By Dave Yost
Wednesday,
January 10, 2024
The mayor
stood, frowning and grim, flanked by uniformed police officers. Another
horrific gun crime had occurred — and it was all the fault of the state
legislators who had recently repealed
the law requiring a permit to carry a concealed weapon, what
proponents call “constitutional carry.”
“The
Republican-led legislature in Columbus passed SB 215 and across this state from
Cleveland to Columbus to Cincinnati, you see an uptick in shootings across our
state. . . . It’s important that we hold them accountable for passing dangerous
gun laws in our state,” the mayor said, his angry voice rising above the roar of nearby
freeway traffic.
“The
most reckless and . . . careless gun policy in the state’s history,” the
mayor said.
“It’s
creating an arms race where people don’t feel safe unless they have a gun. So
guns beget more guns, which, unfortunately, makes us all unsafe,” the
mayor said.
But
which mayor? The first quote was from Mayor Justin Bibb of Cleveland. The
second one is from Mayor Andrew Ginther of Columbus. The arms-race quote was
from Aftab Pureval, mayor of Cincinnati, on National Public Radio.
Ohio’s
three biggest cities — they all got in with the same message: It’s not
our fault; it’s the new state law.
There
was only one problem: It wasn’t true.
My
office commissioned a study with Bowling Green State University to examine
gun crime in Ohio’s eight largest cities the year before the law changed — June
13, 2022 — and the year afterward. The conclusion: Eliminating concealed-carry
licenses had no impact on gun crimes, and in six of the eight cities, gun
crimes actually declined.
I
honestly did not know what the data would show, but a study seemingly would be
useful for the ongoing debate either way. The numbers could have increased —
gun crime, like any other crime, has multiple causes. And it wouldn’t have been
surprising if the numbers had stayed the same, because a great deal of the
action taken by government seems to have marginal impacts, if any.
But
the numbers went down.
In
Parma, gun crimes dropped by a whopping 22 percent after constitutional carry;
Akron and Toledo both saw declines of 18 percent; and Columbus logged a 12
percent reduction. Canton and Cleveland had single-digit percentage decreases.
Cincinnati and Dayton both had single-digit percentage increases.
Over
the entire eight-city sample, gun crime dropped by 8 percent.
Shot Spotter technology, which detects the sound of a gunshot in a city,
produced data that was consistent with the reported crimes where it was
available.
Granted,
it was a single year. We will update the study as time goes on. But a year’s
data is statistically significant, particularly where the effect is so broadly
observed across the various cities — Cincinnati, often called America’s
northernmost Southern city, couldn’t be more culturally different from
Cleveland with its East Coast vibe.
During
the legislative debate, the term “Wild West” came up repeatedly in predictions
about Ohio’s future under the new law. It turns out that Ohio is just the
Midwest, full of common sense and largely lacking itchy trigger fingers.
They
mayors’ misplaced game of blame and shame ought to be replaced with tactics
that are proven to work. Gun crime needs proactive policing — taking the
criminals who use guns for crime off the streets. A thug in prison does not mug
innocent citizens or conduct drive-by shootings.
This
study does not mean that gun violence is not a problem. I’ve
sat with the victims and survivors of gun violence, and prosecuted the shooters
— their stories are real, and tragic, and a failure of public leadership.
But
the answer is in proactive policing — prosecuting offenses that are now often
ignored or probationable, such as possession of a weapon when prohibited;
“flooding the zone” with surged, targeted enforcement; and, most of all,
sentencing the small number of criminals who use guns to prison terms long
enough to keep them off the streets.
The
study just says what Second Amendment advocates have long asserted: Law-abiding
gun owners are not the problem when it comes to gun crimes.
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