Jerry, I don't know anything about Ohio's requirements. When Texas first started the concealed weapon licenses, a retired officer would have had to pay some private school to take their course, pay the full license fee, etc. They later changed it so a retiring officer could get the license just with some paperwork from the chief of the department he was retiring from and a reduced fee, but he had to do it within a certain amount of time after retirement and I was many years past that. The most recent state law, though, allows any retired officer to get the license provided he has an ID card from the department from which he retired showing that he was "honorably" retired with 20 or more years service, and if he can qualify on the department's pistol range (the law also requires the department to provide the necessary ID card and allow retired officers to qualify on their pistol range). So instead of the ID card I got when I retired that simply said "retired Captain", I now have one that says "Rank - Captain" and on another line "Honorably retired after 24 years" (they only go by full years; I retired a couple of months short of 25 years). And I have another laminated "Certificate of Proficiency" that shows the date I qualified on the pistol range. (Incidentally, I was told we had one 92 year old retired officer to qualify).
Now the new federal "Law Enforcement Officers Safety Act of 2004" only requires 15 years instead of 20 for qualified retired officers and allows them, as well as active officers, to carry in any state.
Now that's the condensed version. /forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif /forums/images/graemlins/laugh.gif Naturally, there are some important details I didn't include, and anyone considering carrying would need to carefully study the statutes in their entirety.
