In Ohio and elsewhere, residents already have an alarmingly easy time getting permission to carry a gun in public. But some state House members think Ohio’s standards still aren’t permissive enough. A bill they support would allow virtually any Ohioan to carry a gun, without a permit or training.
The reckless measure seems to have little chance of becoming law. But it suggests the extremism that afflicts this issue, like so many others, in the Statehouse.
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The General Assembly has rejected past efforts to eliminate Ohio’s permit and training requirements. But gun control advocates worry that this time could be different, as the national movement to eviscerate already-lax gun laws continues to pick up speed.
Five states permit residents to carry concealed weapons without a license. Almost half of other states are considering similar laws. The Buckeye Firearms Association supports the Ohio bill, which would repeal the requirement for Ohioans who seek a concealed-carry permit to get eight hours of firearms training and submit to a background check.
This year, state lawmakers are also proposing such outrageous legislation as a bill that would permit concealed weapons in day-care centers. A law approved last year reduced training requirements for concealed-carry permits and made permits issued in other states valid in Ohio.
The gun lobby says such legislative victories indicate growing support for relaxed firearms regulation. Yet the wave of legislation bears virtually no relationship to measures of public opinion, and has advanced at the federal and state levels over the apparent opposition of most citizens who want to live safe from gun violence.
Gun interest groups have achieved such a stranglehold on the legislative process that even the shooting deaths of 20 children at a Connecticut elementary school two years ago did not produce substantive gun control measures in Congress. Since those shootings, more states — including Ohio — have weakened their gun control laws than strengthened them.
Opponents assert that gun control laws don’t affect rates of gun violence — a claim that flies in the face of evidence. In Ohio and other states with lax gun laws, rates of gun deaths are disproportionately high. They consistently outpace deaths caused by car accidents, even though the latter cause many more deaths than gun violence in the nation as a whole.
The United States is one of a scant number of advanced nations that permit citizens to obtain guns with few restrictions. Our rate of gun deaths, the highest in the developed world, reflects that laxity.
Yet gun advocates continue to place their interpretation of the Second Amendment ahead of public health and safety. They so effectively dominate the terms of the legislative debate on guns that lawmakers face resistance to advancing even the most modest, common-sense measures, such as expanded background checks.
The bill before the state House represents only the most recent assault by the gun lobby on public safety. It’s past time for elected officials to advance policies that prevent violence, and throw out those that enable it — beginning with the current bill.
First Published April 15, 2015, 4:00 a.m.
