Ohio concealed handgun license-holder defends self against attackers
The Warren Tribune-Chronicle, which is one of the Ohio newspapers which wrecklessly publishes lists of Ohio CHL-holders as though they were criminals, is reporting that a pizza deliveryman with an Ohio CHL was able to defend his life against a group of male attackers who were trying to rob him.
From the story:
The chief said the owner of Mr. B's Pizza on Youngstown Road, Eugene Madill, was delivering a pie to 1546 Kenilworth Ave. S.E. shortly after 10 p.m. when four men pushed him into the vacant home, knocked him on the sofa and eventually beat him after one demanded money at knifepoint.
Mandopoulos said that although the house is vacant, utilities to the home were still connected, allowing someone inside to flip on the lights, making it appear the home was being lived in.
The pizza shop owner told police all four males were wearing ski masks or handkerchiefs to conceal their faces.
Madill, who is licensed to carry a concealed weapon, pulled his gun, a 9mm and fired three shots at the group, the chief said. Madill ran from the home back to his parlor and called police, a report states.
Madill, 33, could not be reached for comment. Records show he received his permit to carry a concealed weapon in Portage County on Aug. 8, 2005.
Police Chief John Mandopoulos told the newspaper it's unclear if a teen-age boy who showed up at St. Joseph Health Center after the shooting with a gunshot wound to the left side of his body was involved in the robbery. Warren police officers did a cursory check of nearby houses on after the attack on Madill Monday, but were unable to find anyone that may have been linked to the violent robbery attempt.
The newspaper reports that on Tuesday police received a call that a body was lying in the back yard of a home close to the scene. Mandopoulos told reporters investigators cannot say for certain if the 16-year-old was involved in the robbery, but the theory so far is that he ran from the house, tripped on a bicycle laying in the yard and died from his wounds.
When concealed carry was made law in Ohio, there was much controversy over the provision which gives the media access to these records. Coming down on the side of open records, state Sen. Marc Dann (a Warren-area Democrat who supports concealed carry), told his colleagues "I don't think we need to worry about journalists doing their job."
But has this newspaper from Sen. Dann's district done its job?
The Warren Tribune Chronicle was one of the first to have published the names of concealed handgun license-holders as though they were social pariah. For this act, the paper was awarded the "Bandemonium Award" in the July 2004 issue of the NRA's national First Freedom magazine.
The Tribune Chronicle has editorialized that there is no anti-Second Amendment motivation behind these actions. Readers are asked to believe that this abuse of the media access loophole is done "for the public good." The newspaper has offered absolutely no proof before or since that a "public good" has resulted.
Could journalists not have done their jobs better by writing about how gun control has failed to lower the rate of violent crime, or editorializing on the liability that employers should face when they strip their workers of their right to self-defense? Would it not have been more of a public service to use their soapbox to encourage more area residents to obtain CHLs and to put would-be criminals on notice?
Buckeye Firearms Association has endorsed House Bill 347, which would allow people who have reason to fear the release of their information to opt-out, just as Federal law does for drivers' licenses. Please write Sen. Marc Dann and your own legislators and ask them to support this legisation at their first opportunity.
Dann can be reached at:
Telephone: 614-466-7182
[email protected]
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