‘Permit holders are non-criminals’

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12:40 PM Thursday, December 3, 2009

Your Nov. 20 editorial, titled “Tracking a bad law’s aftermath,” contained so many misconceptions and outright falsehoods that it cannot go unchallenged.

You say that it is a myth that concealed weapons laws in Ohio and other states make us safer. The truth is that violent crimes against law-abiding citizens have dropped where concealed-carry has been enacted. Certainly there has not been blood in the streets, as predicted by opponents of concealed-carry.

You refer to a Web site of the Washington-based Violence Policy Center that keeps track of news reports involving concealed-carry permit holders. The VPC is an anti-gun group whose purpose is to undermine the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. Even if you believe the accuracy of their reports, the numbers they cite of crimes committed by concealed-carry permit holders is miniscule in relation to the number of permit holders.

The truth is that permit holders commit far fewer crimes than the population as a whole. The reason for that is that all permit holders are non-criminals who have been investigated and cleared by county sheriffs. Here in Butler County, the number of permit holders is well over a thousand and — in the five years that the law has been in effect — there has been no wave of crime committed by persons legally carrying a concealed weapon. If there had been, it would certainly have been a front-page story in your newspaper. ...

Your belief that a concealed-carry law would lead to blood in the streets turned out to be false. The truth is that nothing of the sort happened. With all of the evidence against you, you had to resort to accusing permit holders of having “macho” fantasies.

The truth is that permit holders are simply law-abiding people who want the ability to protect themselves and their families. Your accusation that they consider “innocent shooting victims to be collateral damage in the quest to eliminate gun control laws” is blatantly false. Attributing false positions to people that you disagree with does not undermine their true position. It is simply evidence of the weakness of your own.

Two of the primary principles in concealed-carry training are:

• Make every effort to avoid confrontation. Lethal force is the very last resort.

• Make absolutely sure that no innocent person is endangered by your actions.

William K. Law

Hamilton

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