Williams Co. firearms instructor the latest to be prosecuted for teaching short classes
The Bryan Times is reporting that Williams County NRA-certified instructor Jim Bonney pleaded no contest to a misdemeanor falsification charge in Bryan Municipal Court in a case involving his issuance of training certificates for concealed handgun licenses.
From the article:
Ohio law requires 10 hours of classroom instruction on weapons safety and legal responsibilities, plus two hours of shooting practice on a range. After receiving complaints that Bonney’s classes weren’t meeting the time requirements, Williams County Sheriff Steve Towns sent one his deputies through Bonney’s course in West Unity. The undercover deputy sat through the course like any other novice off the street.
Findings indicated that Bonney had condensed his class time to six hours and his supervised range time to 20 minutes, but his training certificates attested to full course completion.
When he pled no contest on Sep. 18, he was found guilty and fined $500. He also got a 180-day suspended jail sentence and he lost his license.
Bonney is never going to teach again but his students are still out there, legally packing heat.
The article goes on to examine how sheriffs in other counties have dealt with similar situations. In each case cited (Clermont, Franklin, Ottawa, and Van Wert) the students were asked to retake the course, and in the Ottawa case two students were prosecuted for felony falsification.
In the Williams County case, however, the Times notes that Sheriff Steve Towns has not pursued Mr. Bonney's students in the months since the conviction of their instructor.
Again, from the article:
“We got several calls on that guy,” the sheriff said. “We issued a warning and when we heard he was still teaching short, we sent somebody in.” His deputy sat through the course on June 7, 2014.
“It was a small class, six or seven people,” he said. “We got with the store that hosted the event. They brought everybody back with a different instructor to make up the extra hours.”
There may be others though, from previous classes that Bonney may have also taught short. Maybe as many as 200 people.
Bonney’s violation “wasn’t that egregious,” Towns said, “not like down in Franklin County where they straight up sold training certificates. I got with the Williams County Prosecutor (Kirk Yosick), and we felt it wouldn’t be practical to revoke 200 permits on speculation. We can only act on what we can prove, and the only proof we got was from June 7. We dealt with that and it’s never going to happen again. It’s ironic because if this had happened under the new law they would have been good to go.
The sheriff's observations about and actions in this case are interesting.
First, after receiving tips that crimes were being committed, he admits to having given the instructor a warning. One is left to wonder if the sheriff provides that same service, for example, when he receives tips about suspected meth labs.
Second, he suggests that the class in question would have met the training requirements that will become law on March 23, 2015. But as noted above, the class in question (and apparently an unknown number of other classes) involved only 20 minutes of range time, whereas the law will continue to require what it always has - two hours of range time and live fire training.
As my friend and colleague Jim Irvine wrote recently, "There are many laws that Buckeye Firearms Association is working to change, but it is critical that we follow the laws that are on the books. It does not matter if we like or dislike a law. It does not matter if we think it's a good or a bad law. All that matters is that it is a law, and we follow it. When something like this happens, it paints all CHL holders, and all gun owners, in a bad light. It is unfortunate that the acts of a few people can damage such a large segment of society, but that is the political reality of such reckless behavior."
Instructors and students be advised - if you apply for an Ohio concealed handgun license before March 23, 2015, you must have taken a class that was at least 12 hours in length. If you take a class that fails to meet the required 12 hours of instruction, your certificate is not valid for purposes of obtaining an Ohio CHL before March 23, 2015, when the mandatory class length will be reduced to eight hours (six hours in the class and two on the range). Further, if you apply for a CHL using an invalid training certificate, you could face criminal charges. Penalties could include suspension/revocation of your CHL, fines, jail, and a lifetime ban on possessing firearms.
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.
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