(The Center Square) – Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost said Wednesday ending restrictions on concealed carry in the state did not lead to a rise in violent crime.
Yost released results from a study from his office and the Center for Justice Research at Bowling Green State University that looked at violent crime in Ohio’s eight major cities after the new constitutional carry law took effect in June 2022.
At the time, Ohio was the 23rd state to allow people to carry a concealed weapon without a permit.
“This is not to downplay the very real problem of crime in many neighborhoods in our cities – you don’t need a research team to see that gun violence destroys lives, families and opportunity,” Yost said. “The key takeaway from this study is that we have to keep the pressure on the criminals who shoot people, rather than Ohioans who responsibly exercise their Second Amendment rights.”
In the year following the new law, the report showed crimes involving guns dropped across Columbus, Cleveland, Cincinnati, Toledo, Akron, Dayton, Parma and Canton. It also fell individually in six of the eight cities.
Only Cincinnati and Dayton showed an increase of 5% and 6%, respectively.
Last year, according to Yost, mayors of several of the state’s large cities blamed local crime on the law change, which led to the study.
“I genuinely did not know what the study would find,” Yost said. “I thought it would be useful either way.”
Researchers looked at data from June 2021 to June 2023, focusing on crimes involving firearms, verified gunshot detection alerts and how many officers were struck by gunfire.
Gun crime fell the most in Parma by 22%, followed by Akron and Toledo, which had 18% decreases. Columbus gun crimes fell from 10.79 per 1,000 crime incidents to 9.55, while Cleveland’s dropped from 10.16 to 9.58. Canton’s rate fell from 12.67 to 11.98.
