Section 9 violators starting to get the message
From the moment the first reports of counties or municipalities passing concealed carry bans on public property broke, Ohioans For Concealed Carry has been informing our website readers that these laws were a violation of Section 9 of House Bill 12.
Last week, OFCC acted to put the violators on notice.
We are now pleased to report the first signs that city officials beginning to follow their obligations under the law, without burdening taxpayers with unnecessary and costly court battles.
The City of Chardon announced today in the Cleveland Plain Dealer that it would reverse it's ban in city parks.
- "Communities have already tried to expand the areas where the new law restricts concealed guns. More than a dozen have passed laws to deal with the issue, or are considering such laws, according to Ohioans for Concealed Carry.
Chardon City Council last month passed an ordinance to stop people from carrying guns onto city-owned property such as parks. That prompted a letter from Ohioans for Concealed Carry that reminded the city that the new law prohibits expansion of restricted areas. (See related story for a list of restricted areas.) If necessary, more letters will be sent, said Jim Irvine, the group's spokesman.
"We expect them to abide by the law," Irvine said. "Gun owners have obeyed a law they didn't like for many years."
Chardon got the message and is expected to rescind the ordinance Thursday, said Law Director Jim Gillette.
"If someone feels they need to bring a gun to the Friday night concerts in the park this summer, I guess they're entitled to," Gillette said.
The Greater Cleveland Regional Transit Authority can prohibit guns in its buildings and terminals, but not on buses.
"The law doesn't cover buses and that's our dilemma," said Michael York, RTA's deputy operations manager. "We can post a sign, but if someone had a permit to carry a concealed weapon and they were stopped on the bus, there is no legal recourse."
Not everyone has gotten the message, as is clear from a story in several Gannett News papers.
- "Ohioans for Concealed Carry recently sent letters to several cities advising them they cannot ban concealed handguns from public open lands.
Gerard Valentino, central Ohio coordinator for the group, said municipalities cannot place further restraints on concealed handguns than what is outlined in the bill. The bill does not specify public parks or fairgrounds as gun-free zones.
But John Mahoney, deputy director of the Ohio Municipal League, notes that the law also doesn't specifically exclude parks from the definition of publicly owned buildings.
"I don't think the people of Ohio think this bill was about allowing firearms around the playgrounds of this state," he said. "For a lot of our communities, they're not banning conceal and carry. They're banning firearms."
John Mahoney's claim that park bans are legal since the General Assembly "doesn't specifically exclude parks from the definition of publicly owned buildings" make us want to ask him if he knows that the meaning of "is" is.
And since the Ohio Supreme Court recently ruled that openly carrying a firearm is a constitutionally-proteected "fundamental individual right" in Ohio, trying to draw a another Clintonian distinction between banning concealed firearms and banning firearms simply won't pass muster.
Attorney General Jim Petro recently told several Ohio newspapers he wouldn't be surprised if the issue is eventually decided by the courts.
"I'm not sure about open parkland and whether or not, because it's owned or leased by a local political subdivision, whether they could post it for no carry," he said. "I would imagine there will be governments that will choose to post that. And this could become a legal case."
He's certainly right about that. That is, unless other political subdivisions do as Chardon and Salem have, and reverse course on their Section 9 violations.
Click here for a complete list of Section 9 violators (see Taxpayer Funded Entities)
Related Stories:
Salem Parks Commission: Ban on concealed weapons in park won't pass muster
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