State Senator tries to turn CCW debate into class warfare battle

When Dan Williamson broke the story that Senator White admitted he had the votes to override a Taft veto on HB12 back on November 27, we had hope that he was one of the more objective reporters in Ohio. But in this, his latest story on the subject, it's more of what we've come to expect from Ohio's liberal media elite.

It's tough to know where to begin with this piece. At times, it reads more as if Senator Fingerhut did the writing than Williamson, because the extreme rhetoric doesn't quit outside the quotation marks.

Williamson/Fingerhut's main points, in summary:

• the poor farmer-types are good for some things in state legislature, but they are really a bother when it comes to defending the Constitution as it pertains to guns.

• the 'enlightened' urbanites are worried about country yockels coming into the big city and negligently shooting people because they "misperceived the situation".

• urban Republicans who voted for HB12 didn't do it out of conviction or because they thought it would deter crime. They were "scared of the gun lobby" or of their Republican colleagues.

• that stuff from the Ohio Supreme Court about bearing arms for defense and security being a "fundamental individual right" never happened. Figment of country boys' imagination.

Of course, these claims are totally baseless.

One bright note in the story - it highlights what we've been lamenting for months and years - liberal Republicans are as much responsible for keeping Ohioans defenseless as are gun abolitionists like Fingerhut.

We'd like to think that most of Ohio's urban dwellers are aware of the fact that it is they who will benefit the most from concealed carry legislation. Experience in other states has proven that crime drops more rapidly in cities than in urban areas. City dwellers like Taft, Fingerhut, Goodman, etc. ought to be thanking their rural colleagues for their considerate effort to put others before themselves.

If you have the stomach for it, click on the "Read More..." link below for Williamson's piece.

Gun issues pit city folk against country folk

Dan Williamson
The Other Paper
December 25 - 31, 2003

Gov. Bob Taft and state Sen. Eric Fingerhut had an awkward conversation two weeks ago.

Fingerhut, a Democrat who is running for the U.S. Senate next year, asked Taft, a Republican, whether he was going to veto the latest bill to allow people to carry concealed handguns. Taft said that he was. Fingerhut replied that he planned to spend the next few days singing the governor’s praises.

“I told him that I was going to be traveling the state to support it,” Fingerhut recalled.

He said he couldn’t definitely gauge the governor’s reaction.

“He seemed, you know, pleased.”

Guns make for some odd alliances in Ohio.

If the concealed-carry were about political parties, a bill would have been signed into law seven years ago. Instead, it’s about where you live.

Up to this point, a concealed-carry law has been prevented by three Republican city slickers. Former Gov. George Voinovich of Cleveland blocked it in the mid-90’s. After he left, former Speaker Jo Ann Davidson of suburban Columbus kept it from coming to a vote in the House.

In the three years since Davidson’s departure, concealed-weapons opponents have been championed by, in his own weird way, Cincinnatian Bob Taft.

There are benefits to having guys who live on farms running the state legislature – they know what poor people look like, for example. But when it comes to guns, they come from a drastically different perspective.

In the country, guns are part of the culture, and they’re not so scary.

To most city folks, though, the idea of legalized concealed weapons just doesn’t make any sense.

“The people who make the argument for the bill aren’t just arguing about having them late at night on country roads. They’re arguing for having them in the cities,” said Fingerhut, who lives in Cleveland.

"Those of us who represent urban areas are very concerned we are going to have somebody who comes from a different part of the state bring a loaded gun into a situation, misperceive the situation, and use the gun."

Said lobbyist Neil Clark, a loyal and active Republican, "I guess I just don't get it."

"Even though I'm a gun owner and I have many guns in my house, I probably cannot understand why in a civilized society, in an urban area, people want to carry a gun," said Clark, who grew up in Cleveland and now lives in New Albany.

"The courage that it takes to pull a trigger is beyond most people's comprehension, and by the time you pull that gun out, you're probably already going to be shot anyway."

Concealed-carry proponents will note that plenty of urban lawmakers joined their rural colleagues in voting for House Bill 12.

Most of those probably did so out of Republican Party loyalty or fear of the gun lobby. They probably convinced themselves Ohioans have a consitutional right to carry guns, even though the Supreme Court ruled otherwise.

Only one Republican lawmaker in Franklin County, David Goodman of Bexley, broke ranks with the party leadership by voting in the interests of his constituents against HB12.

So even though Taft has never fully laid out his position on the issue in the way Voinovich did, the governor's veto pledge looks pretty gutsy.

Fingerhut said he believes that by blocking a concealed-carry bill, Taft has followed the advice of First Lady Hope Taft, who Fingerhut believes "is very much opposed to it."

But the buck stops with the governor, and so far, Fingerhut said, the governor has done the right thing.

"I do understand that politicians come under a great deal of pressure from the gun lobby, and doing what he's doing is standing up to that pressure," Fingerhut said. "He deserves the support of the overwhelming majority of Ohioans who agree with him on this issue."

So for the urban dwellers who don't want people packing heat on the streets, you've got to root for the governor. He may look a little wobbly up there, but he's all you have.