Concealed-gun law hasn’t triggered violence
Crime rate among licensed carriers has been very low

By ANDREW WOLFSON
The Courier-Journal

Also
? Concealed-carry law

Despite the fears of opponents, who
branded it the “gunslinger bill,” the law
enacted in 1996 allowing Kentuckians to
carry concealed handguns hasn’t triggered
wholesale violence or shootouts in the
streets.

Figures the state police are required to
collect annually under the the statute show
that permit holders are less likely to be
charged with violent crimes than the
population at large.

Only five murder charges were placed against permit holders from 1997 through
1999, or fewer than two per year. Similarly small numbers of forcible rape and
assault charges were filed against them. The figures don’t specify the weapons
used in the crimes. The murder charges, for example, conceivably could be for
deaths by stabbing.

“None of our concerns have been borne out,” said Hazard police Chief Rod
Maggard, president of the Kentucky Chiefs of Police Association, which opposed
the concealed-carry bill for fear it would invite citizens to take the law into their
own hands.

The law’s author, Rep. Robert Damron,
D-Nicholsville, said its stringent
criminal-background checks and relatively
expensive fees for licensing and training have
combined to make permit holders “a very
law-abiding group.”

Opponents concede that their gravest concerns haven’t materialized, but they
still oppose the law on philosophical grounds because they say it breeds mistrust
and undermines a sense of community. “It feeds an attitude that guns are a way
to solve our problems,” said Nancy Jo Kemper, who heads the Kentucky Council
of Churches.

SINCE THE LAW went into effect in November 1996, 59,941 people have
obtained permits, including 4,009 who have let them expire. As of July 14,
55,932 permits were in force.

Supporters and opponents of the law point to anecdotal evidence that they say
bolsters their positions.

Detractors, including Jefferson County police Chief William Carcara, who contend
that concealed carry poses too great a risk of accidental shootings, cite the
June 30 incident at Tinseltown theaters in eastern Jefferson County in which a
.22-caliber derringer discharged after falling from the pocket of a moviegoer who
had a permit to carry it. The bullet struck the gun’s owner, William Newland, 34,
in the leg, then hit Juanita Sparks, 60, in the hip.

“I wish they’d pass a law that nobody could carry concealed weapons except for
police officers,” said Sparks, who was treated overnight in a hospital for her
wound and was still limping several weeks later.

Police and prosecutors say the incident exposes a loophole in the law: It allows
businesses such as the cinema to post signs barring concealed weapons but
imposes no penalty on patrons who ignore them. Damron said a penalty was
deliberately omitted from the law to avoid criminalizing the conduct of a permit
holder who went into a business “forgetting she had a gun in her purse.”

County police and the commonwealth’s attorney’s office have said they are
exploring whether Newland can be charged with another crime, such as wanton
endangerment.

Opponents of the concealed-carry law also say it can allow simple arguments to
escalate into fatal ones — such as on May 8, when James Brian Morris, 32, was
fatally shot after an argument on Dixie Highway in what county police said
appeared to have been a case of “road rage.” Kevin T. Dupont, 28, who has
pleaded innocent to a charge of murder, had a concealed-carry permit.

The victim’s uncle, Bill Morris, said the law
makes it too easy for those with permits to
settle arguments with a gun. He also said
the family suspects that Dupont — a
county planner who has been suspended
from his job — wouldn’t have had a weapon
if not for the permit law because as a
government bureaucrat, he had no reason
to carry a weapon. Dupont’s phone has
been disconnected, and his lawyer, Franklin
Jewell, said he didn’t know whether his
client carried a gun in his car — which is
legal even without a permit — before the
concealed-carry statute was enacted.

DAMRON AND OTHER gun advocates say there are more examples of permit
holders using their weapons to protect themselves and foil crimes than to injure
innocent victims, though statistics are not kept on the circumstances under
which permit holders discharge their weapons:

On Aug. 19, 1999, Joseph Megerle, a permit holder, was out for a morning walk
in Covington with a .25-caliber automatic tucked into his exercise pants when
Jamie Kennedy, 28, a felon, pulled his own gun and tried to rob Megerle, police
said. Megerle, who later told police that he feared for his life, fired twice, hitting
Kennedy in the head and chest, seriously wounding him.

