| Oregon Files Response To Motion To Dismiss |
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| Written by Jeff Garvas | |
| Tuesday, 15 August 2006 | |
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Despite the fact that the Ohio Supreme Court found that carrying a firearm is a fundamental individual right, and despite the fact that at least two of the justices in Klein v. Leis argued that they know of many people who “carry openly” without arrest in Columbus, the City of Oregon argued yesterday in this response brief that there is no constitutionally protected right to carry a firearm openly. In its brief, the City of Oregon copied a portion of Ohioans For Concealed Carry’s website found here, where the prosecuting attorney for Hamilton County issued a mandate to Hamilton County law enforcement agencies declaring that openly carrying a firearm should never result in an “automatic arrest”, and “Openly carrying a firearm does not mean that the person is automatically guilty of Disorderly Conduct (R.C. 2917.11) or Inducing Panic (R.C. 2817.31). Each case must be judged on it’s own set of facts.” Ohio’s concealed carry law mandates openly carrying in a vehicle, and subsequently never mandates that you “must” carry concealed outside of the vehicle. When Sayers exited his vehicle and was openly carrying a firearm he was exercising a right that the Ohio Supreme Court didn’t just argue during oral debate “wouldn’t get you arrested” long before HB12 became law, they argued that since you can open carry without fear of arrest the concealed carry restrictions enacted at the time were not unconstitutional, but merely a police power of the State of Ohio. If a citizen had a right to carry openly six years ago that same fundamental constitutional right couldn’t possibly be invalidated by a municipal ordinance today. It is intellectually dishonest to suggest that the enactment of concealed carry legislation somehow invalidates the fact that the Ohio Supreme Court perceived carrying openly to be a fundamental right, one which they argued from the bench does not result in arrest. The right to carry a firearm openly is not dependant upon a concealed handgun license. Any law-abiding Ohio should be entitled to carry a firearm openly, period, and not required to obtain a license to exercise that right. Likewise, someone who obtains a concealed handgun license has not surrendered his or her right to carry openly. It seems ironic that, in attempting to prove their point that open carry isn’t a constitutional right, the Oregon prosecutor cited an official document that advised Hamilton county law enforcement not to “automatically arrest” someone for openly carrying, advised law enforcement that merely openly carrying a firearm justified neither disorderly conduct nor inducing panic, and further advised law enforcement to judge each case on it’s own set of facts. Clearly, the Oregon police officers in Sayers’ case didn’t judge the unique facts in the case, but instead enacted an “automatic arrest” following a felony stop vehicle extraction because Sayers had the nerve to carry a firearm openly for the few moments it took him to pay for his gas, wash his windows, and re-enter the vehicle where open carry was mandated by Ohio law. The document Oregon attached to their response in Sayers’ case is, comically, the document that further inspired countless “open carry self-defense walks” across the State of Ohio coordinated by Ohioans For Concealed Carry, including one in the Lima area, Lorain, Vermilion, Cincinnati, Gahanna, The Ohio Statehouse, and Governor Taft’s mansion where nobody was once arrested for openly carrying a firearm. A hearing is scheduled for Friday, August 18th , in Oregon Municipal Court to deal with the Motion to Dismiss. To stay up to date on the case always refresh this page: http://www.OhioCCW.org/sayers |