Two more of Ohio’s newspapers have published stories on the recent release of CHL data from 2004. Both newspapers focused significant attention on Clermont County, where more licenses were issued than anywhere else in the state.

From the Columbus Dispatch:

While Ohio became the 45th state to allow residents to carry hidden guns, the Buckeye State is "ahead of the game in terms of licenses issued," according to Chad D. Baus, spokesman for Ohioans For Concealed Carry.

Minnesota issued 9,100 licenses in one year after passing a similar law in 2003. New Mexico issued 2,201 licenses in its first year last year.

Baus criticized sheriffs in Ohio’s most-populous counties for requiring applicants to make appointments. Sheriffs in 36 of 88 counties require appointments, he said.

"People are forced to go next door," he said, referring to outlying counties with fewer restrictions.

County sheriffs are inconsistent about office hours for taking applications, he said. For example, applications are accepted only two hours a week in Fulton County, where Baus lives.

"It’s bad customer service," he said. "Sheriffs sometime forget they are elected."

The Dispatch noted that Madison County led the state in licenses issued as a percentage of its population, while Clermont County, near Cincinnati, issued the most permits. The Dispatch also noted that Hamilton, Mahoning and Cuyahoga counties rejected the most concealed-carry applications.

Clermont County Sheriff A.J. Rodenburg, Jr. told the newspaper about 60 percent of the applicants came from other counties. Rodenberg expanded on the reasons for his success in issuing licenses in the Cincinnati Enquirer:

Concealed-carry advocates lobbied hard for that [adjoining county] provision, fearing some counties would place further restrictions on obtaining permits.

"Word got out quick that if you come out here, you get quick, efficient service and don't have to schedule appointments," said Clermont County Sheriff A.J. "Tim" Rodenberg. "People will (look at the numbers) and think we're a bunch of cowboys and Indians out here, who knows... But these are law-abiding citizens."

Rodenberg and others stressed that they didn't cut corners and made all required background checks.

But unlike Hamilton, Franklin and Cuyahoga counties, Clermont County accepts walk-in applicants.

"It's free enterprise," said Chad Baus, spokesman for Ohioans for Concealed Carry.

"People are going where they can get good customer service... But that means some of these smaller counties are bearing the brunt of the workload."

Steve Barnett, spokesman for the Hamilton County Sheriff's Office, told the Enquirer that scheduling appointments is the only way a large county can deal with the rush of applicants.

But just to the north of Hamilton County, Montgomery County Sheriff David Vore doesn’t seem to be having the administrative difficulties Hamilton County Sheriff Simon Leis Jr. is. Citizens of the City of Dayton (and the rest of Montgomery County) enjoy a policy of accepting applications 5 days per week with NO restrictive appointments, and Montgomery County issued nearly twice as many licenses as Hamilton County, despite being a bit smaller in terms of population.

"I can see something positive out of Clermont being ranked at the top for [CHLs] issued," Rodenberg told the Enquirer. "Maybe the bad guy sees that lots of citizens out there in Clermont County have the permits, so he'll go to another county to commit his crime ... It levels the playing field for the good guys against the bad guys."

Related Stories:
Sheriff Leis “totally opposed” to being shopped to check quality of service

45,497 Issued: Ohio sheriffs report NO problems with Ohio CCW

Evaluation: First 270 days with Ohio's Concealed Handgun License Law

By Larry S. Moore

Cambridge Ohio - At the recent League of Ohio Sportsmen 97th annual convention held at Salt Fork State Lodge near Cambridge, the sportsmen delegates overwhelming adopted a resolution dealing with concealed carry. That resolution, number 05-02, concludes,

"Resolved, That the League of Ohio Sportsmen requests that the Ohio Division of Wildlife review and update the hunting regulations to permit holders of Concealed Handgun Licenses to carry concealed while hunting in accordance with the concealed handgun law.”

The Ohio Division of Wildlife personnel attending the convention did not speak during the discussion of the resolution. The Division has been reviewing and discussing the impact of Ohio’s concealed carry law for hunters, public ranges operated by the Divisions, and other areas.

