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Martin Gottlieb: Gun lobby is on the offensive

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12:33 PM Monday, December 21, 2009

“Many states recently adopted looser gun laws,” a headline said recently about an Associated Press review.

“In the last two years, 24 states, mostly in the South and West, have passed 47 new laws loosening gun restrictions,” the story said. “Legislatures have allowed firearms to be carried in cars, made it illegal to ask job candidates whether they own a gun, and (more).”

Says the chief lobbyist of the National Rifle Association, “This is all a coordinated approach. ...We’ll rest when all 50 states allow and respect the right of law-abiding people to defend themselves.”

Time was, the gun lobby presented itself primarily as a defensive force. It was a guardian against the allegedly “slippery slope” toward laws that would keep even hunters and collectors from having firearms.

But now the NRA is on the offense.

Ohio passed a law in 2004 allowing people to carry concealed weapons if they pay a fee and pass a safety course. The Republican legislature clearly felt under political pressure to pass it.

By the end of 2008, the state had seen 143,000 permits issued. That’s about 1.6 percent of adult Ohioans. After all that fuss!

The percentage says a lot about the ability of sophisticated political interest groups to generate the impression that a lot more people are, shall we say, up in arms than really are.

Legally concealed weapons haven’t turned Ohio into the Wild West. Nor, on the other hand, have they resulted in any great drop in crime rates.

A debate about their impact continues. Now a national organization called the Violence Policy Center (VPC) brings a new stat into the discussion.

It says, “Concealed handgun permit holders have killed at least nine law enforcement officers and 98 private citizens (including 12 shooters who killed themselves after an attack) since May, 2007.”

Kristen Rand, a VPC spokesman, says, “When the National Rifle Association launched its ... campaign ... it made this promise: ‘People who get permits ... are law-abiding, upstanding community leaders who merely seek to exercise their right to self-defense.’

“To the contrary,” says Rand, “concealed handgun permit holders are killing people over parking spaces, football games and family arguments.”

She says that if people had known in advance about the police fatalities, the conceal-and-carry bills never could have been passed.

The VPC stats don’t indicate that the permit-holders are an exceptionally violent lot, not when you consider the millions across the country who hold permits. The numbers do suggest something about what happens when guns are around.

One shooter in Utah insisted his crime never would have happened if not for the permit. (Also, he was on seven prescription drugs.)

In July 2008, a police officer in suburban Twinsburg in northern Ohio pulled over one Ashford Thompson for playing loud music. Thompson shot him four times in the head with a “pocket pistol,” killing him. Thompson had a permit.

In 2007, on the Fourth of July, a firefighter with a permit killed three people and wounded two in a dispute over fireworks the three were setting off. The (Cleveland) Plain Dealer reported the shooter being seen by acquaintances as a “ticking time bomb” before the shootings.

There was a case in Ohio of a 66-year-old man killing himself and his wife; a man killing himself and his girlfriend; and a 5-year-old accidentally killing himself with his father’s gun. (The last one is still pending in court.) All involved permits.

The VPC gathers its numbers from news accounts (and removes cases that result in acquittals). It’s not an ideal way. But nobody keeps such stats officially.

News accounts are far from all-inclusive. Sometimes news outlets look into — and report — whether the shooter had a permit; sometimes they don’t.

(The names of permit holders in Ohio are not released as a group. That’s another fight the gun lobby won. News media can, however, find out if a particular person has a permit.)

Toby Hoover, executive director of Ohio Coalition Against Gun Violence, a small operation based in Toledo, points out that the VPC numbers are just about fatalities. Nobody seems to have stats on how many non-fatal shootings might involve permits.

The stats coming from the VPC aren’t the last word in the debate about concealed weapons, of course. But they are worth keeping in mind when proposals come up for still more and more liberalization of gun laws.

Martin Gottlieb writes editorials for the Dayton Daily News. Contact him at (937) 225-2288 or by e-mail at mgottlieb@DaytonDailyNews.com.

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One might want to read this as well.. It puts things in perspective, which Mr. Gottlieb conveniently avoids.
http://www2.timesdispatch.com/rtd/n...

From the above article, "Legally concealed weapons haven’t ....resulted in any great drop in crime rates." Really?? just ask the many people who saved their own life by having a CCW permit. For them, their "personal" crime rate or Victim status was dramatically changed.

siteguy
2:18 PM, 1/6/2010

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Does this newspaper just copy from others. You just did a simular article from the Violence Policy Center (VPC). The VPC is well known for printing false information or information that is altered to suit their own adgenda. I want to see proof of any police officers killed by CCW license holders. You and everyone else knows this would be splashed over every headline in the country if it were true So come on Journal lets see the truth.

rls2524
12:35 PM, 12/23/2009

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Your right Robert, we need guns so cowards like you can be protected

Rick
12:27 PM, 12/23/2009

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Guns Do not kill.
People with attitudes kill people, they may use a gun as a convient tool.
If the stats were all compiled, people with cars kill more than gun owners each day.
Maybe we should campaign against car owners too.
Knives are also a good choice, they are plentiful easy to get and use.
If I chose to kill another human, I can be very creative as to weapons.
Rocks, ball bats, 2X4, any thing can be used.
Why pick on gun owners and permitted carriers?

ssgtusmc
10:31 PM, 12/22/2009

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What we really need are more hillbillies with guns.

robert
8:48 PM, 12/22/2009

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