by Lee Leonard
Columbus Dispatch
December 1, 2003

There’s something about December at the Statehouse, and it’s not just the holiday choirs performing each day in a main corridor or the lighting of the huge evergreen outside near Broad and High streets.

It’s a sense of urgency to pass certain bills that have been lying around, in some instances, for months.

Even in an odd-numbered year, when the legislative session will continue for another 12 months, the leaders have their priorities for finishing work on certain items.

The major issues this year are prescription-drug discounts for the uninsured, slot machines at horse racetracks, reform of state pension systems and the right to carry concealed handguns. As lawmakers anticipate their Christmas break, some of these issues may be resolved and others will carry over into 2004.

Prescription drugs and pension reform are so complicated they probably need some more work. But the concealed-weapons and video-slot-machine issues are at crossroads. They might pass or they might go on to the next crossroads.

The issue of concealed weapons is at the precipice. Householder and Senate President Doug White of Manchester want a bill to pass.

"It’s an important bill to get done for Ohio," the speaker said last week.

Gov. Bob Taft does not want a bill to pass. House Bill 12 had been reduced to a pair of law-enforcement-related disagreements between the House and Senate, until Taft made a public-records issue part of the debate.

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Sensing that House Bill 12 conference committee members were closing in on a compromise that would put a bill on his desk in November, Governor Taft employed his allies in the liberal media to inject a new issue into the debate, one that he had not seen fit to raise as a concern at any point during his five years in office.

Several of Ohio's most liberal editorial boards jumped at the chance to help, printing editorials on the subject as a lead-in to Taft's announcement that he had again raised the bar for what a concealed carry bill would have to contain to avoid his veto.

Since Taft's announcement, other editorial boards have joined the chorus. And letter-writers have begun to respond.

November 29, 2003
Newark Advocate

The public does not have the right to know who has a concealed carry permit. Carrying a firearm for the defense of one's self and one's loved ones is a very personal decision and should not open them to ridicule, harassment and the targeting of criminals.

Releasing the names of permit holders counteracts the whole idea behind the purpose of concealed carry. No one needs to know that someone may be legally carrying a concealed firearm, not their family, their friends, their co-workers, their boss or their neighbors. Why? A criminal always falls into one of the aforementioned categories and criminals are especially the ones that you do not want to know.

Springfield News Sun
November 30, 2003

Dozens of armed supporters of the right to carry concealed guns plan to march through downtown Springfield on Sunday.

Demonstrators will openly wear their handguns to protest the lack of resolve of Ohio legislators and Gov. Bob Taft to pass concealed-carry legislation.

"We want to make sure people understand that we have the right to do this," said Thomas Kane, who is helping organize the event. "A lot of people don't understand that it's perfectly legal to carry a firearm openly."

Ohio law, like most other states, allows open-carry without restrictions.

Kane believes that should be enough to spur legislators into passing concealed-carry legislation requiring background checks, training and a permit.

"The conceal-carry we want passed is a lot more restrictive," said Kane, 37, a truck driver by trade.

Demonstrators will meet at 1 p.m. in the public parking area at Fountain Avenue and Jefferson Street, just south of the public library. A safety briefing will be held at 1:30 p.m., followed by the walk around downtown.

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November 29, 2003

It's been another brutal year on Cincinnati streets, with 2003's homicide
rate approaching the 66 killings that tied a 15-year high last year.
As of Friday, 61 people had been killed in Cincinnati.

Although drugs are at the root of many of the slayings, there have been
notable exceptions.

One of the most infamous is the death of 81-year-old Lavern Jansen, whose
killer followed her home from a neighborhood pharmacy and overpowered her in her Covedale home March 19. Police, who have yet to make an arrest in the
case, have not disclosed how she was killed.

"That's a very sad case," said Police Lt. Kim Frey, commander of the
homicide unit. "She's not out dealing drugs. She's not out standing on a
street corner. It's a horrible, horrible crime."

As disturbing as the particular circumstances of some of the slayings are,
the raw homicide statistics for Cincinnati are perhaps even more troubling.
In recent years, Cincinnati's homicide total has been substantially higher
than that of some much bigger cities typically thought to have worse crime
problems.

Rising crime isn't unique to Cincinnati, Mayor Charlie Luken countered. After several
years of decline throughout the 1990s, many cities are seeing more
homicides.

"There's evidence that this is a phenomenon," Luken said. "In Columbus,
they're approaching 100, but it's an unacceptable circumstance." (Columbus
last year had 129 homicides, roughly twice Cincinnati's total. With a
population of about 712,000, however, that city also is about twice
Cincinnati's size.)

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December 2, 2003
The Tennessean

Even after working several years as a prison guard, Twanda McCurry never felt the need to carry a gun for protection outside of work, and especially not after she went into a new business as an office manager at a bottling plant.

Until about three weeks ago.

That's when she decided to join the fast-growing number of Tennessee women who have permits to carry handguns.

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Since 2000, the percentage of gun-carry permits issued in the state to women has risen steadily from about 10% to almost 20% of those issued so far this year.

No one is exactly sure why. The reasons given vary from a growing interest in sports shooting among women to the belief that men — who are the majority of gun owners — rushed in to get gun-carry permits when they became more easily available in 1996, while women gradually gained interest.

To McCurry the reason was simply personal.

It was late in the afternoon about three weeks ago when McCurry and her sister pulled up to their townhouse apartment in Antioch. Three men rushed up, brandishing an assortment of weapons, including a handgun, a crowbar and a baseball bat.

Startled, the two women felt ambushed but managed to make it into their apartment unharmed. McCurry thinks it was only because the men realized they had made a mistake and backed off to find their intended targets.

Nonetheless, it left her feeling very vulnerable to violence.

''I never imagined I would have to purchase a gun to feel secure,'' said McCurry, 33. ''But life is too short to be afraid to leave my house or my car.''

After undergoing a background check, paying a $115 fee and taking a required training course, she got her gun-carry permit, making her one of more than 5,500 Tennessee women who have done so this year.

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