Concealed Carry Airhead
by al vennemeyer on 10/14/11
The Ohio Law allowing a licensed concealed carry person to carry in a place that serves alcoholic beverages went into effect September 30th of this year. Less than 2 weeks later a man in Deer Park, Ohio goes into a bar, allegedly under the influence of alcohol and possession of drugs, pulls a gun and points it at an individual in a disagreement. http://www.fox19.com/story/15680201/man-arrested-after-pulling-a-gun-in-deer-park-bar
This is frustrating news to law abiding concealed carry people and also provides support to the anti-gun activists. Some people originally touted this law was a bad idea and predict more incidents in the future. The Ohio Attorney General's 2010 Annual Report indicates that 0.44% of concealed carry permits were revoked. The reasons were: moving out of state, died, individual did not renew license, crime conviction and mentally ill or drug related. Surly there will be future incidents; however, the above statistics indicate concealed carry people have an excellent overall record.
Revoking the new law will not prevent a reoccurrence of this stupidity. It would only prevent law abiding people from carrying inside bars. The law, in this situation, does nothing more than verify a person's right to carry a gun into a bar. This character made a decision to break the law because bad guys have no regard for the laws.
Legislation cannot be constructed to identify good and bad guys but hard penalties can be delivered to those who break the laws. Testing and evaluation of people for attaining a concealed carry license is required in Ohio, same as verifying the capability of an individual to fly and airplane or drive an automobile, but that won't stop all tragedies.
This 26 year old man will probably be charged with a felony and never be able to legally carry again. We are reminded daily by the media that many unqualified people are carrying illegally for similar reasons. Laws will continue to enforce the rights of individuals and bad guys will lose their rights. That's the way it should be.
