Tracking a bad law’s aftermath

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12:46 PM Thursday, November 19, 2009

One of the myths surrounding concealed-weapon laws in Ohio and other states is that the ability for certain people to walk around with hidden handguns makes us all safer.

The macho fantasy goes something like this: A concealed-carry permit holder is just walking down the street, minding his own business, when he comes upon an innocent person — perhaps a young woman — being attacked by an unsavory character. He presents his weapon, the attacker flees and the potential victim is ever so grateful.

The real picture is less glamorous and heroic, according to the Washington-based Violence Policy Center, which has created a Web site — www.vpc.org/ccwkillers.htm — that keeps track of news reports involving concealed-carry permit holders.

The center claims that, nationwide, handgun permit holders killed eight law enforcement officers and 77 private citizens during a two-year period, extending from May 2007 to October 2009. (The center acknowledges that the total includes 10 shooters who killed themselves after an attack.)

The fear that many gun-control advocates expressed when Ohio lawmakers finally passed a concealed-carry law in 2004 — after the governor and concerned law-enforcement voices stymied several previous attempts — was that introducing more guns into everyday situations would simply lead to more gun violence.

Since that law went on the books in April 2004, lawmakers have spent intervening years tinkering with it and loosening some of the rules and restrictions that made the original bill palatable to then-Gov. Bob Taft.

Among those original rules was a provision to allow journalists to review the rosters of permit holders in their respective county sheriff’s departments. Gun advocates were outraged when some Ohio newspapers published the names of people granted permits.

Concealed-carry advocates argued that the whole idea behind carrying a concealed weapon was to keep other people from knowing that you are armed. The requirement was later amended to allow journalists to see a list but not write down or record the names of permit holders. In other words, the identities of permit holders are virtually a secret, known only to the sheriff’s departments that issue the permits.

The result? Detecting whether a permit holder has been involved in a gun-related crime has become problematic, thus hindering our ability to assess the real impact of concealed-carry laws.

That’s where the Violence Policy Center hopes to shed light on the situation. It claims that it determined through news reports that Ohio concealed-carry permit holders committed homicides in at least four separate incidents, “including one where a police officer was gunned down during a routine traffic stop.”

Is the Violence Policy Center’s Web site accurate? Would these shootings have occurred even if a concealed-carry law did not exist? That’s very possible.

But center officials contend that the number of fatal shootings is likely to be much higher because it is relying on reports from news organizations and “most state systems ... release little data about crime committed by permit holders.”

“These cases show that permitting the carrying of hidden and loaded guns is putting public safety at risk,” said Toby Hoover, executive director of the Ohio Coalition Against Gun Violence. “Law enforcement organizations and advocates warned of the threat to police officers and private citizens from the carrying of concealed weapons. We are now seeing the lethal consequences of those misguided decisions.”

We’ve long known that innocent shooting victims are considered collateral damage in the gun lobby’s quest to eliminate gun-control laws and to increase the number of firearms in our society, so it’s not likely that the Violence Policy Center’s new Web site will significantly affect the debate. Or change the heroic fantasy that permit holders daydream about. But we’re glad someone is trying to keep a tally of the carnage.

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