry Flowers of Canal Winchester (a 2002 OFCC PAC endorsee).

We truly hope Rep. Flowers was able to shed some light on the positive aspects of legal self-defense for these students, but thanks to the Dispatch's biased coverage, we may never know.

The Dispatch writer notes that Sen. David Goodman, a Republican from Bexley, said he hoped the students learn they have a role influencing how a law is made.

"I hope afterward they’re a little less intimidated," Goodman said. "I don’t care if you’re a Democrat or a Republican, if you want to get involved in the political process, I’m all for it."

We sure wish the good Senator had gotten more involved in hearings on HB12. To our knowledge, Goodman (who sat on the committee which amended the bill so poorly) never attended the seven public hearings on the bill (he voted against it). But somehow he managed to find time for this pretend hearing with a handful of high school students.

In the mock-debate, Sen. Miller asked several students to explain how they found their statistics (no doubt he was anxious to pounce on anyone uttering the name John Lott). When the bill was debated on the Senate floor for real, he stood and spoke in opposition, asserting that a recent drive-by shooting in Columbus was somehow reason for the Senate to vote against recognizing the Constitutional right to self-defense.

Did they succeed in their "edumacation" ploy? The Dispatch makes it appear so, quoting Shaneqa Harper, a Mifflin High School student who studied the issue "for weeks".

"Having more guns on the streets does not improve our society, it just leads to more violence on the streets," Harper said.

The anti-self defense legislators seem to have succeeded in convincing this
high schooler. Now all they need to do is convince the criminals who
continue to ravage Ohio's innocent, law-abiding, defenseless citizens.

Click here to read the full story in the Columbus Dispatch (subscription site - paid access only).