COLUMBUS, Ohio — A new report from the state found that gun violence has actually decreased since a controversial firearm law took effect, but police warn it doesn't tell the full story.
Gun owners in Ohio were able to legally carry a firearm without a permit as of June 2022.
Police and gun safety advocates testified that it could cause an increase in gun violence. Now, the data is in.
The new study from the attorney general's office and Bowling Green State University proves police were wrong about fears of increased crimes, Buckeye Firearms Association's Rob Sexton said.
"This latest study on permitless carry demonstrates yet again that you can trust law-abiding people," Sexton said.
The Center for Justice Research report took data from Ohio’s eight largest cities and analyzed crimes related to firearms, verified gunshot-detection alerts and the number of law enforcement officers shot.
The report, one that was initiated by AG Dave Yost and his office, concluded that Ohio saw less gun crime after the law went into effect.
"Do you think that the permitless carry law made Ohio safer?" Statehouse reporter Morgan Trau asked Sexton.
"It's hard to say if the fact that crime dropped since the permit list carry bill has been enacted," Sexton responded. "I do know that we can say that it didn't make things worse."
The study results didn't come as a surprise to Dean Rieck, also with Buckeye Firearms.
"Those who oppose gun rights believe anyone with a gun is a potential murderer," Rieck said. "But that's phobia, not fact. The facts show that the vast majority of violent crime is consistently committed by a tiny fraction of the population. Most ordinary people will never commit a crime of any kind."
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He also noted that the cities of Columbus, Cleveland, Cincinnati, Toledo, Akron, Dayton, Parma and Canton, found a decrease in the rate of gun crime by as much as 22%.
But the data doesn’t tell the full story, the Fraternal Order of Police’s Brian Steel said.
"We also had an all-time homicide rate — Cleveland, Columbus, Cincinnati combined," Steel said.
Researchers only analyzed data from June 2021 to June 2023.
Pandemic gun violence was unique and peaked like never before, so it is natural for a decrease, Steel explained.
"If crime went down a little bit, I do not classify it as significant," he said. "I think we have to expand the study a little more, and then see what happens."
News 5 looked into the data, going back a decade. The figures that were used by the report weren't accessible for News 5 Thursday, as it came from specific crime data requested by the Center for Justice Research.
For a representative data point, News 5 looked at Department of Health data on gun deaths across the state since 2012.
Firearm deaths have steadily increased since 2012. Yes, 2023 crime did go down, but it's about the same as 2019, which police say is a much more comparable year.
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The city of Cleveland is now condemning the gun rights groups' analysis.
"This is a classic case of confusing correlation with causation," city spokesperson Tyler Sinclair said. "Violent crime trends were down across the nation last year, not just here in Ohio."
This was confirmed by nonpartisan organization Council on Criminal Justice.
The report lacks the "depth of analysis" required to clarify whether the permitless carry law actually prevented crime, Sinclair said.
"The study literally states that fluctuations in crime rates they measured 'could be due to the influence of other factors'" he noted.
He is correct, the report added that the trend could be “more consistent with the broad decreasing trend in crimes from June 2021 to June 2023.” However, the report mainly focused on data, not the possibility that permitless carry and crime data aren't connected.
"At the end of the day, addressing violent crime is nuanced and takes a comprehensive approach – something Mayor Bibb has done with his RISE Initiative, which has been successful in many ways in reducing crime as evidenced in today’s announcement. Ultimately, however, it’s pretty straightforward in that violent crime is perpetuated by guns and creating easier access only inhibits local governments like ourselves in effectively addressing this epidemic," he said in his statement.
Even so, Sexton said that the way to actually stop crime is by harsher penalties for offenders.
"Ohio needs to be concentrating more on criminal activity than targeting law-abiding people, in their right to carry a fire to protect themselves," Sexton said. "There's a sense of lawlessness and that lawlessness I think is based on the idea that there's no real consequence."
Mike Weinman with the FOP took issue with this, saying enforcing the law is directly impacted by the Statehouse.
"This task has become harder every time legislation is passed that takes tools from our toolbelts.” Weinman said. "Gun laws, in particular, have been disappearing from our toolbelts, making it much more difficult to curb the gun violence that is gripping our State."
Follow WEWS statehouse reporter Morgan Trau on Twitter and Facebook.
