Posted on 04/25/2002 9:33:58 AM PDT by MissTargets
By Kimball Perry, Cincinnati Post staff reporter
Hamilton County Prosecutor Mike Allen and private investigator Chuck Klein both think Ohio lawmakers can end Klein's lawsuit by passing a pending bill that will allow law-abiding Ohioans to carry concealed weapons.
''I wish the legislature would work this out,'' Allen said Thursday.
He decried the Ohio Senate's decision - actually the decision of Senate President Dick Finan, R-Evendale - to delay action on the concealed weapon bill until the Ohio Supreme Court rules on Klein's lawsuit.
Klein and several others who say they need to carry concealed weapons for their jobs or safety sued, saying Ohio's current law was unconstitutional because it required the citizen to prove innocence when arrested for carrying a concealed weapon, instead of requiring the government to prove guilt.
In January, Hamilton County Common Pleas Court Judge Robert Ruehlman agreed with Klein and declared the law unconstitutional. Earlier this month, an appeals court agreed with Ruehlman.
But the Ohio Supreme Court ruled Thursday it was staying that decision until it rules on the constitutionality of Ohio's current law.
That wouldn't be necessary, Allen and Klein insist, if lawmakers would adopt laws - as have more than 40 other states - that allow law-abiding citizens to carry concealed weapons.
''For two weeks, law-abid ing citizens aren't out shooting each other and then Finan says this and we need an emergency stay. Yeah, right,'' Klein said.
''That smacks of one-upmanship.''
Allen supports the bill pending before the Senate.
''It is totally reasonable,'' he said.
It would require, Allen said, those seeking to carry a concealed weapon:
To qualify by taking courses or passing tests approved by gun organizations.
To undergo a ''very serious'' criminal background check.
Not to be felons, drug addicts, habitual drunks or have mental problems.
After Thursday's Supreme Court directive, Allen's office faxed out a letter to all law enforcement agencies in Hamilton County explaining the ruling.
''If the Ohio Supreme Court ultimately upholds the Court of Appeals decision declaring the statutes to be unconstitutional,'' Allen wrote in his letter to police agencies, ''then any current and future prosecution or conviction may be overturned.''
Cincinnati police will be enforcing.
The Hamilton County Sheriff's Department will ''enforce the law, the existing law,'' spokesman Steve Barnett said. ''Obviously, there will be some discretion.''
Publication date: 04-26-02
Two prudent decisions
Ohio Senate President Richard Finan said this week that the upper chamber won't act on a pending concealed carry gun bill until the Ohio Supreme Court rules in a Cincinnati case testing the constitutionality of the state's existing ban on hidden weapons. It was a prudent decision, as was Thursday's decision by the Supreme Court to restore the state gun law in Hamilton County until the case is decided.
A three-member panel of the appeals court district that takes in Hamilton County ruled April 10 that Ohio's ban on hidden guns is unconstitutional. We disagree with the ruling (which applied only to Hamilton County). We liked even less the high-handed refusal by the appeals court panel - Mark Painter, Rupert Doan and Lee Hildebrandt Jr. - to maintain the longstanding state law here until the Supreme Court settles the matter.
For the past two weeks it was legal for almost anyone to walk down the street or drive a car with a hidden gun within easy reach. This, of course, is the outcome that gun rights purists want for the entire state (and beyond that the entire country): concealed carry as a basic right, where any adult who's not mentally ill or a convicted felon can pack a concealed weapon without a permit and without a lick of proof that they know how to properly operate the darned thing.
The concealed carry bill which cleared the Ohio House in March would at least establish a permitting system, albeit one that's way too loose.
For our part, we're just not convinced that it makes sense for the state to encourage more people to carry guns on the streets and in their cars.
Ohio's existing law has not significantly interfered with hunting, with sports shooting, with farmers' management of their property or with the ability of Ohio citizens to keep guns in their own homes or businesses for self protection. And the hidden gun ban has an ''out'' which has worked pretty well to allow most people who truly need to carry a gun - because of their job, say, or because they're being threatened by an ex-spouse - to do so. Yes, you run the risk of being arrested. But if police do make that decision, and if a prosecutor does decide to press charges, your need to protect yourself is an affirmative defense at trial.
A group of local plaintiffs, aided by the Seattle-based Second Amendment Foundation, challenged the law on grounds it subjects citizens to arrest when they exercise a right to bear arms that is flatly guaranteed in the Ohio Constitution. They say the language regarding affirmative defenses is confusing. And they assert that because citizens who carry guns openly are subject to arrest for inducing panic, the Ohio Constitution's guarantee of the right to bear arms has been rendered meaningless.
Should the Supreme Court invalidate Ohio's ban on concealed guns, the Legislature would then be obligated to repair the old law or develop a permitting system for concealed carry - one, we trust, that would be more stringent than the scheme contemplated in the House bill. But for now, we're glad the high court saw fit to reapply Ohio's concealed gun ban in Hamilton County.
Publication date: 04-26-02
This newspaper is as biased against guns as the rest. There is a severe anti-gun left-wing bias in the American press.
04/26/02
T.C. Brown
Plain Dealer Bureau
Columbus
- The Ohio Supreme Court yesterday holstered a ruling by an appeals court that had lifted the state's 80-year-old ban against concealed weapons in Hamilton County.
