Concealed Carry Ohio: Changes, Interpretations, and Statistics.
With concealed carry becoming more prominent in our society there are many viewpoints surrounding this topic. Before you can form your opinion you need to fully understand the law and what it is about.
Lieutenant Michael Lewis out of the Kent Police Department, said the carrying a concealed weapon law (CCW) as recently changed. Weapons used to be prohibited on campuses and buildings like day cares but recently a law just passed that no longer forbids weapons in those areas.
There is a difference between a weapon being prohibited and it being no longer prohibited, according to Lewis. This means it was illegal to have weapons in those areas now you can but those institutions or businesses can either allow or not allow weapons.
“That doesn’t mean that you can just carry a firearm into a daycare center just because you
wish; because the law has changed,” Lewis said. “The daycare has to permit that. And if they don’t want firearms in their building, it’s their right to do so.”
“If you’re carrying a firearm, and it’s against that businesses’ policy. And they have posted
signage saying they don’t want you to carry a fire arm on their property they can ask you to
leave,” Lewis said. “And if you refuse to leave, you’re committing criminal trespassing.”
Your car is your private property and you can have a gun in the car while parked on campus or an area where the policy says otherwise, according to Lewis.
On one side of the discussion is Doug Deeken a board member for Ohioans for Concealed Carry and Amanda Suffecool, director for Realize Firearm Awareness Coalition.
According to Deeken this organization has been around since 1999 pushing for expanding the concealed carry laws in Ohio. This organization is there to defend those who take their personal safety seriously.
“We are a civil rights organization, if you want to think about it that way,” Deeken said.
Deeken talks about the perception there is an increase in violence in America but that is actually the opposite. Ever since 2004 or 2005 violent crime is on a steady decline in America. He says what you get from some media outlets is actually the opposite resulting in this false perception.
“The reality is the campus environment is not some magical, exclusion zone where bad things don’t happen,” Deeken said. “People can be victims of crimes here on campus just like they can anywhere else.”
Deeken compares requiring people do go through training to purchase a gun to requiring training for buying a bible. It is our constitutional right to bare arms just like it is to freely practice our desired religion.
“It is an extremely rare event for a concealed handgun licensee to be involved in crimes, especially violent crimes,” Deeken said.
“The second amendment actually exist specifically to protect those types of arms that are useful for the common defense,” Deeken said.
This constitutional right wasn’t put into place for us to hunt, it was to protect us from tyranny.
“I believe you college students are grownups,” Amanda Suffecool said. “So if you can legally own a gun you should be allowed to legally carry a gun and there’s nothing more dangerous than these so called safe spaces.”
Most of these mass shooting tragedies happen where there aren’t allowed guns. People attack those places because they know there is no one to fight back.
She believes the doctors have the obligation to tell the public about psychos who are dangerous to society. The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability laws challenge the safety and security of our country, doctors should disclose information that deals with our safety.
“One of the fastest growing demographics in the concealed carrying area is women,” Suffecool said.
On the other side of the conversation we have David Eggert, the director of God Before Guns and Jennifer Thorne, Executive Director of the Ohio Coalition Against Gun Violence.
“The gun industry doesn’t care what you’re are afraid of as long as they can convenience you that a gun will make you safer,” David Eggert said. “The facts show that guns in people’s hands actually put them in greater danger than the bad guys.”
Eggert says guns in people’s homes or on their hip is more likely to be used against them or a family member than a criminal. Eggert believes the gun industry promotes CCWs because they know the public doesn’t want to be around someone they don’t know carrying a lethal weapon.
“We think that our institutes of higher education should be places of safety and not a place where there are, [ya] know? Hidden loaded hand guns hidden legally,” Jennifer Thorne said about the topic of concealed carrying on campuses.
According to Thorne houses that have guns are 22 times more likely to have an unintentional death or shooting.
A Concealed Conversation with Kent Police:
New changes, your rights, and what to do when you see those flashing lights.
By: Devon D. McCarty
It’s early evening and you’re heading home from a long day at work. You clear your head to the sound of music while speeding down the highway. Suddenly a series of flashes catch your eye causing your heart to skip a beat. The rear-view mirror reveals a series of flashing blue and red lights shining proudly from the roof of the Ohio State Patrol vehicle. The sound of gravel cracks beneath your tires as you pull onto the highway’s shoulder. As the police officer approaches, you remember your handgun is beneath the seat of your car. Do you tell him? Do you keep it to yourself? Do you step on the gas and make a run for it? A lot of those concerns are protected the Constitution of the United States of America. Specifically, the 2nd amendment, guarding your right to bear arms. Recently, Ohio changed its law for concealed carry permit holders, allowing them the ability to take their weapons into places that they previously could not. I wanted to find out exactly what those changes were, and what rules applied to the concealed carry permit holders. So, I sat down for an extended interview with Lieutenant Mike Lewis of the Kent Police department to discuss changes, whether CCW holders should be pro-active about helping police, and more!
-Graphics & data research done by Hayley
Concealed Carry and Guns: CCW Classes & Training
With changes to the Ohio concealed carry law, experts urge Ohioans to protect themselves.
One of the changes includes the employee parking lot carry, which means concealed carry owners can store their gun in the car while they are at work. Before the new law, people would have been terminated for doing that.
In addition, people are now able to bring a gun into a daycare, provided they don’t have a no-gun policy. Before the law change, it would have been considered a felony. If the daycare has a ‘No Guns’ sign on the premise, they must leave it locked in a car.
Another change allows gun owners to store their gun in their car while in a school zone. Also, at airports concealed carry owners will be able to drop off travelers and enter non-secured areas of baggage claims.
The Buckeye Firearms Association pushed for the changes in the law. Under the law, before obtaining a license to carry a concealed handgun, one must need proof of competency certification. For example, a certificate of completion of a firearms safety course that is offered by a national gun advocacy organization or by instructors approved by a national gun advocacy group. The law requires certified training in the following situations:
- The ability to name, explain, and demonstrate the rules for safe handling of a handgun and proper storage practices for handguns and ammunition;
- The ability to demonstrate and explain how to handle ammunition in a safe manner;
- The ability to demonstrate the knowledge, skills, and attitude necessary to shoot a handgun in a safe manner;
- Gun-handling training.
Among firearms safety courses in Ohio is Workman Firearms Training.
Workman Firearms Training promotes quality and professionalism of firearms training in Northeast Ohio. Sgt. Glen Workman of the United States Marine Corps, and an NRA certified instructor, utilizes several training locations throughout Cuyahoga, Summit and Portage counties.
The Ohio Concealed Carry Course (CCW) teaches the basic knowledge, skills and attitude for owning and operating a pistol safely. CCW stands for “carrying a concealed weapon” and refers to the Ohio license to carry a concealed handgun in accordance to Ohio Revised Code Section 2923.125.
The Workman Firearms CCW training class requires a one-day course consisting of six hours in classroom learning laws, gun safety procedures and shooting fundamentals (parts, cleaning, operation and range rules). Once six hours in the classroom is completed, students spend the remaining two hours in the private shooting range working one-on-one with a weapons instructor. Students are required to have an instructor by their side during range time. Workman emphasizes the importance of the shooting portion of the course, saying it’s best way for students to learn and ask questions.
“We want people to do the right thing and have the ability to protect themselves,” says Workman. “We’re about training people the right way.”