We have discussed the issue with the Division at various public meetings. The latest discussions were at the US Sportsmen Alliance Legislative Reception. Feedback from Division personnel has been consistent. Basically they need some time to examine the issues and become comfortable with the law.

We applaud the Division of Wildlife for examining the regulations and being open to discussion of permitting concealed carry while hunting for the holders of a Concealed Handgun License.

The annual Division of Wildlife open houses are this Sunday, March 6 from noon to 3:00 PM. Sportsmen interested in concealed carry need to make their voices heard at these events.

Sportsmen unable to attend the open houses can write:

Ohio Department of Natural Resources
Division of Wildlife
2045 Morse Rd., Bldg. G
Columbus, OH 43229-6693

Related Story:
OFCC issues first ''Division of Wildlife Concealed Carry Status Report''

Behind a headline shouting that “Crime rate falls considerably in city for 3rd straight year”, the Toledo Blade revealed that violent crimes - murder, manslaughter, robbery, aggravated assault, and rape - rose 3 percent, from 3,184 in 2003 to 3,276 last year.

The story says Toledo's crime totals could not be compared to statistics in other Ohio cities because not all of the cities have compiled their 2004 totals.

The City of Toledo is one of the most gun control-laden cities in the state.

Ohio House Representative Tom Brinkman (R-Cincinnati) has introduced a bill that would amend Ohio's Concealed Handgun License law to something similar to what the State of Alaska passed recently.

Although a thorough analysis needs to be done, Ohio House Bill 91 appears to be a good beginning towards addressing some of the problems associated with current Ohio law.

As with all of the concealed carry reform bills that have been or that are about to be
introduced, we will watch HB91's progress carefully.

The Kansas City Star is reporting that despite some initial confusion and several anti-gun lawsuits, Missourians everywhere outside St. Louis city and county today can apply for concealed gun permits.

The newspaper reports the once confusing patchwork of counties issuing permits has cleared up, and that contrary to some predictions, there appears to be neither a verifiable spike nor decline in gun crimes attributable to the law.

"We heard before that bar fights were going to turn into gun fights and all that," said Tim Oliver, a Boone County firearms trainer. "It just hasn't been a problem anywhere."

From the story:

Like Oliver, Kansas City attorney Richard Miller isn't aware of major problems caused by Missouri concealed gun permit holders. But [he claims] that's partly because the names of permit holders are kept secret under the state law.

"Is there any proof out there that concealed-carry holders are preventing crimes, which was one of their arguments? We'll never know that," said Miller, one of the attorneys who challenged the constitutionality of the law. "Is there any proof that conceal-carry holders are engaged in criminal activity? We'll never know that, because the permits are closed records."

This assertion is ironic, considering that Ohio’s concealed handgun license records are NOT protected, and despite the fact that the Ohio Newspaper Association used these same excuses when lobbying for the http://www.buckeyefirearms.org/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=22... ">Media Access Loophole, the provision is not being used for the reasons they claimed. Media still report daily on gun crimes, and never note the fact that the crimes are constantly committed by people WITHOUT licenses. Everything that is needed to determine that Ohio CHL-holders are law-abiding can be obtained from the Attorney General's annual report, which shows that just 0.09% of licenses had to be revoked for any reason, including the death of the license-holder.

As of Friday, 15,442 concealed gun background check applications had been submitted to the Highway Patrol, which amounts to 0.27% of the state population. In Ohio, 0.398% of the population have obtained licenses in the first 9 months, which amounts to nearly 1 percent of eligible [of age] applicants.

The newspaper reports that separate bills attempting to fix a funding flaw in the original law have been endorsed by House and Senate committees. The bills would allow the fees to cover all costs related to processing concealed gun permits, and would let counties seek state reimbursement if their costs exceeded the maximum $100 fee. Passage of the legislation could persuade St. Louis to start issuing concealed gun permits.

