State House Committee To Approve Concealed Carry Bill

A House committee is set to approve a concealed weapons bill just over one month after it was introduced.

The House Criminal Justice Committee vote, expected Wednesday, would send the bill to the full House. Last year, a House committee took nine months to recommend a similar bill for passage.

The House and Senate passed separate versions of the bill last year but could not resolve the differences.

The new bill still is opposed by Governor Taft, who won't support any concealed weapons bill that isn't backed by the State Highway Patrol and the Ohio Association of Chiefs of Police.

The patrol doesn't want one provision that would allow motorists to carry loaded guns in their cars. It says that would create too much of a danger for troopers.

Approval by the House Criminal Justice Committee would send the bill to the full House, which could vote on it next week.

Click on the "Read More..." link below for a recap of the Tuesday hearing from Ohioans for Concealed Carry President Jeff Garvas, and for links to more outlets covering these events.

House Bill 12 Hearing Recap:

This is a very brief re-cap of what took place Tuesday, March 4th in the Criminal Justice Committee. I'm not going to go into details and I basically gave up taking notes after the members of the committee started asking the same (or really silly) questions over and over.

The OFCC PAC Chairman (Jim Irvine) and myself had been in Columbus since the early morning hours due to numerous meetings we had scheduled in advance with various members of the House and Senate. Approximately 45 minutes before the hearing was scheduled to begin we arrived at room 114 and found five people who were together waiting for the hearing. The majority of them (all but one?) were wearing OFCC Denim Shirts. I was pleasantly surprised to see so many there so early.

Around 2:40pm the committee hearing began and the chairman heard testimony
on three bills unrelated to concealed carry reform.

Finally, at around 3:40pm the committee took up House Bill 12 and began the
hearing with a brief statement by John Hohenwarter, a lobbyist from the NRA-ILA. For the following 35-45 minutes Mr. Hohenwarter was grilled on numerous issues and asked numerous questions about existing law, House Bill 12, and some things that made no sense in relation to concealed carry. Hohenwarter did a rather good job of answering questions and presenting the legislation properly. I don't recall the last time I saw him provide testimony.

Representative Yates repeatedly asked Hohenwarter how HB12 deals with individuals stopped for a traffic stop and carrying in a motor vehicle. This issued was discussed back and forth numerous times, and Hohenwarter basically made it clear that he expects the Ohio State Highway
Patrol and the Ohio Senate to "do something" that will "make this bill come
back to this body". It appears that some kind of effort to appease the Ohio State Highway Patrol is already in the works. We are already setting the stage to oppose these efforts in the Ohio Senate, but you may want to contact your Senator and indicate that you feel carrying a firearm in your car is vital to the purpose of passing a concealed carry reform law. We believe this may become the primary issue of debate in the Ohio Senate.

The next witnesses (as I recall) to testify were Chief Murphy from the Gahanna Police
Department and his Deputy Chief Rinehart. If you saw these two individuals provide testimony the last time the Criminal Justice Committee took up concealed carry reform you missed an excellent repeat performance. Mr. Murphy and Mr. Rinehart arrive with no written testimony and speak from the heart. They completely agree with the concept of concealed carry, and they're the ideal spokesperson for the issue. They know every imaginable aspect and they know how to properly address any question you could possibly present to them. Due to their knowledge of the issue and the fact
that they are two police officers they were grilled by members of the committee opposed to concealed carry reform. They didn't miss a beat, and they basically "stole the show" for the day. I estimate that they
presented testimony for about 5 minutes each, but they easily stood before the podium for over an hour taking questions. I left wishing I had filmed their appearance before the committee, and I was really glad we had invited them to attend the hearing.

The next person to speak was Curt Winzenreid, a student at Ohio University who is involved in their Second Amendment Club/organization. The approach he used in his testimony was well thought out. As a college student, Curt was opposed to the prohibition on college campuses, and gave numerous examples of how easy it is to find "islands" of private property that can't be accessed without traveling through campuses. He received a single question from Rep. Willamowski who basically indicated that he agreed and that the best
approach would be to find that this issue was unconstitutional. It was pointed out that this was a compromise made with a coalition of people representing numerous colleges.

There was a individual who came from a Prosecutor's office and provided testimony in favor of the bill. I believe he indicated he was speaking for himself, not his employer. I had a hard time hearing him.

Quite a few OFCC members filled the room, but I believe the first to speak was Kathy Wagner who came with her husband Roy. She provided some good testimony, and realizing she wasn't prepared to offer statistics, one of the members of the committee quizzed her.

On numerous occasions various members asked for "stats" of either things that couldn't be statistically recorded or that they know already exist. When OFCC PAC Chairman Jim Irvine eventually offered to provide anyone stats and research information nobody took him up on his offer (he spoke last - more his his testomony below).

There was testimony provided by another OFCC member, Bruce Beatty, from northwest Ohio. Unfortunately I snuck out of the room and only heard bits and pieces of his testimony. Sorry Bruce :)

In addition to providing my own testimony before the committee I delivered a collection of letters that were sent to Ohioans For Concealed Carry
electronically. One letter came from the principle of a K-12 school in Miamisburg and a doctor who was attacked by a drug addict after he refused to provide narcotics. Instead of reading the testimony we provided numerous copies to the committee for distribution.

Jim Irvine was eventually provided the last opportunity to speak and hit on quite a few issues including peaceable journey, the affirmative defense when using deadly for to defend "another", and other issues that need to be addressed in the bill. At the end of his testimony Jim spent time answering
quite a few questions that were presented by members of the committee and left unanswered. Again, when Jim offered information on studies other than
the Lott study nobody wanted to take him up on the offer.

Finally, there was a barrage of questions that really shouldn't have been asked. For instance, at one point, the individual from the prosecutors officer was being grilled about the accuracy of a rifle versus a
handgun. After numerous witnesses made it clear that PA and Indiana require absolutely no training, numerous questions were constantly being asked about re-certification, testing, proficiency, etc.

At 9:00am Wednesday morning there will be an opponent and "Interested Party" hearing in room 116, not the normal room 114. We are under the impression that there will be a significant amount of amendments presented to the committee for consideration, including both favorable and anti-gun amendments. There will be
people from Ohioans For Concealed Carry at the hearing, providing updates throughout the day. We'll try to provide information on what type of amendments are offered and which ones are defeated or adopted. Based on the amount of testimony and if the committee breaks for session this vote may not take place prior to lunch and may be scheduled to take place after session.

If you live in the Columbus Area and can spare the time, you may wish to attend this hearing. Stay tuned for more updates and links to news stories as we find them. If you find a news story directly related to House Bill 12 or concealed carry in general
please feel free to use the "Submit News" button on the left side of our
website.

-Jeff Garvas
Ohioans For Concealed Carry

Click here to read the entire story from the Associated Press.

Click here to read the entire story from the Ohio News Network.