News Worth Noting by Jim Shepherd
gengberg September 25th, 2009
News Worth NotingOhio’s Attorney General reports that state has just concluded its ninth consecutive quarterly increase in requests for concealed handgun licenses (CHLs). Only six years into their program, the state issued a record 17,921 regular licenses in the last quarter.
And sixty-eight percent of the licenses expiring were renewed. That, in itself, says that the idea wasn’t a curiosity for most people, but a conscious decision to take a hand in their own self-defense. To date, nearly seventy percent of all licenses have been renewed.
Altogether, there were nearly 23,000 license transactions (new issues or renewals), more than were issued in either 2005 or 2006. 2008 saw a huge increase in demand, but the first six months of this year had already passed those numbers.
At the end of June, according to the Buckeye Firearms Association, over 158,000 Ohio citizens are licensed to carry handguns. According to the BFA, if you’re older or more affluent, odds are even greater that you have a license.
To give that number some proportion, it’s equal to one-in-sixty residents.
Firearms proponents point to a decline in the revocations of licenses as a sign that firearms owners are more law-abiding than non-licensees, but that may be in part due to revision and clarification of the initial law, removing some of the more convoluted twists in the original legislation. Whatever the reason, fewer than one-tenth of one percent of the licenses have been revoked, and those primarily for two reasons: death of the license-holder or a move out of state.
Seems that one of the “big lies” of the anti-gun community gets exposed every time a state passes a concealed carry law: there are no running gun battles bringing an unstoppable flow of blood into the streets. Maybe it’s just me, but I’m beginning to think that argument’s on its last legs -hopefully.
