Violent Crime Rates DROPPED After Ohio Adopted Permitless Carry

At the time, gun control activists and anti-gun politicians decried the move and declared it would make the state a more dangerous place. State Rep. Allison Russo even claimed that “Republicans have made it crystal clear that they value the approval of the gun lobby more than the lives of Ohioans and the police officers who protect our communities every day.”

With the FBI’s crime statistics for 2022 now publicly available, was Russo right? Did Ohio become a more dangerous place because of permitless carry? Were Republicans really casting their votes because they had no care or concern about the safety of their constituents or those tasked with enforcing the laws they approved at the state capitol?

Nope to all of the above.


Overall violent crimes were down in Ohio and the U.S. in 2022, with Ohio seeing a 7.5% decrease from 2021 and the U.S. reporting a 1.63% decrease.

Last year Ohio and the U.S. both also saw a drop in homicides after increases in 2021 and 2020.

Ohio had 6.1 homicides per 100,000 people last year, compared to 7.5 and 7 in 2021 and 2020, respectively, according data from the FBI. Nationally there were 6.5 homicide per 100,000 in 2020 and 6.8 in 2021 compared to 6.3 in 2022.

Not only did violent crime and homicide rates both decline last year, the drop in violent crime in Ohio far outpaced the national average. The doom-and-gloom predictions of the anti-gunners were flat-out wrong, and Ohio is a safer state today than it was when Gov. Mike DeWine signed SB 215 into law.

https://bearingarms.com/camedwards/2023/10/24/guess-what-happened-to-violent-crime-rates-after-ohio-adopted-permitless-carry-n76474