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OH: Plain Dealer: "CCW law inevitable" (very pro CCW) (1/9/2002)
Josey1
Member Posts: 9,598 ✭✭
Gun laws must aim for responsibility 01/08/02It's all but inevitable that Ohioans will soon have the right to legally carry concealed weap ons. Hamilton County Common Pleas Judge Bob Ruehlman is ex pected to rule today in a case seeking to over turn Ohio's law banning concealed carry. And two bills are pending in the legislature that would do away with Ohio's irrational "affirmative defense" gun law. Forty-four states already allow some form of concealed carry, and of the states surrounding Ohio, only Michigan continues to hold out against it. There are no compelling logical or statistical reasons to deny Ohioans the sort of gun rights already enjoyed by most of the rest of the nation. States that have relaxed their gun laws are no more dangerous than the six states that continue to forbid concealed weapons. For opponents of relaxed gun laws, there are only emotionally charged reasons that play on worst-case imaginings that drunken or testosterone-drenched gun-toting idiots will quickly transform our state into a place brimming with Dirty Harrys, or that the handguns of the law-abiding routinely will be turned against them by opportunistic criminals. If those worst-case scenarios were to happen, Ohio would be the only state to date where concealed-weapons laws actually served to create a new class of criminals and victims. States that allow those with permits to carry weapons have seen no outbreaks of vigilante justice. Still, there is some reason for pause, even among those who favor gun laws that eliminate the armed criminals' natural advantage. Such a reason came out of Nashville, Tenn., late last week, when a police officer was shot to death by his 3-year-old son. Authorities say that Joshua Haffner, a rookie officer who graduated from Nashville's police academy in November, had just arrived home, placed his service weapon on the kitchen table and turned to greet his pregnant wife, when the 3-year-old picked up the gun and fired one shot into his father's back. The tragedy was only heightened by the fact that Haffner had taken a home-firearms-safety course before he was issued his weapon. But with guns, life or death is often decided in a split second. Haffner's training was not enough to save him from the friendly fire of a child who thought the gun was a toy. And from such cases are built the arguments of those who worry that accidental deaths will increase if lawmakers are not careful about the gun laws they embrace. Still, the worries needn't become realities if Ohio relaxes its gun laws with due caution. At a minimum, a new concealed-weapons law should require extensive firearms training, rigorous gun-safety courses and a constant monitoring of permit holders to ensure that they do not commit felonies. An urbanized state like Ohio does not have the luxury of assuming that the bulk of its permit holders are hunters or those living in remote places where 9-1-1 doesn't mean much. Ohio's population density alone demands a higher standard of accountability, training and follow-up. There is no reason to believe that armed Ohioans would behave any differently from firearms carriers throughout the nation. A recent study out of Kentucky, for instance, showed that of the nearly 60,000 Kentuckians who have applied for and received gun permits since the state adopted its CCW law in 1996, a statistically negligible number have committed gun crimes. In 2000, Kentucky police filed only four weapons-assault charges against permit holders, and three of those involved assaults on family members, not strangers, as gun detractors routinely predict. Cuyahoga County Sheriff Gerald McFall is no fan of CCW. He said he is the only one of Ohio's 88 sheriffs who is against allowing Ohioans to pack heat. But he said he doesn't lose sleep over the prospect of a suddenly armed citizenry. "If somebody punches you in the mouth, do you run to your truck and get the .38?" he asked rhetorically. "That's the person we need to be careful with. "But it's the sensibility of carrying a weapon that must come into play. If you carry a weapon, you must be responsible. It's all about common sense," McFall said, conceding that the effort is likely to become law eventually. He's right. And responsibility must be carefully crafted into the law: Proper background checks and training must be required to keep permits and guns out of the hands of those who are not mature and rational enough to walk around carrying a loaded gun. Morris is an associate editor of The Plain Dealer's editorial pages. Contact Phillip Morris at: pfmorris@plaind.com, 216-999-4070 http://www.ohioccw.org/article.php?sid=497
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