Despite legal wrangling over concealed carry in Ohio in the wake of a ruling by Hamilton County Common Pleas Court Judge Robert P. Ruehlman that the state’s prohibition on concealed carry is unconstitutional, the decision is viewed by gun rights activists as the catalyst that could push the General Assembly to finally pass a CCW law in the Buckeye State.
Ruehlman’s decision, issued just before 8 a.m. on Jan. 10, stood for less than a day before Judge Mark Painter of the 1st Ohio District Court of Appeals issued a temporary stay, and scheduled a hearing for Jan. 22. Ruehlman’s decision was immediately hailed as a victory for gunowners in Ohio by Alan Gottlieb, founder of the Second Amendment Foundation (SAF), a lead plaintiff in the lawsuit, filed against the sheriff and police chiefs in Hamilton County, OH. SAF was joined in that action by several local residents, including private investigator Chuck Klein, Patrick Feely, James Cohen, Leann Driscoll, Vernon Ferrier, plus the Peoples Rights Organization and Ohioans For Concealed Carry. The lawsuit was first filed in July 2000.
At the center of their lawsuit is the contention that the Ohio constitution allows citizens to bear arms, and there is no constitutional prohibition against carrying those weapons concealed. However, Ohio statutes limit concealed carry only to state and federal law enforcement officers. Because of that, police routinely arrest private citizens for carrying concealed, forcing them to go through the court system to establish an “affirmative defense” that would justify carrying a firearm. Col. Richard Janke, an assistant Cincinnati police chief, earlier told Gun Week that such defenses might include being a business operator who regularly carries large sums of cash, or someone who has been threatened with physical violence.
Ruehlman had issued a permanent injunction against enforcement of the Ohio statutes that make it a felony to carry a concealed firearm on the person or in a vehicle. When the appeals court issued an ex parte emergency stay a few hours later—without hearing from the plaintiffs, represented by Cincinnati attorney William Gustavson—SAF Public Affairs Director Dave LaCourse was disappointed, but determined to push the fight for legalized concealed carry in Ohio.
John Hohenwarter, a lobbyist for the National Rifle Association, told Gun Week that the Ruehlman decision, overturned or not, “could help.”
“I think you’re probably going to see the legislature do something,” Hohenwarter said. “I think it’s going to give cover for the marginal votes (in the legislature) as well. We will pick up a couple of votes we would not have picked up.”
According to Associated Press, Klein also hoped the decision would push for legislation.
Ruehlman’s 37-page ruling was a sizzler for gun rights activists, in which he sharply criticized testimony from witnesses for the defense. For example, he said testimony offered by defense expert Prof. Franklin Zimring “was clearly biased and based on an inadmissible foundation.”
Zimring, a law professor at the University of California at Berkley, testified that he had done no studies on the impact that shall-issue CCW laws had on police fatalities, nor had he done any statistical research or analysis from which he could have concluded that such laws result in an increase in the violent crime rate. Zimring had done some studies on the overall impact of firearms on society, but that was some 30 years ago, the judge noted.
Ruehlman also wrote that, despite testimony to the contrary by police officials, “police agencies in Hamilton County, with the exception of the (Ohio State Police), arrest virtually all private citizens who are found in possession of a concealed firearm or who are found with a loaded firearm in a motor vehicle.
“Although it is possible,” Ruehlman continued, “that a very small number of citizens in Hamilton County are released rather than being arrested, it is also clear that the decision to arrest is exercised by police agencies arbitrarily, depending on which officer interacts with the citizen.”
Defense attorneys argued that Ruehlman’s decision could not stand because it contradicted an Ohio Supreme Court decision dating back to the 1920s that upheld the state’s authority to ban concealed carry.
The case was further clouded when one Ohio newspaper recounted a 1989 kidnapping ordeal involving Ruehlman’s wife and infant child. They had been kidnapped at gunpoint outside a strip mall, and the defendants—possibly sensing Ruehlman’s looming decision against them—had cried foul, suggesting that the judge could not issue a fair ruling.