State budget battles and HB12

The Ohio General Assembly's struggle to cover a gap between state spending and tax revenue is nearing an end for this fiscal year. The issue worked to delay HB12 slightly in the House earlier this year, and it looks to be having a similar effect in the Senate. No meetings are scheduled on HB12 this week, as Senators and staffs are largely focused on finalizing a budget bill.

UPDATE! The Senate passed its version of the budget in a floor vote on Thursday, June 5th. The bill will now head for a conference committee. This progress on the state budget will likely free up Senators and their staff to once again finish the work on HB12. Our sources are still indicating that a vote can be expected within a couple of weeks, as was indicated in a recent Gongwer News Story.

Even the budget battle has been exploited by anti-self-defense extremists in recent weeks and months. But ironically, the results of their efforts, if they were successful, would all be to decrease safety.

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

In March, the Cleveland Plain Dealer's Julie Carr-Smyth wrote an article suggesting that HB12 was going to cost too much. The reason for the additional cost associated with HB12? The bill raises the penalty (and mandates jail time) for criminals who steal firearms. So to follow to her logical conclusion, removing the increased penalties would solve the problem of cost...and put more criminals who steal firearms back on the streets.

Carr-Smyth is at it again. In a May 16 Plain Dealer article entitled "Pet projects survive Ohio budget cuts", Carr-Smyth opens with a sarcastic swipe: "Times aren't so tight that the Ohio House couldn't find $40,000 for a gun safety program for kids run by the National Rifle Association."

Later in the article she continues, "Critics suggest that some of the earmarks were slipped into the budget where they don't belong. The NRA's Eddie Eagle gun-safety program, for example, appears under "Safe and Secure Schools" - which gun opponent Toby Hoover finds offensive."

"Given the budget situation, we suggested some alternative ways to spend the money - say, classrooms or books for kids," said Hoover, director of the Ohio Coalition against Gun Violence. "We believe the program, though it's billed as a gun-safety program, teaches children that guns are an expected adult activity."

Hoover has said worse in her anti-self-defense email alerts, claiming that the NRA admits Eddie Eagle is nothing but a "recruiting tool". But in spite of her indignance at the $40,000 earmarked for a statewide Eddie Eagle gun safety program, Hoover had nothing at all to say about the $100,000 which, under the House budget, is being funneled to a "Don't Laugh At Me" anti-bullying program.

Not surprisingly, Carr-Smyth squeezed in only one sentence of the NRA's response: "The NRA's Heidi Cifelli, who manages the national program, said that it 'has nothing to do with gun handling or gun use' and that the mascot is not allowed to be displayed around guns."

To follow Ms. Hoover's idea through to it's logical conclusion, removing funding for the Eddie Eagle program would again help with the problem of cost, and risk lives by scrapping vital gun-safety training for Ohio children.

In the context of a $48.7 billion budget, does Hoover really think that saving $40,000 to teach kids "not to touch", and to "tell an adult", when they see a firearm is a good way to help the budget crunch?

To contact the author of this story, PD Reporter Julie Carr-Smyth, email her by clicking here, or call her at 1-800-228-8272.