Tag: gun violence

DeWine to Ohio Superintendents: $100 Million Budgeted for School Safety Grants

Bradley Vasoli

Ohio schools will receive $100 million in total to purchase security equipment as part of the next round of K-12 School Safety Grants, Gov. Mike DeWine (R) wrote to superintendents on Friday.

The allocations, which come as a part of the state’s capital budget bill that DeWine signed into law last week, will go toward purchases such as outdoor lighting, facility-mapping software, school-radio systems, door-locking technology and visitor-badge systems. The Ohio School Safety Center in Columbus is now drafting the application for schools to access this money and expects to soon start the application process.

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Ohio’s Portman Is Among Senators Backing Gun Control Deal

Bradley Vasoli

On Sunday, twenty U.S. senators, including Sen. Rob Portman (R-OH), announced they arrived at a proposal containing gun control and other measures they believe will curb violence in America.

The emerging legislation comes as pressure mounts on lawmakers to act in response to mass shootings like the recent ones in Buffalo, NY and Uvalde, TX. 

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Commentary: The Federal Government’s Own Study Concluded Its Ban on ‘Assault Weapons’ Didn’t Reduce Gun Violence

Ohio Star Staff

Do something.

This is a response—and perhaps a natural one—to a human tragedy or crisis. We saw this response in the wake of 9-11. We saw it during the Covid-19 pandemic. And we’re seeing it again following three mass shootings—in Buffalo, New York, Uvalde, Texas, and Tulsa Oklahoma—that claimed the lives of more than 30 innocent people, including small children.

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Commentary: Gun Violence Is the Penalty for Our Failure to Uphold a Moral, Functioning Society

Admin

In the wake of recent mass shootings in New York, Texas, and Oklahoma, Democrats are once again sending Americans up a blind alley. Their “solution” is to punish millions of law-abiding gun owners for the crimes of a few evil maniacs. Undeniably, there is a certain appeal to this response. Gun control is a facile “fix” to a complex problem. 

Americans have owned guns since the founding, but it wasn’t until comparatively recently that mass shootings became a concern. Guns are not the problem. Our culture is. Broken cultures produce broken human beings. For every school shooter, there are thousands of other weak, confused, mentally disturbed men who are drifting away from society. They aren’t dating, aren’t working, and they spend most of their time in their bedrooms playing video games, smoking weed, watching pornography, and stewing in social media echo chambers. 

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Governor DeWine Launches $10 Million Initiative to Address Gun Violence in Ohio

Cooper Moran

Ohio Governor Mike DeWine, in connection with Attorney General Dave Yost and State Highway Patrol Superintendent Col. Richard Fambro, announced a new initiative to address gun violence-related crimes.

The state will give $10.5 million to the Ohio Attorney General’s Bureau of Criminal Investigation (BCI) and Ohio State Highway Patrol (OSHP) to improve access to key technology for law enforcement throughout the state.

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Just a Third of Americans View COVID-19 as a Top-Five Priority, Poll Shows

Ohio Star Staff

Less than 40% of Americans view the coronavirus as a top-five issue to address in 2022, a new poll shows.

The Associated Press-NORC survey found that just 33% of Americans labeled virus concerns as a top issue, down 16 points from a year ago. On the other hand, 68% of respondents said that the economy was the top issue on which to focus this year, with subtopics ranging from inflation to unemployment and the national debt.

The results come as inflation has hit a multi-decade high and supply chain bottlenecks continue to affect Americans’ lives. However, it also comes as the Omicron coronavirus variant has fueled daily case counts near record-highs, with the U.S. now averaging over 650,000 new infections per day.

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Commentary: 12 Incidents of Defensive Gun Use Prove Armed Civilians That Make Situations Safer

Ohio Star Staff

I testified earlier this month at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing in Chicago on underlying causes of the spikes in gun violence in that city and around the country.

Although Sen. Dick Durbin’s interruptions of my opening statement stole the show in many respects, it shouldn’t be overlooked that the Illinois Democrat also solicited disparaging remarks on the right to keep and bear arms from another witness—Chicago Police Superintendent David Brown.  

In direct response to one of Durbin’s questions, Brown remarked that armed civilians make police officers’ jobs more difficult, and that he never has seen a lawfully armed civilian make a situation safer.

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Pennsylvania Governor Blocks Conceal-Carry Without a License

Ohio Star Staff

Gov. Tom Wolf has vetoed legislation that would have allowed residents to carry a concealed firearm without a license, claiming the measure would exacerbate gun violence in the commonwealth.

