By Chad D. Baus

Republican gubernatorial candidate John Kasich utilized Twitter on Thursday to announce his choice of former multiple-time Buckeye Firearms Association endorsee and current State Auditor Mary Taylor as his running mate, confirming a leak reported by the Cleveland Plain Dealer on Tuesday.

Taylor earned the endorsement of Buckeye Firearms Association in her successful 2006 campaign for Auditor of State, having overcome a serious trend against Republicans in Ohio.

Previously, she had served two terms in the Ohio House of Representatives, where her pro-gun record - both in terms of votes and behind-the-scenes support - was impeccable.

By Gerard Valentino

Now that 2009 has come to an end, giving America time to take stock of the year that was, we can once again see the true relationship between guns and crime.

Driven by fear of Barack Obama's anti-gun past, Americans bought more guns in 2009 than in any other year on record, and homicide and violent crime rates plummeted nationwide.

The most striking decrease took place in Washington D.C., which had the lowest number of homicides since 1964 following the end of the city's longtime ban on private ownership of firearms. Not surprisingly, the city's administration and the anti-gun doomsayers were wrong. As any clear-thinking person knows, law-abiding residents of Washington D.C. are perfectly suited to owning guns for self-defense.

The Chicken Little predictions of mass killings and bloody scenes of gun owners running amok never materialized, and the panic about the presence of guns in people's homes was much ado about nothing.