Newspaper continues campaign to highlight victim zones

The ink was barely dry on HB12 before Ohio newspapers, including the New Philadelphia Times-Reporter, began running stories encouraging businesses to ban CHL-holders. The Times Recorder is continuing their victim zone campaign, with the following:

March 14, 2004
New Philadelphia Times-Reporter

Law won’t allow guns everywhere

Ohioans with valid licenses to carry concealed handguns won’t be permitted to carry the weapons in a number of areas.

For instance, a valid licensee may not carry a concealed handgun into a police station, sheriff’s office or state highway patrol station when the state law goes into effect in April.

Prohibited sites include any premises controlled by the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Identification and Investigation, a state correctional institution, jail, workhouse or other detention facility. Also restricted are school safety zones, courthouses or other buildings in which a courtroom is located, or any room or open air arena in which liquor is dispensed in a premises for which a D permit has been issued.

No one may carry a concealed handgun onto any premises owned or leased by any public or private college, university, or other institution of higher education, unless the handgun is in a locked motor vehicle.

Any church, synagogue, mosque or other place of worship is off limits unless the site is posted or the worship site permits otherwise.

The law also excludes concealed handguns in child day-care centers, and in Type A, B and C family day-care homes; on aircraft; buildings owned by the state or any political subdivision; and in any place in which federal law prohibits the carrying of handguns.

Sheriff Walt Wilson, who is responsible for implementing all facets of the new law in Tuscarawas County, said he is analyzing 140 pages of information provided by the Buckeye State Sheriffs’ Assn.

“I want to make sure I fully understand it and I completely comply with this, so we’re working on it right to get the system in place,” he said.

Wilson said he intended to stay in touch with BSSA because the process is something that all of the state’s 88 sheriffs will have to go through together.

“And if some sheriff develops a better idea than I have that complies with the law, I’ll certainly go with that – I want this to work as smoothly as we can,” Wilson said.