Ohio Open Carry

[cjmorgan00]

I live in Ohio and was wondering where to find the ohio law page where it says your allowed to open carry, I want to open carry and have seen several sites that say it is legal in ohio but was unable to find in the ohio revised code where it is, the ohio sight keeps refering to concealed carry and laws, so whats up with open carry please send me a link from the ohio government site

[cjmorgan00]

also was wondering if i could have one in the chamber or a full mag in but not one in chamber, whats the point in openly carrying an empty gun

[dakota223]

it is legal in ohio but its not worth it less than 200 for a chl. Are you really ready for the hasle of open carry and do you have the money to fight some townships <snip>http://opencarry.org/oh.html

[knight0334]

If I remember correctly, Ohio's laws are silent on open carry, there for its legal. Laws make things illegal, and in the absence of law, it is legal. There is a OH Supreme Court case backing that up from a handful of years ago. I'm not sure if OH's preemption also covers open carry, I think it does. You'll still need to permit/license to carry a loaded gun in a vehicle whether you open carry or conceal. I do think there are provisions though for unloaded transporting of the gun between places that you open carry.

An empty chamber just makes a gun into an ineffective club. Always carry chambered unless the gun is specifically design in a way that it is unsafe.

[johnwilliamson062]

As mentioned it is a supreme court ruling based on the states constitution. During hunting season you can get away with it in most urban areas. I have never been bothered. I have occasionally received stares, but never had any active LEO intervention. Have been watched closely a few times. I do not open carry often.

If you want to fight the good fight I salute you.
If not, don't open carry.

[wpcexpert]

It is legal to open carry in Ohio.

Are you really ready for the hasle of open carry and do you have the money to fight some townships

The hassle shouldn't be a deterent, it should be an incentive.

[dakota223]

what about the going broke part?

[johnwilliamson062]

I'd highly recommend you get a CHL even if you are going to open carry. I think you may face less hassle if you have proof you have no criminal record and have done minimal training.

[NavyLT]

Noise and Nazi reference - not called for. Discuss the issue without such, please.

GEM

[NavyLT]

Originally Posted by johnwilliamson062

I'd highly recommend you get a CHL even if you are going to open carry. I think you may face less hassle if you have proof you have no criminal record and have done minimal training.

It is slightly annoying in this great country of America that we feel it would be beneficial to pay a sum of money to a state agency for a piece of paper to demonstrate to, what I am sure are well intentioned, highly trained police officers, that we in fact are not criminals because we choose to exercise our right voiced by our founding fathers to visibly carry a means to protect ourselves which is not against any law that our fine, outstanding legislatures have enacted.

Is that better?

[Jim March]

Read the ruling in the Klein case of 2003:

http://www.sconet.state.oh.us/rod/ne...-ohio-4779.pdf

That case was trying to score CCW. The Ohio Supreme Court said "no, you can't have CCW as a right under the constitution, the 2nd Amendment and Ohio's local variant of same isn't being violated because you already have legal open carry".

And then everybody in the gunnie community looked at each other and went "we do!?".

And all the cops looked at each other and went "they do!?"

And all the anti-gunners in the legislature went "OH $%^$ THEY DO!?!?!?!" when the gunnies started doing open-carry rallies all over the state including heavily armed laps around the various capitol buildings .

Anyways. The legislature put a CCW permit process into law HOPING that most of the gunnies would cover their boomthings and stop being so annoying . And most did - but open carry never got banned and it would likely be unconstitutional to try.

Because the fact open carry exists is probably the only way the CCW permit *fees* are constitutional. Otherwise you have an unconstitutional fee for exercising a basic civil right.

[Al Norris]

Jim, that is the precise reasoning that the Idaho Supreme Court used in the 1902 case, In re Brickey, 8 Idaho 597:

POLICE REGULATIONS-FIREARMS-CARRYING CONCEALED WEAPONS.- While it is, undoubtedly, within the power of the legislature to prohibit the carrying of concealed deadly weapons, and such regulation is a proper exercise of police power, yet the legislature does not possess the power to prohibit the carrying of firearms, as the right to do so is guaranteed to the citizen both by our federal and state constitutions.

It seems the Ohio Supreme Court reached the same conclusion.

[zukiphile]

Allow me to offer a local perspective on Klein and the Ohio code.

While Ohio courts always concluded that there was a right to carry arms, the restrictions they permitted effectively elminated the right. Klein did too.

Some background. The fellow calls local police and asks whether he will be arrested if he openly carries an arm. The police assure him that he will be. This is how he had standing.

The law at issue prohibited concealed carry, but allowed four affirmative defenses to the charge. This is the law the majority upheld. So, if you openly carry, you will be arrested. If you carry concealed, you will be arrested, but will permitted to argue a statutory affirmative defense at your trial. That is a terribly expensive right.

I find the dissent in Klein better reasoned than the majority decision. Specifically,

{¶30} I would hold R.C. 2923.12 unconstitutional because it treats a
fundamental right as a mere affirmative defense. R.C. 2923.12 as a whole would
be constitutional only if the state bore the burden of proving that the defendant’s
actions fell outside those protected as fundamental rights. The statute as written
does not permit this. It would require a rewriting of the statute, which is activity
solely within the ambit of the legislature.

Subsequent to the decision in Klein, Ohio's problemmatic* CCW law passed. Even after passage, more litigation was required to force some urban counties to issue permits as required by the new law.

Of course, whether a person can open carry in Ohio is still primarily a matter of police culture rather than code and case law.

__________
* In its original form, Ohio's CCW law made the name and address of all permit holders public record. Ohio's anti-carry news personnel took it upon themselves to publish those records periodlically, making each of those people a robbery target. Transitioning from walking around with your weapon to getting into your car and driving was almost impossible to do without risking an "improper handling" charge. All the prior affirmative defenses to unlicensed carry were also eliminated.