Media claims about restaurant carry harken back to false predictions made during concealed carry debate

by Gerard Valentino

Uninformed, elitist, unenlightened and arrogant is no way to go through life, especially if you are a journalist.

Yet, Marilou Johanek seems to have reached the position of editorial columnist with The Toledo Blade despite her aforementioned limitations. Her recent editorial, "On gun in bars, state lawmakers defy logic, safety" - is a testament to the lower journalistic standards so prevalent among Ohio's old media.

And yes, it also defies logic.

For those not familiar with the term old media, it describes newspapers, certain television news agencies, and other media organizations still run by the leftist media elite. Thomas Suddes from The Cleveland Plain Dealer and Joe Hallett from The Columbus Dispatch are the flag bearers for the old media. The entire Toledo Blade staff is seemingly made up of old media hacks as well.

A requirement of membership in the old media is to never say anything good about the National Rifle Association, or about gun owners. You also can't acknowledge that groups like Buckeye Firearms Association exist, because it is an admission that gun rights are a mainstream issue with grassroots support, not just a special interest controlled by the NRA's deep pockets.

But, the biggest failing of the old media, by far, is never admitting when they are wrong.

Prior to the passage of legal concealed carry in Ohio, people of Marilou Johanek's ilk assured us that blood will run in the streets when law abiding citizens start carrying guns. Then, when guns were allowed to be concealed in cars, they promised it would lead to countless dead law enforcement officers.

In each case, the old media claimed anyone using basic common sense could see the disaster that was about to unfold. The Ohio Fraternal Order of Police opposed legal concealed carry, and concealed carry in cars, by using the same justification as Ohio's old media.

When none of their predictions came true, however, the old media and the FOP simply kept claiming they were right because their arrogance will not let them admit that they were wrong.

Despite their past failings, we are now supposed to believe the old media are right about concealed carry in restaurants.

After all, it is common sense. Or is it?

Just as the old media failed to research how successful concealed carry was in the 45 states that allowed it prior to Ohio, they are now refusing to accept that 42 states let their citizens carry in places that serve alcohol.

Admitting that restaurant carry works in 42 other states, or that some states allow license holders to drink, puts a big hole in the old media argument that the mere presence of guns and booze in the same room is a caustic mix.

So, they simply act like it isn't true and claim the gun lobby is lying.

They have no choice, since membership in the old media demands a predisposed belief that the gun lobby never tells the truth.

Of course in the old media club, the reputation of groups like the anti-gun Violence Policy Center is beyond reproach.

Ohio law currently bans drinking alcohol while carrying a gun and the proposed restaurant carry bill still prohibits it. So, nothing will change for restaurant owners who already have to deal with the possibility that a criminal will try to drink while armed.

If you believe the old media coverage of the debate over restaurant carry, bar owners will have to install metal detectors and issue bullet proof vests to their wait staff. Their assertion is a red herring because right now bar owners already deal with criminals who try to drink while carrying, so the policies already exist to handle such a situation.

Another absurd notion is that a license holder who has refrained from drinking while armed for all these years will use the passage of restaurant carry as an excuse to get drunk and shoot up the town.

Once restaurant carry becomes law, and Ohioans prove that they can handle the responsibility, don't expect people like Marilou Johanek to admit being wrong. After all, the old media hasn't admitted they were wrong about legal concealed carry, the end of municipal assault weapons bans, or Castle Doctrine reform.

Instead, like Sisyphus pushing his rock, they will continue to push the same mythical arguments about guns in society.

Unfortunately, we can't change the old media, or make them follow basic journalistic standards. Instead, we simply have to expose their misleading statements, and outright lies, so that people can come to their own conclusions.

The fact that we are winning at the ballot box, in the legislature and in the courts, is telling us we are successful, and that people are coming to the right conclusion.

Gerard Valentino is a member of the Buckeye Firearms Foundation Board of Directors and the author of "The Valentino Chronicles – Observations of a Middle Class Conservative," available through the Buckeye Firearms Association store.