Why isn't the OSHP lobbying to get CARS off the highways?

July 31, 2003
Coshocton Tribune
Coshocton man enters guilty plea in road rage case

ZANESVILLE -- A Coshocton man arrested earlier this year on allegations that he intentionally crashed his car into other motorists on Ohio 16 entered a guilty plea to amended charges.

Matthew Johnson, 20, of North Whitewoman Street, was found guilty of two counts of attempted felonious assault, two counts of aggravated menacing and a single count of leaving the scene of an accident.

Johnson's charges stemmed from a case of road rage investigated by the Coshocton County Sheriff's Office and the Zanesville Post of the Ohio State Highway Patrol on Ohio 16 near the Longaberger Company in Muskingum County on March 6.

A trooper later stopped the suspect car on U.S. 36 near the Ohio 16 intersection, and sheriff's deputies located two disabled vehicles near Ohio 16.

Authorities determined both had been struck by the "road rage" vehicle that fled the scene of the original incident.

OFCC PAC Commentary:
Ohio State Highway Patrol Superintendant Paul McClellan says there is no statistical or anecdotal evidence that allowing citizens to carry firearms in their cars will reduce crime or protect the innocent. We have proven that false time and again.

On the other hand, they are all too willing to grab one anecdotal example of a road rage incident involving a permit holder in Tennessee, and use it to substantiate their opposition.

Which got us to wondering. If the OSHP wants to keep firearms off of Ohio's roadways because of one road rage incident in Tennessee, why aren't they fighting to keep CARS off the road, based on this road rage incident in Ohio, in which a car was used as a deadly weapon?

Click here to read the entire story in the Coshocton Tribune.