Today Ohio Attorney General Richard Cordray announced a new reciprocity agreement with the state of Nebraska in a statement released by his office.

A recent article in the Marietta Times covered the proposed changes to Ohio law (SB239 and HB203) that would make it legal for a person who has a concealed carry license to carry their firearm into any place that serves food even if they serve liquor (HB203) or any place that serves liquor (SB239) as long as the permit holder isn't drinking.

As the article points out, The Ohio restaurant association and Fraternal Order of Police have come out against the proposed changes. The Buckeye State Sheriff's Association has as well. But why?

They claim it is a "bad idea" and warm about "mixing guns and alcohol." Yet approximately 40 states, including every single state surrounding Ohio, have some provision in their law for carrying guns in places where alcohol is served. Nobody can explain why there would be a problem here when there aren't problems in those states.

Visit the Cleveland Gun Rights Examiner for the rest of this article.

Today the Columbus Dispatch printed a guest column written by me over the past week and a half, Myths surround guns-in-restaurants bill.  I'm the first to admit if anyone needs an editor reviewing their work it would be me, but in this case editorial changes to the submitted article unfortuantely make it sound like changes made in SB184 are actually pending in SB239.   Suffice it to say I didn't write it that way and the editors are just not as familiar with the legislation as we are.  The column was written after many of us became frustrated with these two editorials:  Dispatch: Gun People Never Satisfied & Dispatch: Bar Those Guns printed within days of each other.

updated:  I forgot to mention earlier, if you're coming here because of the editorial and on the fence, please visit our youtube channel and watch the videos from Ms. Barbara Holt & Ms. Nikki Goeser

If you've come here and found us because of the editorial, there is a hearing today on SB239 and SB247 today begining at 10:00am in the Ohio Senate.   If you work downtown or can otherwise break away, consider visiting the Ohio Statehouse and testify in favor of SB239.  Otherwise, contact your Ohio Senators and Representatives and tell them you want this bill passed.

If you're new to Ohioans For Concealed Carry welcome!  Check out our discussion forums and consider becoming a member today.

Joseph McVey is a national media darling now because he did the unthinkable - he possessed a firearm in the parking lot of an airport at which the President of the United States had just departed.  For the "going armed to the terror of the public" charges to make any sense one must set aside the fact that McVey apparently had an Ohio Concealed Handgun License issued by the Coshocton County Sheriff's Office and recognized by North Carolina – until the Coshocton County Sheriff suspended it this week based on a rather perplexing interpretation of Ohio Revised Code 2923.128.

The North Carolina Attorney General's Office told the Asheville Citizen Times that "going armed to the terror of the public" means carrying a gun for the purpose of terrifying others.  North Carolina and Ohio have entered into a reciprocity agreement, which means McVey was more than likely lawfully in possession of his firearm, and chances are prosecutors will have a very hard time proving that McVey's intent was to terrorize anyone.  But the airport Police Chief Jeff Augram wants us to forget about the law and think of the children, as he was quoted in this Citizen Times article:

“We had a large number of folks watching Air Force One take off and a lot of children,” Augram said, adding “others in that area expressed fear with his display.”

In an effort to make McVey look like he was impersonating law enforcement the news media has gone out of their way to refer to his "large" antennas on the back of his Grand Prix, a vehicle not known to be used by law enforcement.  The media went on to incriminate him for having had a police scanner, and the fact that he had a siren and strobe lights in his vehicle.  They make little effort to point out that this equipment is legitimately possessed by McVey, who has a history of using it for legitimate purposes, not impersonating police officers.