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Ohio lawmakers have passed several laws in recent weeks, including changes regulating carry concealed weapons. Follow our political coverage on Twitter at @Ohio_Politics.
Other law provisions
According to a state analysis, House Bill 234 also:
- Recognizes out-of-state concealed handgun licenses from states that have reciprocity agreements with Ohio.
- Eliminates the requirement that a CCW permit applicant be a state resident for at least 45 days and a resident of the county in which the applicant seeks the license for at least 30 days in order to receive or renew a CCW license.
- Requires a sheriff to contact the National Instant Criminal Background Check System to verify that an applicant is eligible to receive or possess a firearm in the United States.
- Provides that firearms training can be offered by a national gun advocacy organization, instead of specifically the National Rifle Association.
An NRA analysis said the bill also brings the state definition of “automatic firearm” in line with the federal definition, confining the term to a firearm “designed or adapted to fire a succession of cartridges with a single function of the trigger.”
Other law provisions
According to a state analysis, House Bill 234 also:
- Recognizes out-of-state concealed handgun licenses from states that have reciprocity agreements with Ohio.
- Eliminates the requirement that a CCW permit applicant be a state resident for at least 45 days and a resident of the county in which the applicant seeks the license for at least 30 days in order to receive or renew a CCW license.
- Requires a sheriff to contact the National Instant Criminal Background Check System to verify that an applicant is eligible to receive or possess a firearm in the United States.
- Provides that firearms training can be offered by a national gun advocacy organization, instead of specifically the National Rifle Association.
An NRA analysis said the bill also brings the state definition of “automatic firearm” in line with the federal definition, confining the term to a firearm “designed or adapted to fire a succession of cartridges with a single function of the trigger.”
New legislation passed this month by the General Assembly has reduced the number of training hours Ohioans are required to take to receive permits to carry weapons in purses, holsters and vehicles.
While the bill cleared the state Senate and House with little opposition and was signed into law Dec. 19 by Gov. John Kasich, some CCW permit proponents worry that the “all-important” training is being watered down.
The bill cut from 12 hours to eight hours the minimum number of hours required to earn a CCW permit. The law also allows hunters to use noise suppressors on their weapons under certain conditions, among other provisions.
“This is life-saving or life-costing training, and it should be very, very important,” said Dan Colvin, a CCW instructor with Dayton CCW in Franklin. “It shouldn’t be a political football.”
Colvin, who said he trains other CCW trainers, is concerned about content and training, not simply the required hours. Needed training should dictate hours, not vice versa, he said. He said he shared his thoughts with General Assembly staffers as the law was being drafted this year.
“To turn people loose on the street with a gun, we should cover this (educational) material, so they’re prepared not only to protect themselves, but not to hurt others,” he said. “That’s what is most important to me.”
Enforcing existing rules
Today, Colvin’s CCW students receive a 14-hour training day. The course could be shorter, as long as students learn when what they need to use firearms safely, he said. He doesn’t necessarily oppose eight hours of training.
But he does not think Ohio does a good job ensuring that CCW instructors offer necessary training. Some instructors already openly boast that they flout state rules, he said.
“To be honest, the attorney general hasn’t done a real good job of enforcing the rules that were there before,” Colvin said. Some county sheriffs are better than others at responding to complaints, he said.
A spokeswoman for Attorney General Mike DeWine said his office does not certify CCW instructors. The Attorney General’s office does certify instructors for basic firearms safety training for police academies.
“We don’t have any authority to go and audit different CCW instructors,” said spokeswoman Jill Del Greco.
People with complaints are required to notify the county sheriff’s office, she said.
The legislation, amended substitute House Bill 234, faced little opposition. It cleared the Senate on a 24-6 vote on Dec. 9, and the House on a 72-21 vote on Dec. 10, before Kasich signed the bill.
Joe Eaton, treasurer for the Buckeye Firearms Association and a Warren County resident, said he favors the bill. He noted that neighboring Indiana requires no training to obtain a CCW permit.