“This legislation removes the requirement that an individual obtain a license, and with it, the ability of law enforcement to conduct a background investigation,” Wolf said. “Removal of the licensing background investigation will hinder the ability of law enforcement to prevent individuals who should not be able to carry a firearm concealed from doing so.

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Commentary: Despite What Biden Says, Guns Factor in Only a Small Percentage of Violent Crimes

RealClearWire
Police Car

In response to sharp increases in violent crime, President Biden stressed again last week that his administration is focused on “stemming the flow of firearms used to commit violent crimes.”  But critics warn that this “guns first” approach ignores a basic fact – about 92% of violent crimes in America do not involve firearms.

Although firearms were used in about 74% of homicides in 2019, they comprise less than 9% of violent crimes in America.

The vast majority of violent offenses – including robberies, rapes and other sex crimes – almost always involve other weapons or no weapons at all.

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Commentary: ‘No Evidence’ That Gun Buyback Programs Reduce Gun Violence, New Economic Study Finds

Ohio Star Staff
handgun with ammo

Shortly before Christmas in 2018, a woman named Darlene voluntarily turned in a 9mm pistol to the Baltimore Police Department. It was just one of about 500 firearms the department collected that day as part of the city’s gun buyback program, which paid citizens somewhere between $25 and $500 in exchange for their firearms and high-capacity magazines.

Darlene, however, had a confession. She was turning in her 9mm, she told a local news reporter, so she could “upgrade to a better weapon.”

Like what? the reporter asked.

“I don’t know,” Darlene said. “I haven’t quite decided.”

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Top Republicans Seem Open to Some Kind of Gun Control

Ohio Star Staff

Congressional Democrats and President Joe Biden have vowed to act on gun control in the aftermath of two mass shootings that left 18 people dead, but despite their majorities in Congress, Democrats’ proposed bills would be extraordinarily unlikely to overcome a Republican Senate filibuster.

Partisan gridlock on guns is nothing new. No major gun control legislation has passed in over 25 years, when Congress passed a 10-year assault weapons ban under former President Bill Clinton. But despite the constant stalemates, some Republicans have offered alternative plans, meaning that the possibility of some form of bipartisan gun legislation may still exist.

Pennsylvania Republican Sen. Pat Toomey said Tuesday that while he did not think the two bills passed by the House would overcome a filibuster, there was still opportunity for compromise.

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Ohio Cities Announce Lawsuit Against State to Curb Gun Violence

The Center Square

Two of Ohio’s largest cities announced a lawsuit against the Ohio Attorney General’s office, claiming the state fails to keep guns out of the hands of criminals.

In a news conference Monday, Columbus Mayor Andrew Ginther and Dayton Mayor Nan Whaley said gaps in the state’s background check databases allowed thousands of people to buy guns who should not have been able to because of criminal convictions.

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Akron Sees Crime Spike Mirroring National Trends

Ben Kolodny

Violent crime in Akron, Ohio has increased, which is mirroring an alarming trend across the country.

Just this week an 8-year girl was murdered and a 14-year-old was wounded in a shooting at a birthday party, according to Fox 8. Furthermore, two men were killed in separate incidents, Fox 8 reported.

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Commentary: Guns Prevent Thousands of Crimes Every Day, Research Shows

Ohio Star Staff

It never fails. A split-second after a mass shooting occurs, grandstanders and ideologues issue statements demanding new gun controls—even if the laws already on the books failed or the laws they want would have made no difference. Case in point: the tragic incidents in Dayton, Ohio, and El Paso, Texas, in early August 2019.

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As DeWine Pursues Expanded Background Checks, California Study Shows They Had No Effect on Homicide or Suicide Rates

Beth Lear

Gov. Mike DeWine is pushing for expanded background checks for gun purchases in Ohio, one of his 17 proposals to combat gun violence. His plan followed the Oregon District shootings in Dayton and comes less than a year after the publication of a 10-year study of California’s comprehensive background check. The study found California’s law made no difference in the number of suicides or homicides committed by firearm.

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Commentary: Mass Shootings Aren’t Growing More Common – And Evidence Contradicts Common Stereotypes About the Killers

Ohio Star Staff

When 22 people were killed in El Paso, Texas, and nine more were killed in Dayton, Ohio, roughly 12 hours later, responses to the tragedy included many of the same myths and stereotypes Americans have grown used to hearing in the wake of a mass shooting.

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Ohio Democrats Renew Gun Control Efforts on Gun Violence Awareness Day

Anthony Gockowski

  Ohio Democrats took to Twitter Friday to renew their calls for gun control legislation on the fifth annual National Gun Violence Awareness Day. “Our members will wear orange this weekend in support of a future free of gun violence. Learn more about how Ohio House Dems are advocating for…

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