The fox guarding the henhouse

When the state of Ohio passed their "shall issue" concealed carry permit legislation in 2004 (based on the courageous efforts of the firearms community in that state, but that's another story), several communities, including the city of Dayton, passed (or already had) local ordinances that severely restricted their citizens' right to keep and bear arms, as well as utilize their new permits. The city of Toledo passed a bill banning concealed carry in the city's parks, for example. No matter that the law-abiding permit holders helped pay for those same parks, and that there was a lot of crime in them, a reasonable justification for wanting to carry there. Dayton, which had already required their citizens to obtain a firearm owner's identification card and had imposed an "assault weapons ban", among more than 80 gun ordinances on the books, was threatening to do the same and more.

Fortunately, in order to head off all of this "death by a thousand cuts" gutting of the concealed carry bill by local martinets, the Ohio Legislature passed a "preemption" law in 2006, over the veto of the governor, that removed all of these patchwork restrictions, and made it illegal for localities to pass gun laws that were stricter than the state's.

Naturally, the local powers that be were furious at this:

"Mayor Rhine McLin and city commissioners said they are very upset at state lawmakers for passing a bill that wipes out local gun laws. They said they believe the situation is drastic and that the state is hurting the city and its residents."

Now we find out that the people that are violating gun laws in Dayton are actually POLICE OFFICERS, not the average private citizen, as Mayor McLin predicted.

A Dayton police officer, Donald Fink, managed to shoot himself in the stomach while on duty with a revolver that he had stolen from the department's property room while he was assigned there. He then tried to blame the shooting on a nonexistent perpetrator. Fortunately, the police department quickly saw through his story, and Officer Fink will probably soon be former Officer Fink. (At least he didn't "fink" on himself, I suppose).

I don't list stories like this to come down on cops in general, they have bad apples just like every other vocation, and even good ones have accidents and make mistakes. I detail these incidents to show the fallacy of thinking of people like Mayor McLin, who by their statements and actions try to convince the peasantry that "Only police officers are professional enough to carry guns".

That just ain't so.