Toledo ABC report proves need for HB 454 (Rule Modification for Concealed Carry in School Zones)

A recent report filed by WTVG (ABC Toledo) on committee passage of HB 454 (Rule Modification for Concealed Carry in School Zones) inadvertently made a perfect case for why this legislation needs to be passed quickly.

From the report:

If you legally carry a gun, it still has to be locked in the car if you're on school grounds! There's been some confusion about the law, so an Ohio House committee signed off on a bill emphasizing that those weapons have to stay in a vehicle.

Confusion indeed. So much so that this report on a bill aimed at clearing up confusion does much more to muddy the waters:

The most important and missing component from current law - and the thing which HB 454 seeks to clear up - is the same thing that is missing from this WTVG report. Let's consider the opening lines once again:

If you legally carry a gun, it still has to be locked in the car if you're on school grounds!

This is actually what HB 454 seeks to allow, but it is not currently allowed under the law, and more CHL-holders will find themselves in legal trouble if they take the advice given in this WTVG report.

There's been some confusion about the law, so an Ohio House committee signed off on a bill emphasizing that those weapons have to stay in a vehicle.

The bill doesn't "emphasize" that a CHL may lock their firearm in the vehicle, as WTVG reports - it legalizes something that is currently illegal.

WTVG repeats the error a second time:

If you carry a gun legally, you have to leave it in a locked car while you're dropping off or picking up your kids at school.

Again, be warned: this is NOT currently the law. Under current law, a license-holder may only carry in a school grounds while in the process of dropping off or picking up a child and they may not leave the vehicle. Leaving a gun in a locked car is currently a FELONY. This is exactly what HB 454 seeks to correct, but it is not currently the law, and ABC Toledo's report proves just how much in need of reform the current law is.

Rather than requiring that the license-holder remain in the vehicle, HB 454 would require that the firearm be remain in the vehicle. The bill also makes it clear that it is permissible to pick up or drop off any person or item, as opposed to just “a child.”

Unlike current law, this is a simple bill that solves real problems while making the law easier to understand, comply with and enforce. The Ohio legislature should move quickly to pass it into law.

Chad D. Baus is the Buckeye Firearms Association Secretary, BFA PAC Vice Chairman, and an NRA-certified firearms instructor. He is the editor of BuckeyeFirearms.org, which received the Outdoor Writers of Ohio 2013 Supporting Member Award for Best Website.