Judge Robert Ruehlman
Hamilton County Common Pleas Court
Hamilton County Courthouse
1000 Main Street
Cincinnati, OH 45202
Your Honor,
I am writing to you today about the current CCW case you are hearing in your courtroom. I know that this is an unusual letter but after reading that you were the judge who also heard the bail hearing for Danny Williams, the suspect who shot up the J.Alexander’s restaurant last week, I felt compelled to write to you and implore you to rule in the CCW case based upon the facts, not the political arguments presented by those who have an interest in disarming the public.
The police cannot be everywhere, and while the first line of defense should be law enforcement agencies, facts dictate that the overwhelming majority of violent crimes are perpetrated outside the immediate vicinity of a police officer. When a criminal element resorts to using a firearm to create an overwhelming advantage over a victim, the sad reality is that by the time the police arrive on the scene to protect, the act has been committed and another loved one is dead or severely injured. Again this past weekend, another random act of violence occurred with the tragic, cold-blooded murder of Richard Hightower in the Sunoco Food Mart at the corner of Struble and Pippin Roads. Would Mr. Hightower still be alive if he or another citizen were empowered with the legal right to ‘level the playing field’ with the perpetrator still at large? Maybe. Will this perpetrator strike again and kill another innocent victim? Maybe. Would Danny Williams have been able to terrorize an entire restaurant of respectable patrons and critically injure his victims? Maybe.
I keep wondering what would happen to my wife if I were Richard Hightower. I keep wondering what fighting chance I might have been given, or the fighting chance that someone might have been able to give if they or I would have been legally empowered with the rights to carry a firearm as a responsible, mature citizen. If it were my wife who had been murdered in cold blood, I would be in the process of filing a wrongful death lawsuit against every politician and law enforcement agency in the State of Ohio. Maybe that is what the citizens will have to start doing in order to be heard.
cont...