In a one-paragraph ruling without comment, the high court granted a request by Ohio Attorney General Betty Montgomery for an emergency stay of the ruling earlier this month by the 1st Ohio District Court of Appeals.
The appeals court said the state's ban on concealed weapons "thwarts a fundamental right" granted by the authors of the Ohio Constitution.
The ruling, however, affected only the citizens of Hamilton County.
Justices will consider whether to hear an appeal of that ruling after Montgomery and the plaintiffs file legal motions over the next two months.
Should the high court take the case, it probably won't be heard until late this year, court officials said.
The delay is likely to freeze any legislative action. The Ohio House approved a bill last month that would allow Ohioans to carry concealed weapons if they first obtain a license.
The bill was introduced to the Ohio Senate this week, but Senate President Richard Finan said there would be no vote until the high court decides the constitutionality of the current law.
"I want to know where they are going to come down on the case," said Finan, a suburban Cincinnati Republican.
The state is happy to keep the status quo for now, said Joe Case, Montgomery's spokesman.
"We were afraid of the potential risks of no regulation for concealed weapons," Case said.
The Supreme Court's decision means the law for now can continue to be enforced as it is written.
The justices surprised Chuck Klein, a private investigator in Cincinnati and the lead plaintiff in the case.
"Law-abiding citizens have not been out shooting each other down in the streets," Klein said.
The bill in the General Assembly is sponsored by Rep. Bill Seitz, a Cincinnati Republican. He said that if the appellate court decision is upheld and then applied statewide, Ohio would resemble Vermont - the one state with no restrictions on carrying weapons.
Seitz's bill would lift the Ohio ban but impose restrictions.
Sen. Eric Fingerhut, a Cleveland Democrat and one of the bill's fiercest opponents, has pointed out numerous loopholes. Drivers without gun permits could transport guns registered to other people and in some cases guns could be carried onto premises that serve liquor.
Gov. Bob Taft has said he would veto a gun bill unless it had the backing of police.
Reporters Julie Carr Smyth and Stephen Ohlemacher contributed to this story.
Contact T.C. Brown at:
tcbrown@plaind.com, 800-228-8272
I would love to be the garage mechanic, plumber or home remodeler for these clowns. "I just tore apart your sink/car/rec room. I'll see you next year to finish the job. Maybe.
Welcome stay
Court has chance to weigh in on gun law
Monday, April 29, 2002
For two weeks and one day, concealed weapons could be carried legally in Hamilton County. No more. The Ohio Supreme Court's granting Thursday of the attorney general's request for a stay of a lower court ruling brought that single county back in line with the statewide prohibition on concealed carry, a move that's good for the state and for Hamilton County.
This bizarre concealed-carry oasis stemmed from a decision by the 1st Ohio District Court of Appeals in Cincinnati that upheld Hamilton County Common Pleas Judge Robert Ruehlman's ruling in January that the statewide ban could not be enforced in Hamilton County.
Three appeals- court judges and Ruehlman agreed with five plaintiffs who claimed that the law violates their fundamental right, under the Ohio Constitution, to carry arms for self- defense.
From that point until the high court stayed the appellate decision, people in Cincinnati and elsewhere in Hamilton County could go about anywhere they wished with handguns and knives hidden inside their clothes and in their cars.
Now, once again, the law banning the concealing of arms -- a useful, sound law that has been on the books since at least 1917 -- is in effect statewide. The law, which the Ohio Supreme Court has upheld previously, is similar to concealed-weapons bans that were in force in about 40 states as recently as the 1980s. Since then, the National Rifle Association and other such groups have lobbied state legislatures to allow the carrying of concealed handguns.
One such bill has passed the Ohio House, but Senate President Richard H. Finan, R- Cincinnati, understandably has expressed little interest in working on this legislation until after the Supreme Court rules on the appeal.
Further, Gov. Bob Taft has vowed to veto any concealed-carry law that doesn't have the support of law-enforcement organizations. So far, only the Buckeye State Sheriffs' Association has endorsed a plan that would put sheriffs' offices in charge of a system of licensing law-abiding Ohioans who wish to carry concealed handguns.
Other similar groups, including those comprising police chiefs, state troopers and prosecutors, seem unlikely to change their view that lifting the ban would make their jobs more difficult.
Nor should they.
When guns are drawn from inside coats and cars in volatile situations, neither bystanders nor police have an easy time figuring out who is in the wrong and who is in the right. Under current law, the carrying of concealed weapons is illegal, although people in certain situations can raise so- called affirmative defenses to show why they should be excused for violating the ban.
Ohio Attorney General Betty D. Montgomery filed a notice of appeal on the day of appeals Judge Mark Painter's novel ruling that the ban, in effect, prevented Ohioans from arming themselves. Painter said the affirmative-defense guidelines were too vague, and people who carried guns openly might find themselves arrested.
If police in any given jurisdiction are detaining people without cause, certainly there is a better solution than overturning a law that has stood the test of time and has wide support of law-enforcement officers.
Now the Ohio Supreme Court has a welcome opportunity to determine whether this long-standing law is still constitutional.
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