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Did the journalist loophole cause full auto firearms theft? PDF Print E-mail
Written by Jeff Garvas   
Wednesday, 28 March 2007

The extremely rare Class 3 license allows an individual to possess fully automatic firearms and is usually sought by collectors. To obtain a Class 3 license you must supply the BATFE with two photos that are kept on file, pay a $200 tax for the mere privilege per firearm, and have your local law enforcement sign off their permission of you possessing such a firearm.

One individual in Springfield Township went through the process of becoming a lawful owner of an M-60 machine gun only to have it stolen by burglars who clearly targeted him.

Did the news media's facination with releasing the names of gun owners, many who own homes at street addresses readily available via county government property records websites, cause this second large scale theft of privately owned firearms in Northwest Ohio?

WTOL in Toledo reported this incident Tuesday night and included the obligatory full auto video on their website.
"They're awesome weapons. They're war things, relics, trophies," the gun owner said.

At 2 a.m. Tuesday, he noticed the guns were gone. His apartment and trophy case had both been broken into.

"He came home and found his back door kicked in and had a gun safe that had been pried open," said Lucas County Detective Mark Woodruff.
In an impressive move, WTOL-TV in Toledo didn't show the face of the owner, nor did they identify him beyond "the gun owner" or show where he lives. Since we don't know who he is, and since the television station didn't indicate if he had a license to carry a concealed handgun, we can only assume that someone who went through the process to obtain a Class 3 license probably would get an Ohio License to carry a concealed handgun.

What we'll likely never know is if the criminals targeted this home knowing that the occupants owned some kind of firearm due to the name being printed in a newspaper or on a television news station's website.

OFCC has long argued that there are definitely sophisticated criminals out there intentionally and purposefully targeting the homes of people whose names match those on concealed handgun license lists published by those who exploit the journalist loophole.

The clear solution is to immediately cease the release of any information on gun owners to anyone outside of law enforcement in the State of Ohio or "everything must be public records" champions themselves will bear the responsibility of empowering criminals to steal otherwise lawfully owned guns and put them on the streets.

In this case, an unknown number of fully automatic firearms are now on the black market, quite possibly because of the news media's right to intimidate.