Op-Ed: Cutting the red tape in concealed-carry law

March 7, 2005
Toledo Blade

By James Drew
Columbus Bureau Chief

When the Ohio attorney general's office released a report last week on how many law-abiding citizens have received licenses to carry concealed handguns, Toby Hoover had a question.

"Are we ever going to stop talking about this?" asked Ms. Hoover, executive director of the Toledo-based Ohio Coalition Against Gun Violence.

The answer, as she immediately acknowledged, is no. But barring some real-life sequels to Death Wish, we may wonder many years from now why so much time was spent debating an issue that seems hidden from our everyday lives.

Since the concealed-carry law took effect on April 8, 2004, county sheriffs have approved 45,497 concealed-carry licenses in Ohio.

Given that there are 7.5 million Ohio residents 21 years old and over, Ms. Hoover said the report showed that the legislature spent a lot of time debating a law that only a small percentage of Ohioans wanted to use.

"There are no efforts in the legislature to protect people from becoming gun victims," she said.

But Chad Baus, northwest Ohio coordinator for Ohioans for Concealed Carry, said the numbers show the need to revise the law to ensure that sheriffs don't use red tape to restrict the rights of law-abiding citizens.

He's right.

Unlike Lucas, where citizens can apply for a concealed-carry license during business hours, sheriffs in 36 of 88 counties require appointments to be arranged and several limit the hours when they take applications.

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

"They are taking a 'shall issue' law and making it a 'may issue' law," said Mr. Baus, "And there is no kind of recourse provided when they break the law."

Although Attorney General Jim Petro predicted that 100,000 Ohioans would receive licenses in the first six months of the law, he made that forecast before the legislature revised the bill to make it more restrictive.

"One hundred thousand was realistic before the Senate passed some of the restrictions they passed, and before some of these sheriffs acted the way they have to restrict ability to apply. But show me another consumer protection program that has 175 people a day taking advantage of it," Mr. Baus said.

Click here to read the entire op-ed.