What Do We Want? Better Gun Laws.

​     Yesterday afternoon after our customary Wednesday morning conclave of the Panera Posse,

...one of the Posse members and myself headed across town to the Columbus suburb of Worthington to the office of our district Congressman Pat Tiberi

...to join in a protest outside Congressman Tiberi's office calling for Congress to pass stricter gun laws.
    This week the Ohio Coalition Against Gun Violence (OCAGV) has been coordinating events across Ohio  as part of anti- gun violence campaign called Ohio Sit-In to #DisarmHate. 
​      Yesterday, in tandem  with our demonstration in Worthington,

​...people also came together throughout the day to protest  gun violence  in the cities of Norwalk, Bowling Green and Cincinnati.

    The Worthington protest was scheduled to take place between 1:00 to 2:00 pm, though by the time my friend and I arrived at 1:00 several dozen people already lined the sidewalk outside Mr. Tiberi's office at 250 East Wilson Bridge Road waving signs,  some provided by the OCAGV,

...and some home-made.

    From time to time we broke into a chant of "Disarm Hate!"  or  "Ban AR-15's",

​...or "What do we want?  Gun control!  When do we want it? Now!"

      One of every few cars that passed us by honked in support, though one youngster driving a Jimmy John's delivery vehicle slowed down to give us the finger, and another guy shouted as he drove by, "Why don't you get a job?!" Which sent a ripple of laughter thorough the group as most of the demonstrators were obviously retirees.

     The local TV station was there and interviewed my Posse pal.

     I got into a conversations with several of my  fellow protesters, including a lovely lady named Elicia L. Finnell,

​...who founded the Jobs for Columbus Initiative,

...which is promoting a tax-ballot issue to raise the Columbus tax rates by 1/2% to fund job-training internships "to keep residents from falling off the financial edge while waiting out the economic recession and the return of higher paying jobs into our cities."
        After we'd been outside for about 50 minutes a representative from the OCAGV led us across the parking lot,

...to Pat Tiberi's office,

​....which we were allowed to enter,   and where we staged a sit-in, though Congressman Tiberi was, we were told, out at a scheduled appointment.
       We sat in for a symbolic 8 minutes since an Ohioan falls victim to gun violence every 8 hours.

       Pat Tiberi's office  released the following statement in response to the sit-in:
     “Congressman Tiberi supports the Second Amendment and preserving the constitutional rights of law-abiding Americans. Regarding expanding background checks, Congressman Tiberi believes we need to ensure current laws are properly enforced to keep guns out of the hands of criminals and terrorists, while also ensuring we are protecting the rights of responsible and lawful gun owners.”
     Which was basically saying nada.
     But that's okay, it's not over yet.  There's going to another Ohio Sit-In to #DisarmHate demonstration tomorrow at Congressman Steve Stivers' office.

     The address is 3790 Municipal Way, Hilliard, OH 43026.
​      Anybody else want to join me?

http://www.10tv.com/article/dozens-protesters-picket-rep-tiberis-office-hoping-stricter-gun-laws