Toledo Concealed Carry Advocate Fires Back

April 19, 2004
Fox Toledo

Bruce Beatty has been shooting guns since he was a little kid. Not a big surprise he is also in favor of the new concealed carry law. Now he's taking shots at the city's new plan with some strong bullet points. "We're seeing a three to five percent drop in violent crime, all fields of violent crime per year in states with this law,"Beatty said. "If they'd spend ten percent of the effort going after the crooks as they do going after the law-abiding people crime would take a real nose-dive in Toledo."

Bruce Beatty says he's tired of local government targeting the good guy with their new amendments to the concealed carry law. A law which he beilieves they can't touch. "They're violating the law, they're violating the constitution, they are violating a state supreme court order and they're violation their oaths of office," Beatty said. John Madigan, a lawyer for the city of Toledo, thinks otherwise.

He declined to comment on Mr. Beatty's argument, but sent an email referencing Article 18 Section 3 of the Ohio Constitution. "The Ohio Constitution permits cities to control activity on their own property," Madigan said. "This is a matter of local concern within the Home Rule authority of the City of Toledo" Beatty's argument to that is that Section 3 goes on to say, "municipalities shall have authority to exercise all powers of local self-government and to adopt and enforce within their limits such local police, sanitary and other similar regulations, as are not in conflict with general laws." Beatty stressed the last part of that section.

But Beatty doesn't think the issue is over. He think it'll end up in court with two possible outcomes. One: the public grins and bears it. "Or someone's gonna say the heck with it. I've read the constitution I've read the law, I'm totally in my legal right carrying a fire arm openly or concealed in toledo and they're risking felony prosecution," Beatty said.

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