Ohioans continue to seek concealed carry permits in record numbers

Ohioans continue to apply in record numbers for the opportunity to carry concealed firearms as a means of personal protection.

Mike DeWine – Ohio's Attorney General – released on Thursday the concealed carry license permit statistics for the second quarter of this year.

In all for the period April, May and June, the state's 88 county sheriffs issued 48,032 licenses to citizens, allowing them to carry a concealed firearm.

Besides issuing 32,074 new licenses the sheriffs also issued 15,958 permit renewals, DeWine said.

Both figures represent increases from their first-quarter counterparts. For the period January, February and March of this year the county sheriffs issued 31,407 new licenses and renewed another 6,354 permits, DeWine said.

While county sheriffs do the actual concealed carry permit paperwork by law the Ohio Attorney General maintains the statistics and assembles the figures.

Each person seeking a concealed carry permit is required to attend a multi-hour course and successfully complete an actual hands-on proficiency test with a handgun.

A few exceptions and exemptions exist to this state requirement, however, though such numbers are small.

So far this year the state has seen some slackening in the number of concealed carry permits having been issued.

For the first six months of 2013 the county sheriffs issued 63,481 concealed carry permits. That figure is down slightly from the record year of 2012 when during the first months a total of 64,650 concealed carry permits were issued.

Even so, says DeWine, the 63,481 new license issued were more than for any single year since the program began in 2004, the 2012 statistic of 64,650 permits being excluded.

Broken down for this year's second quarter, for Northeast Ohio, the Ashtabula County's sheriff issued 133 new concealed carry permits and issued 117 renewals, while the Cuyahoga County sheriff issued 515 new permits and issued 299 renewals.

For Geauga County, its sheriff during the second quarter of this year issued 723 new concealed carry permits along with renewing another 614 concealed carry permits.

Lake County's sheriff department was again full mode during the second quarter of 2012. It issued 1,607 new concealed carry permits and authorized 385 renewals.

Thus Lake County once again ranked second in the state in the number of new concealed carry permits having been issued for a three-month quarterly reporting period.

 

Montgomery County in southwest Ohio ranked Number One during the second quarter in the number of new concealed carry permits issued: 1,750 such documents.

Each of Ohio's 88 county sheriff departments reported issuing new concealed carry permits. The county issuing the fewest number of such documents was Meigs County which issued just 48 new concealed carry permits for the second quarter of 2013.

Other second quarter concealed carry-related statistics assembled by DeWine's office included 285 permits were suspended, 81 permits were revoked, 369 permit applications were denied, and another 18 licenses being processed were suspended for one reason or another.

 

- Jeffrey L. Frischkorn

JFrischk@Ameritech.net