The newspaper reports the city already has spent about $30,000 (!! - Ohio sheriffs paid around $8000 for theirs) on an electronic fingerprint scanner, has trained its personnel and developed procedures to issue permits, said Mike Guzy, administrative assistant to St. Louis Sheriff James Murphy.

"We're ready to go if they'll fix the law," Guzy said.

March 1, 2005
The (Ohio State University) Sentinel

by Antonio Ciaccia

Picture this: a public policy institute at Penn State University is awarded money to establish an abortion research center. The money to establish the center is donated by the Christian Coalition, and the appointed director of the center has written op-ed pieces in the past about how abortion is comparable to murder. Then the center releases documents authored by its director that discuss the interpretation of the Constitution that could forbid abortion all together.

Does this sound like a reliable source for fair research?

While the above scenario is fictitious, a very similar situation has arisen at Ohio State, thanks to our very own Second Amendment Research Center (SARC). In March 2003, the John Glenn Institute created SARC to “promote informed discussion of an important policy issue and stimulate interest in history as a dynamic field relevant to current policy issues.” The director of the center, Dr. Saul Cornell, a Constitutional historian, was chosen to shed light on the difficult topic of gun policy.

Cornell was no stranger to the issue of the Second Amendment. He had written on the topic many times before. In 2001, Cornell published a piece entitled “The Second Amendment Under Fire,” where he attempted to provide a fair analysis of the gun debate. In the piece, he invokes an idea that has been pushed by gun control advocates- the idea that the Second Amendment is a collective right. This interpretation of the amendment states that the right to bear arms is not a right for individuals to own firearms, but instead, a right for the military to bear arms.

In the piece, Cornell gives much credence to the collective rights argument and cites many examples to support the claim, but he offers little evidence from individual rights theorists, resorting to the hefty overstatement that “most historians, however, reject the individual rights interpretation.” This fringe interpretation was to be the basis of much work to come for Cornell. But his collective rights work was not to be his only hypothesis on the subject of gun control.

In 2000, Cornell and several other academics composed an open letter to Charlton Heston and the National Rifle Association, attacking the group’s policy preferences, calling those policies “a disservice to all Americans.” The letter aimed to “prevent the killings and violence that plague our country today.”

While the NRA wasn’t too popular in most circles at the time, this letter was written on an entirely separate premise from his collective rights work, which went into full swing only a year later. A simple timeline of the writings shows that Cornell’s opinion was dead set beforehand on worrying about gun control, rather than Constitutional wording.

Yet despite his past hostility towards the right to bear arms and his highly controversial collective rights view, the Glenn Institute named him director and wanted to set up this research center as an intellectual home for the new collective rights interpretation. In 2003, SARC was established with a $400,000 grant from an alarming source: the Joyce Foundation, one of the nation’s most prominent gun control advocacy groups.

The Joyce Foundation has long been involved in the issue of gun control. It makes yearly donations to anti-firearm groups like Handgun Free America, a group “dedicated to the ban of private handgun ownership in the U.S.” As you can see, the prerequisites for funding from Joyce are not exactly based on two-sided debate. Even more startling is that Handgun Free America received only $35,000, while Ohio State’s SARC was given over eleven times that amount!

Click here for the entire op-ed.

The Dayton Daily News is reporting that State Rep. William Seitz, R-Cincinnati, who chairs the pivotal House Civil & Commercial Law Committee, announced Wednesday he wants to use legislative proposal concerning "open records", which proponents say is needed to strengthen access to public records, to close public access to the names of Ohioans who have received concealed handgun licenses.

From the story:

"The names of people who have exercised their lawful right to carry a concealed weapon for their own safety is not, in my view, a proper public record," said Seitz, chairman of the Civil and Commercial Law Committee.

In addition to concealed-carry, Seitz said the committee might want to consider other exemptions to Ohio's open records law to "protect privacy rights of people throughout Ohio."

According to the newspaper, Seitz commented before and after his committee held its first hearing on legislation sponsored by Rep. Scott Oelslager, R-Canton, that would require all elected public officials to attend training programs every two years about the state's open records and open meeting laws.