Criminals ignore gun laws

1/6/2011

In your Jan. 1 editorial "Home rule under fire," you show a willingness to mislead the public to further disdain the rights of gun owners. Ohio lawmakers have never enacted "one gun law," as you claim. Instead, they said that the plethora of gun laws written in the Ohio Revised Code should be consistent statewide.

Gun-control proponents adore localized gun control because it's relatively easy to convince small municipal officials to pass feel-good gun bans and registration schemes. The only people who register guns are those who are legally permitted to own them.

Requiring the average Joe to register a revolver won't stop a drug dealer from using a stolen gun. Registration is about identifying gun owners, not criminals. Registration does nothing to prevent criminal misuse.

A violation of the Toledo gun law can result in nothing more than misdemeanor charges. A violation of the state gun law can, and often does, result in felony charges. Why would we want serious criminal offenses with a firearm to be misdemeanors with a sentence of less than a year? To control gun owners who follow laws.

The idea that gun laws need to be different in urban areas and rural communities is obfuscating the issue with unsubstantiated opinion by people who want to control lawful gun owners as opposed to preventing violence with firearms.

Home rule doesn't allow cities to require you to obtain local driver's licenses. An activity such as possessing a firearm in our mobile society mandates statewide uniformity of acceptable behavior, not a patchwork quilt of politically correct, locally enacted, obscure gun-owner control.

Jeff Garvas

President

Ohioans For Concealed Carry

Avon, Ohio

More gun laws are no answer

You imply that restrictive gun laws may need to be enacted. The problem is that criminals and scofflaws don't respect laws.

Law-abiding citizens who are properly trained and licensed to use guns follow the three basic rules of gun handling: Always keep firearms pointed in a safe direction, keep your finger off the trigger until ready to fire, and keep the firearm unloaded until you are ready to use it.

Because there are more law-abiding gun owners who are trained how to use them and are licensed to own them, those who would use firearms illegally are given pause.

R.C. Burns

Blissfield, Mich.

Home rule is not the problem

Again you have missed the mark on carrying concealed weapons. Giving control to left-leaning lawyers in Toledo is akin to putting a fox in the henhouse. It is not a wise decision, and it is not the place of any city council or attorney to interpret the law handed down by the Ohio Supreme Court.

Are Toledo and Cleveland attorneys suggesting they have more wisdom than the court? Like it or not, the Second Amendment guarantees all the other amendments, including the First Amendment, which allows nonthinking anti-gun politicians to speak and to try to dismantle the Constitution.

As for gun violence, concealed-weapons permit holders have demonstrated that they are not the problem and weapons are not the problem. The problem in Toledo is criminals who refuse to obey the law. I doubt home rule keeps any of us safer.

Kent Snyder

Westbrook Drive

Crime in Mexico must end first

Mexico's problem goes a lot deeper than trying to reinstate a failed ban that did nothing for crime here in America ("Stem the gun flow," editorial, Dec. 30). What good would a ban do for a country that is awash in corruption?

How could passing more restrictive laws here help them? How many of those 60,000 weapons were first sold to the Mexican police and military, only to wind up in drug cartels' hands?

Passing more restrictive laws here won't solve their problems. The corruption must end there first.

Jim Szych

Bennett Road

Gun lobbyists are often victorious

The gun rights lobby is right: The Obama Administration has no right to demand data on rifles and shotguns purchased by law-abiding citizens.

President Obama decided not to reinstate the assault-weapons ban because he thought it would be unpopular in key states at election time.

If he wants to get re-elected, he shouldn't make new laws that restrict or ban guns. If he does, he would be fighting a losing battle because the gun rights lobby is effective.

Michael Sodd

Bond Street

Don't leave allies, mollify dictators

Dan Simpson's Jan. 1 op-ed column, "New year brings no basket of cheer for U.S. diplomacy," shows concern for restoring U.S. credibility in the world.

He offers a recipe to withdraw from Japan, Europe, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Korea. He says to align with the Palestinians against our fellow liberal democratic ally, Israel, so as to force a bogus peace settlement down Israel's throat, because this will help with tension between the Islamic world and the West.

Strangely, Mr. Simpson doesn't take into account that non-Muslim countries with anti-Israel policies have also been targets of Islamist terrorism.

He also said to appease China and Cuba, to ignore gross violations of basic human rights in Africa, and to rule out military options concerning Iran's nuclear program.

In short, Mr. Simpson urges the United States to withdraw from the world, abandon our democratic allies, and appease authoritarian dictators. On what planet such policies would promote credibility, I have not a clue, but it is surely not the planet on which Mr. Simpson resides.

Rob Vincent

Perrysburg

Dogs, sports high on priority list

Blade Editor David Kushma should have mentioned in his Jan. 2 op-ed column, "For letter writers, a renewed invitation," that Readers' Forum letters that deal with dogs and sports get priority over others.

V. N. Krishnan

Bowling Green

It's ludicrous to cut taxes, wages

Isn't it refreshing to know that Gov.-elect John Kasich is ready to cut taxes, which cut revenue, and take on state workers' unions to cut wages and benefits, which - again - would cut revenue ("Strickland says legacy as governor is managing state despite recession," Dec. 26)? Then he will try to enact a right-to-work law that will, in his mind, cut more wages, which will cut more revenue.

I wonder whether he may be under the delusion that to lower wages will cause people to spend more. I was under the impression that capitalism was a consumer- driven form of an economic system.

Now the scary part: Can you imagine all the education programs, programs for poor children and for the elderly, and other social necessities that will be on the chopping block?

I'll bet state legislators don't cut their own wages and benefits.

Jeff Pitzen

Northwood

Drop city, county officials' salaries

Toledo Mayor Mike Bell is a triple-dipper, and Lucas County Sheriff James Telb is a double-dipper, as are some judges and employees who were given raises by the mayor. They can afford to take reductions in pay ("Share the pain, again," editorial, Jan. 2).

Diane Reichow

Angola Road