An Ohio newspaper editor says she was fired for insubordination after allowing staffers at the Bowling Green Sentinel-Tribune to read an editorial she wrote about the National Rifle Association and responsible gun ownership, the Toledo Blade newspaper reported Wednesday.
Jan Larson McLaughlin told the Blade she didn’t think she was fired for writing the editorial, but for attempting to talk with the publisher, Karmen Concannon, about “how to proceed” after Concannon rejected it.
“I knew that particular editorial was dead, but I needed to know how to proceed from there,” McLaughlin told the Blade. “I needed some direction. She refused to talk to me. … The newsroom standing behind me was just the last straw of me constantly pushing to be a better newspaper, to be who we are supposed to be in the community.”
Concannon didn’t respond to the newspaper’s request for comment.
The unpublished editorial, which was obtained by the Blade, urged gun owners not to let the powerful lobbying arm of the NRA continue to control gun policy in America.
“The NRA has not always been the paranoid ‘pry the gun from my cold dead hands’ organization that it is now,” McLaughlin wrote. “It was formerly an association aimed at serving its membership by providing safety classes, marksmanship training and even gun control support. But somewhere it got hijacked from its real purpose to its fanatical presence. It’s time for reasonable gun owners to say enough is enough.”
