Noting the mugging of a colleague who had just left the office, Cleveland Plain Dealer columnist Phillip Morris predicts that Ohio state public safety budget cuts will lead more citizens to arm themselves for self defense. “For the reporter and his Plain Dealer family, the crime is an assault on our collective sense of security,” Morris says.
Vicious muggings happen every day, and many of them go unreported to the police or the media, depending on the neighborhoods or status of the victims, says Morris. He says that public safety services will be hit soon with the impact of big state budget cuts. He concludes that, “the possibility of an increased frequency of similar assaults in the face of declining public safety forces — will only lead to more people arming themselves.”