https://www.dispatch.com/in-depth/news/politics/2023/05/18/how-have-ohio-gun-laws-changed-in-20-years/69963717007/

One of the longest articles about firearms in the Dispatch that isn't raving stupidity.  There's some stupidity, but there's also a better balance in the pro-RKBA and anti-RKBA viewpoints presented.

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Ohio divided: Ohio's gun laws have seen major changes in 20 years. What happened?
How Ohio's push for fewer firearm restrictions explains our changing gun culture.

Guns are tools for hunting, recreation, self-defense, committing acts of violence, and for war. But in the last two decades, certain firearms like the AR-15 style rifle have become something more: A totem. A symbol of political ideology.

And Ohio is the perfect example of how that national narrative shift transformed the laws governing guns.

The Buckeye State flipped from one of the last states to permit concealed carry in 2003 to a state Guns and Ammo magazine ranked as "steadily moving its way forward" in 2022.

Timeline: How Ohio gun laws have changed in last 20 years

Even the 2019 mass shooting in Dayton, where nine people died, didn't divert Ohio from that path. Gov. Mike DeWine promised a crowd of mourners chanting "do something" that he would do "everything that we can."

But Ohio's gun laws went in the other direction after the deadliest mass shooting in recent Ohio history. Instead of becoming more restrictive, lawmakers eliminated the duty to retreat (before using force in self-defense) and lowered training requirements for armed teachers.

For gun-rights supporters, this marked a return to how our founders envisioned America, a restoration of the liberties enumerated in the Bill of Rights. For opponents, however, it was a capitulation to gun manufacturers that prioritized profit over children. An emblem of America's increasing inability to consider the opinions, beliefs and well-being of others.

"In a lot of ways, Ohio is the story," said Ryan Busse, a former Kimber Firearms executive who writes extensively on this issue. "It's kind of the story of guns, but I think it's really the story about the genesis of our national division."

A rift so inviolate it divided Ohio's gun rights community, ended careers and sent armed protestors to the lawns of Republican leaders. And it starts with an airline pilot irritated to learn he can't get a concealed carry permit in Ohio.

Why data doesn't change policy

Ohio outlawed carrying a concealed weapon in 1859, and the blanket prohibition remained even as surrounding states created permit processes. By the late 1990s, only seven states still had a blanket ban.

"It didn't occur to me that was the law," Buckeye Firearms Association co-founder Jim Irvine said. "I had never heard of a blanket ban."

He'd recently moved back to Ohio, and a friend suggested joining Ohioans for Concealed Carry.

The group had been working for years to convince state lawmakers that CCWs wouldn't result in more gun deaths. And Irvine became one of their leading lobbyists. His work as an airline pilot gave him Tuesdays and Wednesdays off, and those were the days lawmakers held committee hearings at the Statehouse.

Irvine muddled his way through his first committee hearing. He felt comfortable speaking, but he needed more institutional knowledge. He needed to learn gun law history, crime statistics and the data used by gun control groups.

"I suspected stuff they said was wrong, but I didn't know the ins and outs of it," Irvine said. "I started reading the propaganda on both sides to sort out what the truth was."

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Much more at the link if you can get past the paywall

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Technically, Ohio did not have a blanket ban on carrying a concealed weapon.  The old law was rather subjective saying you could carry a concealed weapon if you were a prudent man in going armed.  In practice that meant people carrying large sums of money or valuables got a pass.  I know women afraid for their safety carried concealed handguns, but they might have had a harder time with the law.  On the upside, the old law said "weapon" not "handgun" and I know a jeweler that used to carry a sawed-off shotgun outside the shop.

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I know there is an anti gun lobby and an anti gun agenda hard at work here.

I know we have 88 counties, only a fraction vote in that direction.

When I left here that prudent man bullshit was the law, I moved to shall issue. When I decided to come back I had a ftf prohibition and a mag ban in place and was staring at an now in place AWB.

Ohio has great American gun laws. I've contributed money to keeping them that way and will contribute time until I have no more to the same.

It's good to be a Buckeye.

20-25 years ago I could not have imagined such laws would come to pass here in Ohio.

I am amazed by this progress.

It has been an incremental step process and there is no such thing as perfect law, but amazing nonetheless.

Paywall work around

https://web.archive.org/web/20230519114140/https://eu.dispatch.com/in-depth/news/politics/2023/05/18/how-have-ohio-gun-laws-changed-in-20-years/69963717007/

A relative gets the dispatch, so I read hers.  I don’t know if the links in the above posts show the graph, but a couple things stand out about the number of guns seized graph.

First, they mention the number seized by police in “Greater columbus,” meaning they include suburbs.

They definitely didn’t do that for Cleveland, as they separately included East Cleveland.  That makes the columbus number appear artificially high.

They also didn’t compare the number of guns seized to population.  Columbus has 906,000 people with 3763 guns seized.  However, some of those guns were seized in suburbs.

Columbus is by far the largest city in Ohio, with nearly 3 times the population of second place Cincinnati. Statistically, columbus should have more of everything in total, but not necessarily per capita.

Cleveland has 306,000 & 2647 guns.  Cincinnati has 308,000 & 2243 guns.
East Cleveland has 13,000 & 334 guns.

An accurate comparison would be to compare how many people a city has for each gun seized.


Below are the cities the dispatch compared:

Columbus has 240 people for each gun seized.

Cleveland 138
Cincinnati 131
Toledo 168
Dayton 91
Akron 149
East Cleveland 40
Youngstown 179
Canton 230
Hamilton 244

Of the cities listed only Hamilton (pop 63,000) has a higher number of residents per gun seized.  Hamilton is located 20 miles from Cincinnati.  It’s a safe bet that guns seized in suburbs 20 miles from Columbus were included in the “Greater Columbus” number.

Obviously the dispatch is biased, and I believe these numbers show it is intentionally deceptive.

They published BFA's rebuttal