Bombshell Report: Crime Dropped in 6 Ohio Cities Under ‘Permitless Carry’ Law

Violent gun-related crime in six of eight Ohio cities targeted in a recently-released study commissioned by Attorney General Dave Yost dropped—in some cases by double digits—in the year after the state’s “constitutional carry” law took effect, according to a recently published study by the Center for Justice Research.

The Center is a partnership between the Attorney General’s office and Bowling Green University. The study covered the two-year period from June 2021 through June 2023. The permitless carry law took effect in June 2022, so the report covers the period from one year before to one year after the law became effective.

Yost authored an Op-Ed at National Review, which said in the headline, “Ohio Just Disproved a Gun-Control Talking Point.” The study looked at eight major Buckeye State cities: Akron, Canton, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Columbus, Dayton, Parma and Toledo. Here are the major talking points:

• Results from a trend analysis indicated a significant decrease in crime incidents involving a firearm for Akron, Columbus, and Toledo, and across all 8 cities combined from June 2021- June 2023.
• Most cities’ crime rates decreased after the PCL (Permitless Carry Law) was enacted. Unlike the other six cities, rates in Dayton and Cincinnati increased slightly, however.
• Toledo, Parma, and Akron each experienced an average of 19% decrease in summed rates of crimes involving a firearm post-PCL.
• Based on data from June 2021 to June 2023, the enactment of the PCL does not appear to have any appreciable effect on law enforcement injuries or deaths by firearm in the cities of interest.
• Data on gunshot detection technology for Toledo and Columbus also captured a decrease in validated crime incidents post-PCL by 23.2% and 20.6%, respectively.
• Increases in crime rates in the spring-summer months appear both before and after the PCL went into effect for most cities (see Figure 1 in full report), but this observation could be due to the influence of other factors such as time of year or structural population characteristics. This slight acceleration in crimes involving firearms was also temporary.

The study was authored by Melissa W. Burek, Ph.D., and Julia C. Bell, MSCJ, with support from Contributing Author Eric Cooke, Ph.D. It spans 22 pages and is loaded with charts and graphs supporting the notion that permitless carry—which anti-gunners declared would lead to the end of normal life in Ohio as Ohioans have known it—hasn’t really harmed anyone and appears to have actually had a positive impact. The study acknowledges more research is necessary, something of required caveat in many studies, which often translates to “keep the paychecks coming for our academic labors.”

In this case, however, what the researchers have reported is genuinely stunning and suggests continued work should be required and even encouraged.

In his Op-Ed, AG Yost, a Republican, takes aim at the mayors of three Ohio cities—Cleveland, Columbus and Cincinnati—for attempting to exploit tragedy to push gun control. All had made statements implicating the new “constitutional carry” law for gun-related violent crimes in their communities. And then he lowers the boom.

“There was only one problem,” he wrote. “It wasn’t true.”

“During the legislative debate,” Yost recalled a few lines later, “the term ‘Wild West’ came up repeatedly in predictions about Ohio’s future under the new law. It turns out that Ohio is just the Midwest, full of common sense and largely lacking itchy trigger fingers.

“They mayors’ misplaced game of blame and shame ought to be replaced with tactics that are proven to work,” Yost continues. “Gun crime needs proactive policing — taking the criminals who use guns for crime off the streets. A thug in prison does not mug innocent citizens or conduct drive-by shootings.”

Today, 27 of the 50 states have permitless carry, which has made anti-gun liberal mayors in those states furious. However, where these mayors go wrong, Yost suggests, is expecting restrictions on law-abiding citizens to somehow result in the commission of fewer crimes by violent criminals, a scenario which has never worked anywhere.

The real solution, Yost contends, “is in proactive policing — prosecuting offenses that are now often ignored or probationable, such as possession of a weapon when prohibited; “flooding the zone” with surged, targeted enforcement; and, most of all, sentencing the small number of criminals who use guns to prison terms long enough to keep them off the streets.

“The study,” Yost concludes, “just says what Second Amendment advocates have long asserted: Law-abiding gun owners are not the problem when it comes to gun crimes.”

About Dave Workman

Dave Workman is a senior editor at TheGunMag.com and Liberty Park Press, author of multiple books on the Right to Keep & Bear Arms, and formerly an NRA-certified firearms instructor.