Baffled about what is going on here... Ohio

Status
Not open for further replies.
gopguy

gopguy

Member
Joined
Jun 16, 2005
Messages
1,226
Location
S.W. Ohio
Not sure what old pal Jeff Garvas is up to with this... But it look like he has truly opened up a can of worms. This from the Cleveland Plain Dealer.


John Caniglia
Plain Dealer Reporter

A gun-rights group critical of journalists who have published lists of conceal-and-carry permit holders is now seeking the same information.

Jeff Garvas, president of Ohioans For Concealed Carry Inc., has asked the state's sheriffs for -- and in some cases has received -- the names and addresses of the permit holders, citing his role as a journalist. The group, which lobbies in Columbus, produces a newsletter and has a Web site.

Under the law, only journalists -- not the general public -- can obtain the information but they cannot copy it. The requests highlight the increasingly murky definition of journalists in the age of the Internet.


"You have to wonder why they are doing this," said Bob Cornwell, the executive director of Buckeye State Sheriffs' Association. "Is it for recruitment? Is it for notification -- that there are people like you living nearby? We just don't know."

http://www.ar15.com/forums/topic.html?b=8&f=12&t=262075
 
Interesting, Jim March did almost the same thing.

Jim March while fighting California Antis requested all records of permit requests who were denied. I wish I thought Jeff was doing the same thing. Nothing on the OFCC website yet.
 
Journalists, in Ohio, and sheriff's departments have been abusing a 3 year old loophole in Ohio's CCW law, that allowed journalists to obtain and print entire lists of people who were issued CHLs. The new law, which took affect yesterday closes that loophole. That's what Mr. Garvas was testing.
 
OK, waitasec here.

Under a shall-issue system, there is NO need to disclose this stuff. It's personal.

Under a discretionary system, if you're trying to track abuses and "cronyism" of the permit process, us in the gunnie community need this data UNTIL we get a conversion to shall-issue.

For a much more detailed analysis of this issue, see also the California Supreme Court decision in CBS v. Block:

http://www.equalccw.com/cbsvblock.html

What I strongly suspect Garvas is doing is two-fold:

* Confirming what data "journalists" have access to.

* Proving that in the age of blogging/websites/etc. the definition of "journalist" has expanded to such a degree that the limitation to "journalist" put in by the Ohio legislature is meaningless and therefore providing fodder for legislative reform.

Neither of these goals would require releasing the data he gets ahold of.

IF I'm right about what he's doing, he'd doing the right thing.
 
Long article, but here's a link to what Jeff posted on the Ohio board tonight:

http://www.ohioccw.org/content/view/3841/83/

They want statistical information on CHL issuance, and to press the whole media access mess.

HB12, Ohio's Concealed Carry law, of April 2004, allows journalists to request lists of CHL holders in a particular County from the Sheriff.

They are not supposed to print the lists, but some papers have done so, or posted this information on their websites. Right or wrong, it's in the law.

(Wandering off into the fuzz here - either HB347, effective on 14 March, or HB9, effective at the end of March, seal that loophole. Journalists can still ask about specific individuals, but essentially must use pencil and paper to record what they get. In short, "fishing" for the whole list may be difficult. For now, though, it's legal for the journalists to get this information. The criminal and terrorist friendly folks in Columbus who originally approved this little zinger preferred giving criminals shopping lists.)

It appears that the intent is to remove non Law-Enforcement access to the lists entirely, or at least to firm up the "all you can do is see if somebody's got a CHL" version. They're also trying to define "journalist" - is a web site (or blog) a journalist?

Details are in the linked article, which says it better than my summary.

Can't wait....

Regards,
 
Wait, wait , wait.

Even without the internet, why would the general public be denied access to a CCW list if a journalist has access?
Isn't the journalist just going to publish that list to be read by the general public?

I mean, the reasoning certainly can't be to provide journalists access to accurate statistics for an exploratory piece,
because a pro-gun journalist wouldn't care, and an anti-gun journalist has never used statistics accurately anyway.
 
When Michigan was "May Issue" a RKBA activist named Fred Mager tried to get the lists of who had been issued a Concealed Pistol License in the state. He wanted to show how the permits were mainly issued only to political contributers to the Sheriff's or prosecutor's campaign and other "elite" connected individuals.

Unfortunately (at that time) the Michigan Supreme Court ruled that there was a privacy issue involved and that information was not part of the public domain. That means Fred was unable to document the misuse of the CPL system as it existed at that time. Fortunately, we were eventually able to get a "Shall issue" law passed and the issue was moot. Now the ruling *against* Fred actually helps Michigan CPL holders by ensuring that no one can publish lists of CPL holders in Michigan the way they have in other states.


Btw, Jim, you might remember Fred Mager. He was *very* active on the old MCRGO mailing list when you were on those lists. If you haven't heard, Fred was killed by an armed robber at his Pizza delivery job about a year ago. He was a good guy and he is missed.
 
Is there a list of journalists in Ohio, with their home addresses and phone numbers, that could be published on the Internet? I have real concerns about those people and wouldn't want one of them living in my neighborhood--especially if I can't identify them.

The pen, after all, is mightier than the sword. And those people can fire off phrases at a moment's notice. Not that there's anything wrong with Freedom of the Press. But it's a collective right, not an individual right.
 
