Wednesday, July 6, 2011

Attorney General's group to explore firearms violence, concerns exist

Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine is seeking to keep firearms out of the hands career criminals.

In so doing DeWine has created an ad hoc committee to review the situation and then focus on ways to facilitate keeping the two at polar extremes. But Second Amendment tights advocates are concerned, wondering what the group will explore and then recommend.

The 16-member committee’s first meeting is scheduled for 2:30 p.m., today at the Rhodes State Office Tower in downtown Columbus.

This group’s official name is the “Ohio Attorney General’s Office Gun Advisory Group.”

Among its members are three representatives from the Attorney General’s office, three representatives from the federal government such as the U.S. Attorney General as well as the ATF, various police officials and county prosecutors, and a victims rights’ advocate.

Also on the committee is attorney Ken Hanson who has represented the Ohioans for Concealed Carry, a pro-Second Amendment Rights group that has scored major victories both in the courts and on the floor of the state legislature.

In an earlier press release DeWine is quoted as saying “From the time I was Greene County Prosecutor and an Ohio Senator, I have been concerned about getting repeat offenders who use guns to commit crimes off our streets... When I was in the Ohio Senate, I wrote S.B. 199 to increase the penalties for felons using guns in the commission of a crime. We need to get and keep these people behind bars.”

DeWine’s release also cited a story that had appeared in the Columbus Dispatch that was widely criticized by Second Amendment advocates as being partial toward additional gun control, noting a connection with a known anti-gun grant-funding foundation.

- Jeffrey L. Frischkorn
JFrischkorn@News-Herald.docm

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