Taken from the Cleveland Plain Dealer's webpage:
http://www.cleveland.com/search/index.ssf?/base/opinion/1092130307262051.xml?ocmor
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Steve is a gun enthusiast, and he watched closely as the concealed-carry debate dominated the Ohio General Assembly for years.
Finally, this past session, a law was passed giving Ohioans the right to carry concealed handguns in public.
The law, a long-overdue correction of Ohio's ambiguous and poorly constructed "affirmative defense," which made a criminal out of anyone who carried a handgun - regardless of the reason - was cheered by Steve and thousands of other Ohioans who believe that the state and federal constitutions mean what they say about the right to bear arms.
It was a victory for the good guys - guys like Bill Singleton, 59, a Cleveland merchant who was shot and killed Tuesday morning outside of his Collinwood check-cashing store, but not before he performed a public service by killing one of his assailants. That assailant was Rhyan Ikner, 17, a violent and habitual delinquent who was arrested in March on aggravated robbery charges.
And it was a victory for law-abiding people who felt the need to carry a gun and wanted the right to defend their lives with deadly force, if needed.
But Steve, an engineer, hasn't raced out to apply for a permit to carry one of his weapons. In fact, he's bitter about the way the CCW ordeal has played out. He has decided that the law is not worth the paper it's printed on.
He has decided he would rather remain unarmed than to subject himself to having his name printed as a permit holder in Ohio's largest daily newspaper.
Steve is mad at The Plain Dealer. I feel his angst. A private man with a strong libertarian bent, Steve, a skilled martial artist who can easily defend himself without a weapon, believes the point of the permit is to give the law-abiding citizens the same edge that the armed criminal currently possesses - the element of surprise.
Violent thugs who tote guns, like the deceased Ikner and thousands of others like him, are hardly concerned with seeking permits and then being identified as people who carry weapons in public. They carry guns secretly because that gives them the edge on the street and allows them to bully, rob or kill with greater efficiency.
Why should the law-abiding be denied the same edge, Steve asked me last week. Why should they be singled out? Why should criminals, especially gun thieves, be given a cheat sheet on where to go "shopping" for weapons? Why should battered wives or stalked women be identified as having taken steps to defend themselves?
I don't have convincing counters to those questions. Perhaps it's because I agree with him. But his anger, with its focus on The Plain Dealer and the other large newspapers around the state that have recently published the names of people who have received CCW permits, is misplaced.
Instead of blaming the newspapers, Steve's anger should be directed at the legislators who passed the law that made the permit process secret to everyone but the news media, and at Gov. Bob Taft, who signed it.
By doing so, the governor and the legislature insulted the 99.999 percent of Ohioans who don't have press credentials.
The irony, of course, is the names probably would not have been published if lawmakers had not gone out of their way to shield the identities of those who received permits. The state issues hundreds of permits and licenses. But with the notable exception of freshly minted lawyers, when was the last time you saw newspapers run the names of those who were licensed for anything?
By trying to keep secret the identities of Ohioans who received permits, the state needlessly passed a terribly flawed measure and ensured that the Fourth Estate would do its job and perform the public service expected of a constitutionally protected free press.
The legislature should revisit the CCW law and remove any open record restrictions on permit holders. That way, newspapers probably would stop publishing the names of permit holders, people like Steve would no longer be singled out any more than a person who decides to buy a fishing license, and gun thieves would no longer be able to buy a newspaper to find out who is packing heat.
But most importantly, the legislature should fix this flawed law to make a public record exactly what it should be - available to all the public, not just a small part of it.
Morris is an associate editor of The Plain Dealer's editorial pages.
Contact him at:
pfmorris -at- plaind.com 216-999-4070