Interesting strategy. I hope it pans out as he plans.


There is not a list of reporters in Ohio that I am aware of. After HB12 became law and newspapers like the Cleveland Plain Dealer began publishing names of those who got their CHL in the Cleveland area. OFCC decided turn about was fair play and published the name, address and phone number of Doug Clifton, the Editor of the Cleveland Plain Dealer. Naturally the guy cried foul. We yelled back "hypocrite." He was ticked off as he was getting phone calls at all hours and felt harassed. We made our point CHL holders were getting the same treatment from the anti gun pinheads of the state.

By the way a man was killed in Cleveland days after his name was published in the Cleveland Plain Dealer. Bill Singleton was jumped by three thugs outside his store and was shot. He managed to shoot and kill one of his attackers, but Bill died of his wounds. It was not proven that they knew he had his CHL or was armed, but there again why would somebody jump you as you were walking up to unlock a shop. Most criminals will wait until you are inside to rob you. I think former Governor Bob Taft and anti gun zealot Toby Hoover demanding this provision allowing the names to be published got a man killed. That is my opinion.




http://www.buckeyefirearms.org/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=1667

http://www.buckeyefirearms.org/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=1691

[PDF]
Cleveland Editor Takes Heat for Publishing Gun List
File Format: PDF/Adobe Acrobat - View as HTML
Editors at the Cleveland Plain Dealer apparently care nothing for people like this in Ohio, much less about your opinion. In a recent news story, ...
www.ohioccw.org/index2.php?option=com_content&do_pdf=1&id=2248 - Similar pages
 
Even without the internet, why would the general public be denied access to a CCW list if a journalist has access?
Isn't the journalist just going to publish that list to be read by the general public?
Click to expand...

It does not have to make sense to be law. The former Governor of Ohio, Bob Taft ran as a pro-gun, pro-ccw candidate in 1998. He then became Governor and started listening to his wife (Hope)and became the biggest impediment to getting CCW done. He began demanding poison pills be added to the various ccw bills thinking we would not swallow it. Finally in 2003 he and Col. Paul D. McClellan, the current, but outgoing, Superintendent of the Ohio State Highway Patrol added the "open carry" in your car provision to the bill. Then Taft added the bit about reporters being able to print the names of CHL holders...Ironically about that same time he was making moves to keep the same thing from being done with the names of convicted criminals that had been released. The Governor was a huge disappointment to all here.:banghead: :banghead: :banghead: We are glad he is gone. The new Governor, Ted Strickland though a Democrat is at least pro gun. We will be testing that soon. I would have much prefered Ken Blackwell...but that is a mute point now.

Anyways we decided to swallow this rubbish in 2003 and fix it later. That is what we are doing now. HB 347 just took effect on Wednesday the 14th. However we are not stopping there. More reforms are on the way.;) It is just that these things take time...:(
 
GOPGuy,

You said "...but that is a mute point now." I believe the word you are looking for is "moot".

It's often misused, and its usage in your post just caught my eye.


Kind regards,
BB62
 
After reading their explanation, what they're doing is even cooler than what I suspected :).

Basically they've rigged a way to challenge the constitutionality of the law under the 1st and 14th amendments.

The government is NOT in the business of deciding who is and is not a "journalist". And never has been.

Had the English government had a say, Ben Franklin wouldn't have been "credentialed" as a journalist (his primary profession in case y'all didn't know).

Good one, guys!
 
After fighting with the powers that be for three years about the onerous media access loophole and getting practically nowhere... some thinking outside the box is a good thing now and then.

Nobody (even the Board of Directors of OFCC) thought that our tactics would have achieved such success so early! It's unvelievable that the Cincinnati Enquirer requested a complete list from the Clermont County Sheriff's Office (so that they would be able to print it like the Plain Dealer does) and they were denied based on OFCC's efforts to raise awareness of the loophole.

OFCC has been outraged about the misuse of the journalists' privileged access to personal information and is continually working to protect the CHL community.
 
I think in this case it's a "newspaper thing", The dead tree format is dying and they know it. For years they had a lock on what and how information has been disseminated. Only recently have bloggers and interested individual's been able to research events and facts and publish the results.
This directly challenges the papers and *ahem* journalists, just think what would have happened if the internet wasn't able to prove that the Texas NG documents were fake. Lets face it, newspapers and these small political action groups (The Brady bunch) can no longer take all of the headlines and keep them unopposed. Those groups that newspaper editors normally shutout of the stories have now taken to the internet, and the hard copy news agencies are becoming more and more irrelevant. Thats what I believe is the reason for this screed, jealousy.

Jim
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Similar threads

J
  • Locked
OFCC Raises Awareness of Media Access Loophole
Replies
2
Views
358
Mike Harbour
M
P
  • Locked
Bloggers stand up to Ohio Newspaper over CCW
2
Replies
42
Views
3K
gunsmith
G
D
  • Locked
(OH) Letters to the editor....
Replies
4
Views
533
Standing Wolf
S
evan price
  • Locked
Ohio CCW holders are good, law-abiding people! (But Toby Hoover is still upset)
Replies
3
Views
880
Henry Bowman
H
B
  • Locked
Man arrested for threatening President
Replies
24
Views
1K
Art Eatman
A
Back
Top