Is this DDN writer on the list of people who have lost their marbles?
Despite the thousands of federal and state gun control laws on the books, Charles McCoy still walked around carrying a concealed gun, shooting willy-nilly at anything that moved, immortalizing himself as the Ohio sniper suspect.
Whether or not he could have gotten a concealed carry license matters none. The Ohio sniper didn't wait until April 8 to begin his sickening crime spree, and yet Mary McCarty wants us to believe that other potential bad people are? Get real.
Gun law conceals loopholes
By Mary McCarty
Dayton Daily News
March 21, 2004
Would sniper suspect Charles A. McCoy Jr. have qualified for a permit under Ohio's soon-to-be-enacted conceal-carry law?
Despite McCoy's apparent history of mental illness — his mother told police he is a paranoid schizophrenic — the answer, in all probability, is yes.
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Kim Norris, spokeswoman for the Ohio Attorney General, said that before his arrest Wednesday, McCoy almost certainly would have qualified under Ohio's new concealed-weapons law, that takes effect April 8. Mentally ill individuals qualify for conceal-carry permits, she explained, unless "they have been adjudicated by the court as a mental defective. That means the court has ruled them incompetent, and committed them involuntarily to a mental institution. According to what has been reported, McCoy never touched the court system, so yes, he would qualify."
McCoy's attorney did not return calls, but the Columbus Dispatch reported Wednesday that local courts have no such records for McCoy.
Gun-control proponents say McCoy might well have obtained a conceal-carry permit even if such records existed. "We wouldn't have caught it in Ohio unless we independently checked the records in all 88 Ohio courts," said Toby Hoover, executive director of the Ohio Coalition Against Gun Violence. "We don't have a statewide database for that information."
Norris said the conceal-carry law mandates creation of such a database to be maintained by the Bureau of Criminal Investigation. But it isn't retroactive; it begins when the law takes effect. Previous records of court-ordered hospitalizations won't be included.
Local sheriffs will have the onus to conduct a thorough background check for past issues of mental competency — no easy feat when they must cull records for 88 counties.
"We're constrained by federal, state, and privacy provisions," Norris said. "We're working very hard to comply with the law while also finding a way to protect Ohioans."
"Under Ohio's law, very few mentally ill people would be prohibited," said Luis Tolley, director of state legislation for the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence. "Texas, of all places, has a comprehensive law, but in Ohio it's a very narrow sliver."
Until he was arrested Wednesday morning in a Las Vegas hotel parking lot, McCoy belonged to the category so legendary in gun-lobbyist lore: the Law-Abiding Citizen. Other than a handful of traffic tickets, he had a clean record.
"Proponents say these are law-abiding citizens," Tolley said. "Well, you're a law-abiding citizen until the day you're arrested. There are law-abiding people who are mentally unstable, prone to anger, short-tempered, under enormous stress, and this law says they can all get permits."
And that, Tolley said, places the public in jeopardy:
"Until Wednesday, Mr. McCoy would have walked right through the door with his conceal-carry permit. There are thousands of people like this man who have clean records, but are ticking time bombs.
"And this law is going to permit each and every one of them to carry a concealed weapon."
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