Column: Concealed-carry debate evolving into battle over property rights

The Columbus Dispatch's Lee Leonard has published a column that does a good job of explaining the most recent state of the debate on potential amendments to HB12 in the Senate.

Click here to read the entire column or read below for the story, and commentary.

Monday, May 26, 2003
LEE LEONARD

The debate over whether to allow concealed handguns in Ohio has always been about constitutional rights and individual liberty, but recently it has taken a turn toward property rights.

Some conservatives may be torn between supporting the right to carry concealed weapons and the right of a private property owner to ban them.

That doesn’t mean that a gun rights advocate would drop his or her support of concealed carry just because a small portion of the proposed law may violate property rights. But it does set up an interesting conflict.

The House-passed bill is sitting in a Senate committee and is expected to emerge in several weeks.

One of the provisions would allow private-property owners to ban concealed weapons by posting a conspicuous notice at the entrance or entrances. The provision is mainly for stores and other businesses; residential-property owners may ask visitors to disarm, and if they don’t, cite them for trespassing.

However, in what has become known as the parking-lot exemption, permit-holders could bring their weapons onto the business property as long as they leave the guns in a locked compartment of the vehicle. This provision is for employees who feel they need to protect themselves while traveling to and from work.

Gahanna Police Chief Dennis Murphy, who favors concealed carry, said last week that requiring people to store their weapons would draw more attention than if they just carried the weapons under cover.

Murphy said thieves would be drawn to cars if they saw the owners transferring their weapons to a locked location in the cars, such as the trunks.

Business groups are lobbying for elimination of the exemption, claiming it violates the right of a business owner to control the behavior of employees on the site of the business.

There are plenty of well-publicized examples of employees "going postal’’ and bringing weapons to the place of business to do harm. The business groups don’t want to add to these instances.

They reason that employers should have the right to regulate what comes onto the business property, and that it should be the subject of employer-employee contract, not state law.

Once you get into handgun policies in places of business, the concealed-carry issue becomes more complex than ever.

For example, will insurance companies start charging higher premiums to cover businesses that allow concealed weapons?

Will employers’ handgun policies generate more lawsuits, putting concealed carry into the category of medical malpractice, where insurance costs threaten to drive folks out of business?

Although House Bill 12 bars lawsuits against business owners for deaths or injuries resulting from a failure to ban handguns, there could still be legal challenges to a store owner’s policy, whether it allows or bans weapons.

Proponents of the bill would argue that this has not happened in other states with concealed-carry laws. In fact, there may be some individuals in Ohio stores with concealed weapons right now. We don’t know because the weapons aren’t visible, no one challenges the carrier and, fortunately, nothing happens very often.

At the most recent hearing, Eleanor W. Helper of Columbus provided compelling testimony about how her daughter narrowly escaped with her life in early May by retreating to her office on the campus of Case Western Reserve University and slamming the door as a gunman fired through it.

Although House Bill 12 would prohibit guns on college campuses, this gunman probably wouldn’t have heeded that ban. But gun-rights advocates argue that the disgruntled former university student, who killed one person, might have been stopped by a concealed-weapons carrier, perhaps even Helper’s daughter.

Curt Winzenreid, an Ohio University sophomore from Martins Ferry, told the panel he’d like to see the proposed campus ban on concealed guns dropped. He said the ban is an advertisement for rapes, muggings and assaults, because the perpetrators don’t worry about facing firearms.

The argument could still be made for a weapons prohibition on the Ohio State University campus, because many of the rapes, muggings and assaults take place in the off-campus areas.

Those who want the unrestricted right to carry prefer no bill at all to the restrictive House Bill 12. Sen. Teresa Fedor, D-Toledo, asked those testifying how the bill could be fixed, but got little help. "We as public officials are responsible for public safety,’’ she said. "I’m trying to put you into our shoes.’’

The Second Amendment advocates say individuals are responsible for their own safety and should be allowed to carry concealed weapons.

Lee Leonard covers the Statehouse for The Dispatch.

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OFCC PAC Commentary:
What is it about some in Ohio who can't seem to be bothered with looking at other states for answers to many of these questions? We have said many times that we're not breaking new ground with a concealed carry reform bill in Ohio, and we're not breaking new ground on the questions surrounding a parking lot exemption either.

Kentucky has a parking lot exemption for businesses in their CCW law, which was passed in 1996. But did the Ohio Chamber of Commerce or Ohio Manufacturer's Association think to call the Kentucky Chamber of Commerce before testifying before the Senate in opposition to this provision in HB12? Did they ask if there have been problems with liability or insurance issues, or with compliance to OSHA standards, or with ANYTHING at all to do with the Kentucky parking lot exception? NO. But we did:

Mr. Jeff Alan, Director of Legislative Education in the Kentucky Chamber of Commerce, has told OFCC that they did not oppose this language when the bill was being considered. Further, he said that in the 7 years since the law was passed, they haven't had EVEN ONE report of a business having troubles with the parking lot exemption. What's more, there is no history of any litigation on the issue. Mr. Jim Ford, Director of Business Education, travels around the state to businesses large and small. He concurred with Mr. Alan.

The thing to keep in mind here is this: Kentucky's law, unlike HB12, does not give KY businesses the blanket immunity that HB12 does. So what do Ohio's business lobbyists have to fear? Nothing. Once again, we are reduced in this debate to arguing about the "what-ifs", as if there is no wealth of experience from which to answer the questions.

As it was passed by the House, HB12 strikes a perfect balance between the property rights of businesses, and the property rights of a private vehicle owner who wished to exercise their constitutional right to self-defense while traveling to and from that place of business. To remove the exemption would allow a business to deny employees and customers their right to self-defense.

If the OCC and OMA continue to demand that the parking lot exemption be removed, we suggest that businesses who choose to ban license-holders also loose their civil immunity. Businesses should have to face the legal consequences of rendering their customers and employees defenseless as they travel to and from that place of business. Because once again, experience proves unarmed citizens are much more likely to be injured (or worse) when attacked) than someone who defends themself.