45,497 Issued: Ohio sheriffs report NO problems with Ohio CCW

Toledo Blade Columbus Bureau Chief James Drew has filed a report on the Ohio Attorney General's release of data on the success of the concealed handgun license program in 2004.

As noted in the story, Attorney General Jim Petro said the measure had a "smooth rollout.''

From the story:

Of Ohio's 88 counties, Lucas ranked 13th in the number of licenses issued, with 882.

"I have not heard of or experienced any problems in any way, shape, or form," said Sgt. Eric Stearns of the Lucas County Sheriff's Office.

The county with the most licenses issued last year was Clermont, east of Cincinnati, with 2,285.

Figures supplied by county sheriffs to the Ohio Peace Officer Training Commission showed that 78 licenses were suspended because a permit-holder had been arrested, charged with certain crimes, or was the subject of a protection order.

Of that total, 42 licenses were revoked, but the number is somewhat skewed because counties also reported permit holders who died under that category. The report didn't break out the reasons for licenses being revoked.

Defiance County issued 127 licenses last year and denied two applications.

Sheriff David Westrick said the claims on both extremes of the decade-long debate in the legislature have not come true since the law took effect.

Sheriff Westrick went on to describe the CHL-holders in Defiance County as supporters of the constitutional right to bear arms. "We have not had one incident with one of those folks," he told the Blade.

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Again, from the story:

Chad Baus, northwest Ohio coordinator for Ohioans for Concealed Carry, said the small fraction - 0.09 percent - who had their licenses revoked shows that the law is working properly.

"It's a vindication against those who claimed we would have severe problems and people could not be trusted for that right of self-defense," Mr. Baus said.

None of the top three counties with the highest populations, Franklin, Hamilton, and Cuyahoga, are in the top six for counties issuing conceal carry licenses.

That's because unlike counties such as Lucas - where residents can walk in during business hours to apply - those sheriffs require appointments to be arranged, Mr. Baus said.

But five of the top six counties for issuing licenses are adjacent to Franklin, Hamilton, and Cuyahoga counties. Ohioans can get a permit in their county or an adjacent one.

"It's capitalism at its best. If a sheriff is not serving their constituents well, those constituents can go where they are better served," Mr. Baus said.

Toby Hoover, executive director of the Toledo-based Ohio Coalition Against Gun Violence, noted to the Blade that Mr. Petro had predicted there would be 100,000 concealed-carry licenses issued in the first six months.

The 45,497 regular licenses issued over eight months in 2004 shows that legislators were "not representing the majority of our constituents," Ms. Hoover told the newspaper. "You cannot conclude they made anything worse or better. It is just too small a number," she claimed.

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Hoover's continued claims of a phantom majority who oppose concealed carry ring as hollow as do claims that most Americans wanted John Kerry to be President. Just last year, a Zogby poll found that 79% of Americans support Right-to-Carry laws, although, based on other states' experience, nowhere near that number will ever obtain licenses. Does Hoover honestly believe that only people with licenses support the human right of self-defense?

And although a few state officials did mention 100,000 as a goal for the first six months, OFCC and others who have spent extensive time studying trends in other states were more reserved.

OFCC believed that, had this law been passed as it was originally written in the Ohio House, a figure of 100,000 would have been possible in the first twelve months. However, under the threat of a veto and thanks to the refusal of a few term-limited Republicans to commit to an override, the Ohio Senate rendered House Bill 12 into a form far different from its original form.

Those restrictions, combined with sheriffs who are severely limiting the amount of people who can apply for licenses by adopting appointment procedures and restrictive hours, are naturally going to exert downward pressure on the numbers who can apply.

Nevertheless, even despite unnecessary restrictions, OhioCCW is a success! When compared to other states' first-year implementation rates, Ohio has actually exceeding many of the yearly rates in the first nine months.

For Ms. Hoover and other gun ban extremists, these glowing reports from Ohio sheriffs should come as a terrible embarrassment.

Before House Bill 12 became law, Hoover repeatedly claimed that "if we have more use of guns, then we're going to have more people who are injured and die."

In 2001, she told the Cincinnati Post "A person who has a gun sees danger. We will have more shootings, more accidents."

After hearing Hoover testify against concealed carry in 2001, one Columbus Dispatch reporter summarized her testimony like this: "Gun-control advocates said it would put too many guns in malls, parks and workplaces, causing fights and accidental shootings."

Hoover has also worked closely with a publicly-elected doom-and-gloomer: State Senator Eric Fingerhut. On the day the OhioCCW bill passed into law, Fingerhut told the Cleveland Plain Dealer that "It's going to lead to tragedies and accidents of all kinds." And in 2001, he told the Cincinnati Post that "the presence of a gun is actually likely to escalate violence."

Just as we predicted, that simply has not happened.

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