The following guest op-ed appeared in The Chillicothe Gazette on April 22, 2010.

By Mike McCoy

When Ohio's original legislation allowing law-abiding citizens to carry a concealed handgun passed in 2004, there were dire predictions by the anti-gun crowd that there would be shootouts in the streets or worse.

Fast forward six years, and guess what? None of it happened.

How could the anti-gun crowd have been so wrong? The answer is very simple and yet very important.

The answer is that concealed carry licensees are law-abiding citizens, and law-abiding citizens don't commit crimes. Criminals commit crimes! I know that this shouldn't be earth-shattering news to anyone, but it is to the anti-gun crowd.

You may know how to use your gun, but do you know how to win a real fight? Now you have the chance to learn what it really takes to survive when it's up close and personal.

Buckeye Firearms Foundation is pleased to announce that Brian LaMaster, President of Innovative Tactical Concepts, will teach his acclaimed FIGHT! Integrated Concealed Carry class on July 17 and 18, 2010.

This 2-day class is strictly limited to the first 20 people to register!

*** SOLD OUT ***

By Chad D. Baus

Judging by the events of the past week, it's a good thing for billionaire New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg that he uses taxpayer funds to hire others to carry guns for his protection (even when he's visiting his mansion in the "no guns" country of Bermuda). If he carried a gun himself, he'd constantly be shooting himself in the foot.

Take for example Bloomberg's reaction when news that a car bomb had been activated, but failed to detonate in the middle of Times Square. The part-time Republican, who heads the gun control front group run Mayors Against Illegal Guns (MAIG), quickly ran to the CBS Evening News and speculated before a national audience that the bomb could have been placed by "somebody with a political agenda who doesn't like the health care bill or something."

The following day, the world learned that the terror-bomb suspect was a Pakistani-born naturalized American named Faisal Shahzad. (That sound you just heard was Bloomberg firing a round into his own foot.)

Rather than apologize for having profiled a whole group of patriotic Americans, Bloomberg instead quickly announced that he "will not tolerate any bias" or backlash against Muslim Americans following the attempted attack, noting that "a few bad apples" exist among all cultural ethnicities. (That sound you just heard was Bloomberg firing a second round into his own foot.) I guarantee he'd never have uttered that "few bad apples" line had the suspect turned out to be a 40 year-old white TEA party member from Topeka.

The third self-inflicted wound came after authorities disclosed that a firearm was recovered from Shahzad's car – left parked at Kennedy International Airport when he was apprehended trying to flee the country.