Education Guide

by Dan White, OFCC Membership Coordinator

For years, arguments have flown back and forth between the two sides in the battle to return the right to carry a concealed firearm for defensive purposes to the citizens of Ohio. As most people now know, those opposed to the legislation have lost. Last month, both the Ohio House and Senate passed HB12 to reform Ohio’s antiquated laws to be more in line with the rest of the country. On January 8th, 2004, Governor Bob Taft signed the legislation into law. The new law will take effect on April 7th.

Ever since that day, the largest and most outspoken of the gun control groups in Ohio, as well as several influential, liberal biased members of the media, have cried foul and used every means at their disposal to try to incite public opposition to the new law. So far, their efforts have been largely unsuccessful. Why? Because the fact is, contrary to their claims, most Ohioans are NOT opposed to the new law. Another tactic I’ve seen is to try to goad business owners into putting up signs banning concealed carry in their shops, thereby effectively making the streets the only place you could exercise this right.

There are many other issues at hand, but these are the two I intend to address in this article. Whereas gun control pundits tend to use unsupported claims and emotional arguments to push their agenda, I prefer to rely upon research to prove my points.

Immediately following Governor Taft’s signing of HB 12 into law, nearly all of the major papers were inundated with editorials lambasting the governor and the legislature for passing this new law (you can read a list of some of these by visiting www.OhioCCW.org).

One of the first claims is that the majority of Ohioans are not in favor of the legislation. Recently, Toby Hoover, president of the gun control group Ohioans Against Gun Violence stated, "the gun lobby knows that carrying hidden loaded handguns is not what Ohioans want. During 2001, the University of Cincinnati took a poll which resulted with 69 percent opposed to concealed weapons in public” (source: The Guardian Online, 1/21/04).

This 69% opposed figure pops up again and again in arguments against concealed carry; and I’d like to lay the issue to rest once and for all. The poll referred to was conducted by the University of Cincinnati in 2001 in which 804 Ohioans were asked, “are you in favor of a law making it easier to obtain a permit to carry a concealed handgun, or do you oppose this law?"

It is a well known how easy it is to get the results you are looking for by the way you word your poll questions (I’ll prove this in a minute). By asking participants if they were in favor of a law making it easier to get a permit, they implied that it was already possible to get such a permit. Those participants could easily have believed that the current process for getting a permit was sufficiently easy. The fact of the matter is, there was no process for getting a permit. As we’ve already discussed, the law allowing for a permit just passed last month.

But, let’s not even try to assess what those 804 participants in that flawed poll may have been thinking. Let’s instead look at another poll conducted in 2001, a Buckeye State Poll conducted by The Ohio State University and WBNS-TV. Two of the questions asked in that poll are relevant here.

The first question asked if the participant was in favor of a bill “that would allow most Ohioans to carry concealed weapons.” 65% of those polled stated they would be against such legislation. But wait, there’s more!

The very next question went into more detail when it asked if they were in favor of legislation that involved county sheriffs and would require applicants for a concealed carry permit to “obtain weapons training and be subject to a background check.” This time, 67% were in favor of the legislation. These were the same people answering consecutive questions in the same survey. This proves that the way the question is asked can easily get the wrong result if it isn’t complete in the information presented. Give Ohioans all of the relevant information, and the majority are in favor of concealed carry.

But, I don’t like relying on polls like these to prove points. They are inherently unscientific and always run the risk of being influenced by poorly worded questions. Instead, let’s look at a survey conducted by a professional research firm. While not specific to Ohio alone, it does reflect general opinions throughout the country.

Zogby International, a professional public opinion research firm that has been in business since 1984 (www.zogby.com), conducted a survey in December of 2003 in conjunction with the O’Leary Report (www.olearyreport.com). The survey was given to 1,200 people nationwide.

One of the questions asked was, “currently, 36 states have laws that allow residents to qualify for a permit to carry a firearm to protect themselves if they pass a background check, if they participate in firearms training and pay a fee to cover administrative costs. Do you feel this is a good law or a bad law?”

How did they respond? “Americans now feel this is a good law by a 79% to 18% margin. This result represents a significant improvement from 2001 when we asked a nearly identical question in which 66% agreed with the right-to-carry position. Support for right-to-carry is very strong across all precincts with better than 70% of those polled in virtually every demographic in favor of the law.”

Argument #1 used against concealed carry successfully debunked.


Another claim gun control advocates make is that the legislation will make Ohio a more dangerous place (again, see www.OhioCCW.org for a compilation of such allegations). The two contentions most often made are that accidents will increase and that permit holders will use their concealed firearms to commit crimes. Of course, they offer no evidence to back up these statements, but I will now present evidence to the contrary.

On the issue of increased accidents, I can refer to research done in Utah that specifically examined firearms related incidents. The study was conducted by Jason Cash, B.S. of the Department of Family and Preventive Medicine, University of Utah. In 1999, he looked at 6 year crime statistics for the state of Utah following the 1995 passage of legislation which made it easier for citizens to obtain permits to carry concealed firearms. Amongst other things, he found that “unintentional firearm injury rates decreased despite a 17-fold increase in permit holders, which indicates that responsible individuals carry guns.” This also supports the position of many that increased training leads to fewer accidents.

Argument #2 used against concealed carry successfully debunked.

But, let’s not forget about the issue of whether or not permit holders will use their firearms to commit crimes. To address this issue, I turn to the state of Texas, which lists crime statistics in regards to concealed carry permits on the state’s Department of Public Safety website (www.txdps.state.tx.us).

