Editorial: Elyria winged by its wild shot at keeping guns out of city parks

September 10, 2004
Lorain Morning Journal

The decision by Elyria City Council to specifically ban concealed handguns from the city's parks carries no penalties. That makes it unenforceable, and Police Chief Mike Medders says it won't be enforced. Even if it's a symbolic statement against guns, as Mayor Bill Grace suggested, it's a bad move.

Unenforced and unenforceable laws only breed contempt for the law in general.

We don't want to see people carrying concealed guns in parks any more than the 10 councilmen who voted in favor of the provision. But their legislative action would have been better used to adopt a resolution urging the Ohio General Assembly to amend Ohio's new concealed carry law so as to include parks among the many places where guns are specifically prohibited.

The state law prohibits local governments from adding to or taking away from the sites where the law says concealed guns are and are not permitted for concealed-carry permit holders.

That's what Elyria Councilman Paul Blevins, R-4, argued in casting the lone vote against the ban on guns in parks. But city Law Director Terry Shilling replies by calling that provision in the concealed carry law a violation of Ohio's Constitution and of the principle of ''home rule'' by cities.

If Elyria's law had penalties and led to a prosecution for carrying a concealed gun in a park, then the issue could be tested in court. But, as there are no penalties and the police won't enforce the toothless paper tiger, then it likely will remain untested as well as useless.

Elyria's latest action drew mockery from a local pro-gun activist, who said, ''Basically, you have a situation where it's like, "Stop, or I'll say stop again.''

A law that has no reply against such scorn is really a wound in the legal system.

Commentary:
They just don't seem to get it, do they? It isn't pro-self-defense advocates who have "scorn" for the law.

Rather, it was the City of Elyria, Clyde, Toledo etc. who scorned the law by attempting to subvert the will of the General Assembly with these signs and ordinances banning guns, even after the Ohio Attorney General told them it was illegal.

And it is the editorial boards of this and other like-minded newspapers who continually endorse scorn for the law when they encourage city officials who do subvert the law, and who publish lists of license-holders while at the same time freely admitting that it was the intent of the legislature to keep these records private.