BLUF
\nThe study just says what Second Amendment advocates have long asserted: Law-abiding gun owners are not the problem when it comes to gun crimes.<\/p>\n
Ohio Just Disproved a Gun-Control Talking Point<\/a><\/p>\n DAVE YOST is Ohio\u2019s 51st attorney general.<\/p>\n The<\/span>\u00a0mayor stood, frowning and grim, flanked by uniformed police officers. Another horrific gun crime had occurred \u2014 and it was all the fault of the state legislators who had recently\u00a0repealed the law<\/a>\u00a0requiring a permit to carry a concealed weapon, what proponents call \u201cconstitutional carry.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe Republican-led legislature in Columbus passed SB 215 and across this state from Cleveland to Columbus to Cincinnati, you see an uptick in shootings across our state. . . . It\u2019s important that we hold them accountable for passing dangerous gun laws in our state,\u201d the mayor\u00a0said<\/a>, his angry voice rising above the roar of nearby freeway traffic.<\/p>\n \u201cThe most reckless and . . . careless gun policy in the state\u2019s history,\u201d the mayor\u00a0said<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s creating an arms race where people don\u2019t feel safe unless they have a gun. So guns beget more guns, which, unfortunately, makes us all unsafe,\u201d the mayor\u00a0said<\/a>.<\/p>\n But which mayor? The first quote was from Mayor Justin Bibb of Cleveland. The second one is from Mayor Andrew Ginther of Columbus. The arms-race quote was from Aftab Pureval, mayor of Cincinnati, on National Public Radio.<\/p>\n Ohio\u2019s three biggest cities \u2014 they all got in with the same message:\u00a0It\u2019s not our fault; it\u2019s the new state law.<\/em><\/p>\n There was only one problem: It wasn\u2019t true.<\/strong><\/p>\n My office commissioned a\u00a0study<\/a>\u00a0with Bowling Green State University to examine gun crime in Ohio\u2019s eight largest cities the year before the law changed \u2014 June 13, 2022 \u2014 and the year afterward. The conclusion: Eliminating concealed-carry licenses had no impact on gun crimes, and in six of the eight cities, gun crimes\u00a0actually declined<\/em>.<\/p>\n I honestly did not know what the data would show, but a study seemingly would be useful for the ongoing debate either way. The numbers could have increased \u2014 gun crime, like any other crime, has multiple causes. And it wouldn\u2019t have been surprising if the numbers had stayed the same, because a great deal of the action taken by government seems to have marginal impacts, if any.<\/p>\n But the numbers went down.<\/p>\n In Parma, gun crimes dropped by a whopping 22 percent after constitutional carry; Akron and Toledo both saw declines of 18 percent; and Columbus logged a 12 percent reduction. Canton and Cleveland had single-digit percentage decreases. Cincinnati and Dayton both had single-digit percentage increases.<\/p>\n Over the entire eight-city sample, gun crime\u00a0dropped\u00a0<\/em>by 8 percent. Shot Spotter technology, which detects the sound of a gunshot in a city, produced data that was consistent with the reported crimes where it was available.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Granted, it was a single year. We will update the study as time goes on. But a year\u2019s data is statistically significant, particularly where the effect is so broadly observed across the various cities \u2014 Cincinnati, often called America\u2019s northernmost Southern city, couldn\u2019t be more culturally different from Cleveland with its East Coast vibe.<\/p>\n During the legislative debate, the term \u201cWild West\u201d came up repeatedly in predictions about Ohio\u2019s future under the new law. It turns out that Ohio is just the Midwest, full of common sense and largely lacking itchy trigger fingers.<\/p>\n They mayors\u2019 misplaced game of blame and shame ought to be replaced with tactics that are proven to work. Gun crime needs proactive policing \u2014 taking the criminals who use guns for crime off the streets. A thug in prison does not mug innocent citizens or conduct drive-by shootings.<\/p>\n This study does\u00a0not<\/em>\u00a0mean that gun violence is not a problem. I\u2019ve sat with the victims and survivors of gun violence, and prosecuted the shooters \u2014 their stories are real, and tragic, and a failure of public leadership.<\/p>\n But the answer is in proactive policing \u2014 prosecuting offenses that are now often ignored or probationable, such as possession of a weapon when prohibited; \u201cflooding the zone\u201d with surged, targeted enforcement; and, most of all, sentencing the small number of criminals who use guns to prison terms long enough to keep them off the streets.<\/p>\n The study just says what Second Amendment advocates have long asserted: Law-abiding gun owners are not the problem when it comes to gun crimes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" BLUF The study just says what Second Amendment advocates have long asserted: Law-abiding gun owners are not the problem when it comes to gun crimes. Ohio Just Disproved a Gun-Control Talking Point DAVE YOST is Ohio\u2019s 51st attorney general. Critics believed constitutional carry in the state would increase crime. They were wrong. The\u00a0mayor stood, frowning … Continue reading “”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,29],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-99313","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-rkba","category-safety"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99313","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=99313"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99313\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":99314,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99313\/revisions\/99314"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=99313"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=99313"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=99313"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}