By Jim Shepherd

Most of the conversational around the industry since [last] Tuesday's Supreme Court oral arguments in the McDonald v. Chicago case has been pretty optimistic. It seems a foregone conclusion that the Supreme Court will vacate both firearms restriction ordinances in Chicago and its suburb, Oak Park, lllinois.

But there's been very little said about Otis McDonald, the 76-year old retired maintenance engineer who's the primary name on a lawsuit that may become yet another fundamental rib in American jurisprudence.

McDonald and his wife live in the far South side of Chicago where they've watched their neighborhood deteriorate from familial to downright dangerous. Despite having his home wired with burglar alarms "wired right into the police station" and owning a legal firearm (a shotgun), McDonald said he felt he would be better protected if he also had a handgun. His rationale was simple: a handgun would be easier for an aging husband or wife to handle.

Despite the fact that Chicago police point out the fact that it's mainly property crimes in his neighborhood, they can't deny the fact they've gotten worse. Burglaries and thefts in McDonald's area risen from 881 in 2006 to 1,215 in 2008 (the latest figures available). Murders have remained steady at 17 per year.

So, Otis McDonald joined the Illinois State Rifle Association, hoping to find an answer. What he found was attorney Alan Gura, looking for Chicago residents to bring a challenge to the city's handgun ban - and a broader interpretation to the Heller decision.

By Gerard Valentino

When a disgruntled employee shot two supervisors earlier this week, Ohio State University added its name to the list of educational institutions with multiple victim shootings and a policy against legal concealed carry on campus.

During the debate about concealed carry in Ohio several years ago, the OSU administration took the predictable, and intellectually lazy, stance that guns don't have a place on campus, where enlightened thought should be unencumbered by such a "threat."

Basically, they argued that open and challenging debate can't take place if concealed carry is allowed on campus. A clear indication of how little faith college administrators put in the self-control of students and faculty.

Although college administrators claim they are among the most progressive thinkers in the world, with superior deductive reasoning skills, their argument against legal concealed carry on campus fails to rise above the shrill cries that guns scare them, and so they should scare you too.

Such a poor argument, devoid of any semblance of logic, displays the narrow-minded thought process that has invaded so-called institutions of higher learning.