Are Texas permit holders perfect? Nope! But, they are certainly more law abiding than non-permit holders. Allow me to elaborate. Texas was kind enough to list a slew of offenses along with the statistics of those convicted of the offense. These offenses paint a broad picture of the type of person who obtains a concealed carry permit. While it doesn’t specify that the concealed handgun was used while committing the crime, it does speak to the criminality of permit holders in general.

The statistics available come from 2001, which is the last year they have listed. The initial data is that permit holders were convicted of 180 crimes, and non-permit holders were convicted of 35,070 crimes. According to the US Census bureau, the population of Texas in 2001 was 21,325,018. Breaking that down against Texas’ reported 237,063 permit holders gives you 21,087,955 non permit holders. Dividing those figures out tells you that roughly .17% of non-permit holders were convicted of a crime, while only .08% of permit holders were convicted of a crime. That’s half the rate! But, those figures take into account the entire population. The U.S. census bureau reports that 28% of the population of Texas is under the age of 18. Since those Texans can’t get permits, it isn’t fair to include them in the equation. Removing that 28% leaves an adult non-permit holding population of 15,183,328. Dividing that against the convictions reveals that convictions were handed down to .23% of non-permit holders. That means that a non-permit holding adult is over three times more likely to be convicted of a criminal act. I don’t expect Ohioans to be any different than their Texas counterparts. Permit holders are simply less likely to commit a crime. Any crime, not just firearm offenses.

Argument #3 used against concealed carry successfully debunked.


So, where does all of this leave Ohio businesses? Toby Hoover has posted a letter on the Ohio Coalition Against Gun Violence website (www.ocagv.org) which reflects her position that Ohio businesses should ban concealed carry on their premises. This is an attempt to nullify the new law by making it not practical to exercise your right to carry a firearm for your protection. The claim is that allowing firearms into businesses will threaten the safety of employees and other customers. Lori O’Neill, president of the Cleveland chapter of the Million Mom March even made the statement that businesses have nothing to fear financially by banning the practice, as “typically the number of permit holders comprises less than 1% of the total population of the state” (source: Crain's Cleveland Business, Jan. 26 – Feb. 1, 2004 issue).

First, neither of these anti-gun zealots provide any concrete reason for advocating such a ban; other than the usual, vague promises of increased violence that I’ve already shown to be baseless fears. Lori O’Neill made such dire predictions in the aforementioned article in Crain's Cleveland Business, when she stated, “what we do know is that employers and customers who bring loaded handguns into offices, medical establishments, retail stores and banks increase the risk that someone will be injured or killed by their guns.” Exactly how does she know this? She doesn’t say.

To gauge exactly how much risk businesses face, I would invite business owners to call Bittersweet Annie’s, Brummer's Homemade Chocolates & Candies, Jan's Added Touch, Lee's Landing, Liberty/Music Box, RJ Antiques & Collectibles, Main St. Soda Grill, Nemo’s Subs, Tactical Edge Paintball Shop, or Vermilion Hardware. These Vermilion, Ohio shops played host to seventy openly armed shoppers this past December. They experienced a much higher saturation of armed shoppers than any store will ever face on a daily basis, and there was not one single problem. Afterwards, they all said how much they enjoyed us being there and asked me when we would be coming back.

Second, implying that denying permit holders access is no big deal, due to their limited numbers, is faulty advice. While Ms. O’Neill’s claim of less than 1% of citizens obtaining a permit may be true (the state of Texas statistics used above point to 1.5% of their population hold a permit), she fails to point out the obvious matter of non-permit holders who are sympathetic to their friends and family members who are permit holders. Not to mention the fact that there are also 343,827 licensed hunters (source: Ohio DNR website) in the state of Ohio, which represents approximately 3% of the population and are likely to be very opposed to such bans. Plus, you have to consider the 79% of the population that the Zogby poll showed are in favor of concealed carry. One simple sign proclaiming “no guns allowed” could easily snowball into a large chunk of alienated customers. And that doesn’t even take into account the fact that the one company that nearly universally strikes terror into the hearts of small businesses, Wal-Mart, does allow concealed carry in its stores.

Third, establishing a policy of prohibiting concealed weapons on the premises will result only in the disarmament of those people who are law abiding to begin with. If a person is planning to break the law by committing a criminal act of violence, he or she will have no problem with ignoring a “no guns allowed” sign. In fact, research has shown that such “victim disarmament zones” are more favorable targets because of the low likelihood of an armed response (More Guns, Less Crime by Yale Law School Senior Research Scholar Dr. John Lott).

For these reasons, most rational business owners in the other 45 states that allow concealed carry have adopted a “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy regarding concealed firearms.

Argument #4 used against concealed carry successfully debunked.

The last statement I wish to address in regards to advice given to Ohio businesses is in regards to employees who have a concealed handgun license. Toby Hoover advocated in an email alert to her group that businesses use a person’s status in regards to a concealed handgun license as basis for hiring policies (OCAGV Alert, Nov. 21, 2003). In this one instance, I agree with her, though not in the way she might expect. I would think a smart HR manager would jump at the chance to hire a card-carrying good guy. As was shown above, permit holders are at least three times as likely to be law-abiding citizens. Not to mention the fact that the person has already undergone a background check, so the prospective employer would know they don’t have a criminal history!

As April 8th nears, you can expect the newspapers to again come alive with wild predictions of mayhem and destruction. I hope that you will see those claims for what they are, the ravings of a small minority who have seen their personal anti-gun agenda defeated by the will of rational, law-abiding citizens of the state of Ohio. Stay safe!



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