UPDATED Renewals top newly issued Ohio concealed carry permits in 2018

As the number of new concealed carry permit issuance in Ohio begins to ebb the flow is increasing for the volume of renewals.

Last year the state’s 88 county sheriffs issued 69,375 new concealed carry permits – a 10-percent decline from 2017.

However, these sheriffs did renew 98,927 concealed carry permits – an 83-percent increase. This is the first since at least 2014 that renewals have totaled more than the number of new concealed carry permits being issued. Renewals are required every five years.

The statistics come from the Ohio Attorney General’s annual report on the state’s concealed carry permit system, a legislatively mandated stipulation.

David Yost – the state’s new Attorney General – issued the required documentation in late February.

“Each county sheriff must report concealed handgun license statistics quarterly to the Ohio Peace Officer Training Commission within the Ohio Attorney General’s Office,” Yost said in his year-ending report to the Ohio General Assembly.

“Ohio county sheriffs began issuing concealed carry licenses in 2004.”

Since 2014 when the county sheriff’s issued 58,066 concealed carry permits, the numbers increases steadily, peaking in 2016 at 117,953 permits. The number then fell in 2017 to 77,281, and tumbled to the 69,375 permits that were issued last year.

Renewals were lagging in the low- to mid-40,000 range but started to swing upward in 2017 at 54,064, and then to the nearly 100,000 in 2018.

As for suspensions, those were 1,738 last year; up slightly from the 1,669 in 2017. Suspensions occur when a concealed carry permit holder has been arrested or charged with certain offenses, if a person is the subject of court-ordered protection order. A resolution may result in reinstatement. The three counties with the greatest number of suspensions were Montgomery (181) and Clermont ans well as Franklin (128 each).

Revocations jumped from 437 in 2017 more than four times in 2018 to 1,879.

The Attorney General says that “sheriffs must permanently revoke the license of any person who no longer meets the eligibility requirements to carry a concealed handgun. A license may be revoked when the holder moves out of state, dies, cancels the license, is convicted of a disqualifying crime, or becomes subject to the law’s restrictions on mental illness or drug or alcohol dependency. Such persons are no longer eligible to possess a concealed carry permit.”

Denials stood at 1,436 in 2018; a slight increase from the 2017 figure of 1,216. Yost said denials were less than one percent of all applications.

The three counties with the most denials were: Lucas (206); Montogmery (113); and Lake (90).

As for the leading counties in terms of new licenses issued in 2018, the Top Five were: Franklin (6,117); Lake (4,404); Montgomery (2,820); Butler (2,390); and Clermont (2,346).

The Top Five counties for renewals in 2018 were: Franklin (4,598); Montgomery (4,349); Lake (4,179); Butler (4,040); and Geauga (2,874).

Even though the state’s total number of new issues of concealed carry permits was more than the number of renewals, Ohio still had 18 counties where more new permits were issued than renewals. Among them were Huron County with 952 new permits and 519 renewals; Logan County with 628 new permits and 217 renewals; Shelby County with 677 new permits and 667 renewals; and Tuscarawas County with 2,242 new permits and 932 renewals (That is not a typo, by the way).

As for the counties with the fewest number of new permits issued in 2018 – in descending order – they were: Paulding (115); Van Wert (114); Putnam (109); Noble (97); and Coshocton (82).

And the counties with the fewest number of issuing renewal concealed carry permits in 2018 – in descending order – were: Henry (205); Coshocton (187); Noble (186); Paulding (174); and Meigs (134).

Also, Ohio permit holders can carry concealed handguns in the following states: Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Carolina, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia, Wisconsin, and Wyoming.

- Jeffrey L. Frischkorn
JFrischk@Ameritech.net