“It’s a debate that even the instructors and the gun rights supporters have had,” Eaton said. “But if you look at the facts behind it, even states which have no training whatsoever do not have any higher incidents of accidents or problems with their concealed carry program. To date, there has been no state that has looked to increase the amount of training that’s required.”
Buckeye Firearms Association is a “huge proponent” of training and proficiency with firearms, he said. “But the debate comes down to whether that should be a requirement or not,” he added.
Doug Hague, co-owner of Vandalia Armory & Range, said he wants more information on how instructors are expected to condense what he called his “orderly” CCW course.
“We’re still very unclear what they’re wanting to take out to go from 12 to eight hours,” he said.
CCW students tend to want “as much training as they can get,” he said. His range is about 40 miles from Indiana, and yet he finds many Indiana residents willing make the drive to his course for training, even though they’re not eligible for an Ohio permit. They’re confident in training they get in Ohio, he believes.
“It just shows us that people want good, solid training,” Hague said.
Growing tensions nationally
Passage of the bill comes at a time of growing tensions nationwide between police officers and activists, many who have staged protests following the police-involved deaths of African-American males in Beavercreek, Ferguson, Mo., and New York.
On Dec. 20, police said Ismaaiyl Brinsley, 28 — who spent time in Ohio, Georgia and Maryland — shot execution-style two uniformed New York City police officers as they sat in a marked cruiser. Brinsley committed suicide following the double murder.
Police said Brinsley had threatened police on social media prior to the fatal shootings. He posted that his attacks were to avenge the deaths of Eric Garner of New York and Michael Brown of Ferguson. Grand juries in New York and Missouri declined to indict the officers who killed the men.
Locally, police say a concealed-carry permit holder fatally shot a Jawaad Jabbar, 16, a Middletown High School sophomore, after he allegedly attempted to rob a man of his new Michael Jordan sneakers at the Dayton Mall on Dec. 20. No one had been formally charged in the incident.
Mike Galbraith, president of the Dayton Fraternal Order of Police, said he is uneasy about the law’s changes.
“I personally think lowering the training hours is a bad idea,” Galbraith said. “I think it’s low to begin with. To lower it even more is a bad idea.”
Carrying a firearm entails tremendous responsibility, he said. Training should help students understand not only how to use a gun but when to use it — and when not to use it.
“If anything, they should be increasing it,” Galbraith said of required training hours.
Westerville Police Chief Joseph Morbitzer, president of the Ohio Association of Chiefs of Police, said introducing a firearm into public situations in general is dangerous. Once a firearm is introduced, it becomes “community property,” in the sense that someone else may control the weapon or try to, he said.
“We want to make sure people are trained,” Morbitzer said. “Reducing the number of training hours is disappointing.”
‘Confidence in my training’
Tanya Lynn Wells, 39, is a CCW permit holder who lives in Trenton. She relies on firearms to protect herself and her daughter. She completed a CCW class in November 2012, under the previous law.
“For me, being a single mother, I decided to obtain my CCW to provide me the additional protection, should it ever be needed, to protect myself and my daughter,” she said. “There are times when we are traveling, or required to go through areas that may be considered more rough in nature, and I wanted the peace of mind to know I was trained and equipped to fully protect us both.”
Wells doesn’t practice-fire her weapon as often as she would like, but she said she tries to practice at least twice a year.
“I do feel less sure of myself the more time I go in between practices, but my confidence in my training comes back quickly once I begin,” she said.
State Sen. Charleta B. Tavares, D-Columbus, was one of the bill’s few opponents. She said she wanted to amend the bill to provide for safe storage of guns in homes. That amendment was not adopted.
Tavares also opposed greater use of “silencers” or noise suppressors for hunters.
“That gives, in my mind, an unfair advantage to hunters,” she said. But most crucially, she wants hunters to clearly hear the gunfire of other hunters.
“It is a way to protect other hunters,” Tavares said. “If they hear a gun shooting, they will know that there are other hunters in the area, so they will be more cautious.”
She also opposed a lessening of training requirements. “I don’t want Ohio to dummy-down our standards, to (the level of) some other state, and that gets me to reciprocity. There are some states who have little or no regulation on who can have a concealed-carry license.”
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