Lake County sets record pace in 2013 for issuing Ohio concealed carry permits

A new record number of Ohioans successfully sought or renewed a concealed carry handgun permit in 2013.

And Lake County recorded the greatest number of new concealed carry permits being issued of the state's 88 counties.

Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine reports that 145,342 permits were issued; a statistic that dwarfed the previous record-issuing year total.

Last year's total figure includes 96,972 new licenses and 48,370 renewals.

The previous all-year both-class total was recorded in 2012 when 64,650 new licenses with a total 76,810 documents issued by Ohio's 88 county sheriffs.

Also, the previous record for renewal permits was in 2008. That was the first year that concealed carry permits were eligible for renewal and when 31,139 such documents were issued, DeWine said.

By law the Ohio Attorney General must compile an annual report about concealed carry license issuance.

Required too is that all county sheriff must furnished on a quarterly basis the various concealed carry license application category statistics.

An interesting statistic is while the number of new and renewal concealed carry permit issuance soared in 2013 over 2012, the number of revocations plummeted. In 2012 the state's 88 county sheriffs lawfully revoked 741 concealed carry permits. Last year that figure fell to 286, the Attorney General's annual report says.

However, the number of new permit denials has steadily increased along with the number of approvals. In 2009 the 88 county sheriffs denied 636 applicants, a figure that climbed to 889 in 2012 and to 1,142 last year, the report also says.

As for individual county statistics, of Ohio's 88 counties, fully 30 of them saw their respective sheriff each issue a minimum of 1,000 new concealed carry permits.

The county that issued the greatest number of new concealed carry permits was Lake County where an exact 5,000 such licenses were issued.

At the bottom of issuing new concealed carry permits in 2013 was Noble County which approved just 142 licenses.

In terms of renewals, Clermont County ranked first in 2013 with 2,658 re-ups.

Meanwhile, several counties over to the east and also along the Ohio River is Lawrence County where its county sheriff reported reissuing no (as in “zero”) concealed carry permit renewals.

Specifically for Northeast Ohio, the total number of new concealed carry licenses issued in 2013 (with renewals in parentheses) were: Ashtabula County – 330 (293); Cuyahoga County – 1,652 (1,193); Erie County – 2,331 (1,087); Geauga County – 2,212 (1,537); Huron County – 316 (266); Lake County – 5,000 (1,289); Medina County – 1,394 (1,604); Sandusky County – 793 (296); Trumbull County – 1,825 (1,379).

 

-Jeffrey L. Frischkorn

JFrischk@Ameritech.net