Posted on 11/29/2001 5:27:29 AM PST by Deadeye Division
Trial begins in challenge to Ohio's concealed-weapons ban
Thursday, November 29, 2001
Associated Press
CINCINNATI (AP) -- A private investigator and other citizens who sued months ago to challenge Ohio's ban on carrying concealed weapons are to get their day in court today as their case goes to trial.
Judge Robert Ruehlman expects to hear at least two days of testimony in Hamilton County Common Pleas Court from gun-rights supporters in the case. The plaintiffs include the Second Amendment Foundation of Bellevue, Wash., which is paying for the lawsuit, and Ohioans for Concealed Carry. Defendants include Ohio, Cincinnati and Hamilton County, in which the city is located.
The defendants intend to defend the current state law vigorously, said Richard Ganulin, an assistant city solicitor. The Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence, a Washington-based organization that supports gun control, is helping argue the city's position.
Last year, Ruehlman responded to the lawsuit by issuing a temporary order forbidding city police and the county sheriff from enforcing the ban. An appeals court overruled Ruehlman's order, freeing police to resume enforcing the law and sending the case to Ruehlman for trial.
Chuck Klein, a private investigator who filed the lawsuit and plans to testify in support of it, said yesterday he hopes the court action will prod the legislature into allowing citizens to obtain permits for carrying hidden weapons.
An Ohio House committee is considering legislation that would allow most Ohioans to carry hidden guns. The proposal is considered unlikely to come to a floor vote before January.
Klein has been joined in the lawsuit by a pizza-delivery business owner, a fitness trainer, a hair stylist, a factory worker and several others who say they need to carry weapons for self- defense. They say they do business in higher- crime neighborhoods, sometimes after dark and when they are alone.
Ohio law allows only law-enforcement officials or officers of the state and federal government to carry concealed weapons. Klein and other plaintiffs say the law violates the Ohio Constitution by forcing people arrested for carrying a concealed gun to clear themselves by justifying their possession of a weapon.
Forty-three states allow some form of carrying concealed weapons.
Some of those states require permits, firearms training or police approval before a handgun can be obtained. Vermont does not require any license for carrying concealed weapons. Missouri voters in 1999 rejected a ballot issue that would have legalized carrying concealed weapons in that state.
Kentucky and Indiana, which are neighbors to Hamilton County, allow people to carry concealed weapons.
The State Highway Patrol is among the police organizations opposing a conceal-and-carry law.
(Note to NRA detractors, if any: Please back up your claims with documented evidence.)
Louisiana has had the law for several years now...I can't recall ever seeing where a permit holder committed a firearms related crime either place.
If there is no right to self defense from the gang bangers, muggers, rapist via use of a carried handgun then there is no right to self defense from the terrorists of the world with an AR15. Based on your logic it doesn’t work both ways.
Cheers!!!
I am not paranoid and I like this neighborhood. The CCW laws in this country have to change in order so all citizens like the cab drivers, cashiers, and people who work nights can come home at night safe and sound.
That's not correct, there are much fewer than the 41,000 traffic fatalities.
I have been robbed twice on the street.
Sorry to hear that but the government can't protect people who throw themselves into moving trucks either. I don't know your circumstances but I have to wonder on what street and at what time of day.
A kid driving a car was shot in the face a block from my house.
How would CCW have helped him or anyone from a sucker punch/shooting? It won't.
An elderly lady was almost shot in the head at the hardware store that I go to every week.
CCW won't help her either.
Nothing by the government has happened like that. My truck was broken into and the government didn't do it.
So was mine, twice. Again, CCW is no help is it?
So have you given up 12 hours of the day to the predators or is it just 8? There are disgusting neighborhoods in liberal states that are unsafe 24 hours a day. The inhabitants are denied the means and the encouragement to protect themselves.
It's a suprise! The perp will either give up, or be killed to end his acts of mayhem. It's really simple. There's no need to anylize it any further. If there was then the "official authorities", that have prevented citizens from defending themselves, would not do it.
It's not your decision to make! The decision belongs to the individual man who contemplates whether, or not, he wants a gun handy.
Not everyone is blessed to live in or work in nice neighborhoods.
Cincinnat has some of the best teaching hospitals anywhere, but to get to any of them, you have to go through the worst, most dangerous parts of the city. Most people would choose not to to go to the hospital if it wasn't necessary but sometimes it can't be avoided.
The Bible say's that all men have a Free Will. The guidelines to the exercise of that Free Will are the 10 commandments, summarized by Jesus as two: Love God and love your neighbor as yourself. You can't love your neighbor if you don't love yourself. If you don't defend your own life or the life of others and prevent others from doing so, then you love neither God, or others.
I will relay the info you gave me to my relative.
Sorry to hear that but the government can't protect people who throw themselves into moving trucks either.
Maybe I missed something. Who said anything about the government's protection? The point is, the streets would be safer if the thug wasn't so sure there's no one around (if not his potential victim) to cap him.
I don't know your circumstances but I have to wonder on what street and at what time of day.
If it's not my neighborhood and it's dark, ... Well, the night time is just for hoot owls and horse theives, right? If an invalid needs a nurse's house call in the middle of the night, but he happens to live in a bad neighborhood, the nurse should just say 'no.'
What if it's my own neighborhood and the middle of the day? I can either take my chances (throw myself into the path of your moving truck), or be a prisoner in my own home. All because the nanny state stacks the odds in the crooks' favor.
These types of decisions will tend to be made collectively in this country, so in a way, it is my decision to make, and yours.
One wrong turn on a recent trip from my home to my sister's home put me on city streets in one of the highest crime areas of Kalifornia. A similar incident happened to a family traveling in southern Kalifornia and resulted in death for family members.
Another family in Kalifornia suffered the deaths of several children in their home at the hands of a maniac with a pitchfork.
Most prudent people that I know own fire extinguishers but have little expectation that their home will burn down.
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