Kennedy, who was wanted on charges of robbing a convenience store earlier the
same day, sought treatment at a hospital, where police arrested him, said James
T. Redwine, an assistant Kenton County commonwealth’s attorney. Megerle was
not charged with any offense, and police credit him with assisting them in
Kennedy’s apprehension in the robbery. “Because of the gunshot injury, we were
able to track him down,” Redwine said. Kennedy is charged with robbery in both
cases and with being a persistent felon.

On May 12, 1997, Ann Barry, 60, also a permit holder, was awakened shortly
before midnight in her home outside Bowling Green by a burglar who had kicked
open her garage door and entered her home. She fired one shot at him, and he
returned four. She wasn’t injured, but James R. Sugart, 28, was critically
wounded.

State police found him in a field nearby. Barry’s shooting was ruled justified;
Sugart, who pleaded guilty to attempted murder, burglary and being a persistent
felon, was sentenced to 25 years in prison.

Barry, a history instructor at Western Kentucky University’s Glasgow’s campus
who got a permit because she is often on the road, could have had the gun in
her house without the license. The law allows permit holders to carry concealed
weapons in public, but permits aren’t required to keep handguns in homes or
cars, even if they are in glove compartments.

But in an interview, Barry said the eight hours of training required to get a permit
“made me more confident in what I had to do.”

In the most publicized case, Clifford R.
Meadows, the owner of Cottage Inn
restaurant on Eastern Parkway, reached
into his car on July 8, 1998, pulled out a
.22-caliber revolver and exchanged fire with
a man who had just robbed a bank on South
Preston Street. Meadows hit the man once
in the neck, and the robber and two
accomplices were arrested near Midway, Ky.

Police said they were grateful Meadows
tried to foil the robbery but that his actions
were nonetheless dangerous and ill-advised.
Ronald T. Bolden, 20, was sentenced earlier
this year to 370 months in prison for armed
robbery, conspiracy and using a gun in a federal crime.

Meadows said he got a permit in the first month after the concealed-carry bill
became law in November 1996 because he carries restaurant cash.

“It gives me more security,” he said.

The state estimated that as many as 150,000 to 200,000 Kentuckians would
apply for permits in the first three years of the program — about three times the
actual number of applicants. But Damron said the projection was made before
the bill was drafted and was based on a fee of only $25 rather than the $60
enacted and on less rigorous and expensive training requirements. “Any time you
increase the cost of something it will reduce the number of folks who will buy it,”
he said.

More than half the 59,941 licenses issued through July 14 were handed out
during the first 14 months of the program, state police records show. About 1
percent of the applicants were disqualified because of information found in
background checks, ranging from felony convictions to convictions on two DUIs.
A Courier-Journal comparison of state police figures on the the crime rate of
permit holders with the crime rate of the state population at large shows that
murder charges were placed against permit holders at a rate of 3.8 per 100,000
compared with 6.1 per 100,000 for the population at large during the three most
recent years available.

The data show that the average number of charges a year against permit
holders for attempted murder was 4.6; for domestic assault, 45; and for
trafficking in controlled substances and marijuana, 22. The data do not reveal
whether a gun was used in any of the crimes.

Because lawmakers intentionally limited public information about permit holders
to their names (ages, addresses and even counties of residence are not
released), it is impossible to systematically check licensees’ records for new
charges involving handguns.

State police, however, do check for new convictions and protective orders
every three to six months, or as often as the Administrative Office of the Courts
provides the necessary records. Those checks have resulted in 112 suspensions
of permits, all for domestic-violence orders.

Damron said the annual reports on charges and convictions show that “just
because somebody has a gun it doesn’t mean they are going to commit a crime
with it.”

Rep. Bob Heleringer, R-Louisville, who was an outspoken opponent of the
concealed-carry legislation, said:

“Bob Damron gives me a daily update on the lack of blood running in the streets.
But if concealed carry is so great, why does almost every building and store in
the state have a sign on it saying no concealed weapons allowed? If it’s so
great, how come nobody wants it?”