LOVELAND MAGAZINE

News and Events from the Loveland, Ohio Area

Without fear or favor
Since 2004

Tag: Second Amendment

  • DeWine signs law removing training, background check, permitting requirement to conceal carry

    DeWine signs law removing training, background check, permitting requirement to conceal carry

    BY: JAKE ZUCKERMAN – Ohio Capital Journal

    Gov. Mike DeWine signed a bill into law Monday removing training, background check and permitting requirements to carry a concealed weapon in Ohio.

    When the law takes effect in 90 days, all Ohioans aged 21 and older who are lawfully allowed to possess a weapon will be able to carry it concealed on their persons. Prior law required them to undergo eight hours of training, a background check, and an application through their local sheriff.

    The enactment of “constitutional carry” or “permitless carry” marks a long-coveted win for the gun rights movement and firearms lobby, and a major loss for Democrats, anti-gun violence activists, police organizations and public health researchers who opposed it.

    Ohio is now the 23nd state in the U.S. with a permitless carry law, according to a count from the U.S. Concealed Carry Association. Several states including Iowa, Tennessee, Texas, and Wyoming passed versions of the law in 2021. Alabama signed the legislation into law just last week.“This is a day that will go down in history,” said Dean Rieck, Executive Director of Buckeye Firearms Association. “The brass ring has always been to eliminate the licensing mandate … and now, finally, that day is here. This is a great moment for Ohio and for those who wish to more fully exercise their Constitutional right to keep and bear arms.”

    The bill passed the House 58-36, with only Republicans in support. Two Republicans voted in opposition with Democrats, though at least one said he did so only because the bill does not go far enough.

    It passed in the Senate 24-9. All Democrats voted against the bill. Sen. Jerry Cirino, R-Kirtland, voted against the bill when the Senate first passed it in December. However, he reversed on the final Senate vote.

    Supporters of the legislation say it’s a logical extension of the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which states: “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”

    Sen. Terry Johnson, R-McDermott, the bill’s lead sponsor, said in a floor speech the bill is also in some ways a response to protesters “burning down their own cities” — a reference to racial justice protests that formed in the wake of a police officer murdering George Floyd during a stop in the summer of 2020.

    Critics say the policy will enable undertrained and possibly dangerous or unstable people to carry a concealed weapon. Public health research has linked concealed carry policies to increases in violent crimes.

    For instance, the American Journal of Public Health found that states with looser concealed carry regulations were associated with an 11% increase in handgun homicide rates than states with stricter policies. Modeling from the National Bureau of Economic Research found states that adopt concealed carry laws experience between a 13% and 15% increase in violent crime in the 10 years after implementation.

    According to the Health Policy Institute of Ohio, between 1999 and 2020 there have been large increases in annual rates of homicides (123%) and suicides (49%) in the state. While the prevalence of guns in suicides is steady, they’re becoming increasingly prevalent in homicides.

    However, gun supporters often point to a study published in the American College of Surgeons that didn’t identify any significant association after states adopted looser gun policies.

    In a statement, House Minority Leader Allison Russo criticized DeWine, emphasizing the thousands of concealed carry permits that are denied, revoked or suspended every year under the current system. While permitless carry doesn’t change who can possess a gun, it removes an additional layer of scrutiny within the current system.

    “Removing these responsible and reasonable precautions compromises the safety and security of our communities and law enforcement,” Russo said. “SB 215 completely betrays Ohioans who have called time after time for commonsense gun safety legislation, not extreme bills that endanger the lives of our children and families. 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.”

    Gary Wolske, president of the Fraternal Order of Police of Ohio, spoke out against the law in a Columbus Dispatch column. He argued the requirement to seek a permit is a reasonable one that strikes a balance between constitutional rights, officer safety, and public safety. The new law also removes a requirement under current law that those carrying a weapon “promptly” notify an officer that they’re armed. Instead, people who are carrying need only inform an officer they’re armed if the officer asks.

    Photo by Matthew Hatcher/Getty Images

    The Ohio Supreme Court has held since 2003 that “there is no constitutional right to bear concealed weapons.” While the right to bear arms, the court said, is fundamental, it is not without limitations.

    Since then, Ohio has steadily loosened its gun laws.

    Ohio first enacted a concealed program shortly thereafter in 2004. Several of its sponsors at the time remain in office including (by their current offices) Auditor Keith Faber, Lt. Gov. Jon Husted; congressmen Bob Gibbs, Jim Jordan and Bob Latta; state Sens. Bob Peterson, Tim Schaffer and Kirk Schuring; and state Reps. Jamie Callender, Bill Seitz, Scott Oelslager, Tom Patton and Jean Schmidt.

    Two years later, the legislature passed a law preemptively blocking Ohio cities from passing any gun restrictions stricter than those established by the state. The law was used to squash lawsuits from Ohio cities including Clyde, Cleveland and Cincinnati seeking to regulate guns within their borders.

    In March 2015, a new law reduced the required training hours to receive a concealed carry permit to eight from 12. Early last year, Gov. Mike DeWine signed a “stand your ground” bill into law, which removes the legal requirement that a person try to retreat from a perceived attack before responding with lethal force.

    The governor announced passage of the permitless carry bill in a news release comingled with several other bills. He didn’t offer any comment.

  • House bill would ‘null’ and ‘void’ gun laws, court rulings that lawmakers oppose

    House bill would ‘null’ and ‘void’ gun laws, court rulings that lawmakers oppose

    By Jake Zuckerman and Ohio Capital Journal

    Fourteen House Republicans signed onto legislation that would allow the state of Ohio to nix federal gun laws and court rulings that legislators deem to violate the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

    House Bill 62 would declare any federal law, executive order, administrative action, or court ruling to be “null, void, and of no effect in this state” if it infringes upon the Second Amendment.

    Legal acts that would qualify as infringements under the bill (the “Second Amendment Safe Haven Act”) include any of the following if they could “reasonably be expected to create a chilling effect.”

    • Any tax on guns, gun parts, or ammunition not common to other goods and services
    • Any registering or tracking of guns
    • Any registering or tracking of gun owners
    • Any act forbidding the possession, ownership, use or transfer of guns or ammo by law-abiding citizens
    • Any act ordering the confiscation of guns

    The bill also prohibits law enforcement from enforcing any federal laws, court rulings, or orders that would qualify as infringements under the bill. If they do, they “shall be liable to the injured party in an action at law.”

    It would prohibit a defense known as “qualified immunity,” which state employees claim as a defense for carrying out their official job duties.

    Exactly how HB 62 would play out is unclear.

    For instance, President Joe Biden last week announced planned executive actions to limit the proliferation of “ghost guns” made of homemade parts without traceable serial numbers. This would likely qualify as an infringement under HB 62, even if the U.S. Supreme Court were to rule the executive action was constitutional. Judges or law enforcement tasked with enforcing the law would be caught in a legal pickle.

    Analysts with the Legislative Service Commission, a nonpartisan arm of the legislature that reviews legislation, determined the bulk of the law “may be vulnerable to challenge” under the Supremacy Clause of the U.S. Constitution, which gives federal law precedence over state law.

    Rob Sexton, legislative director of the Buckeye Firearms Association, said the bill reflects a General Assembly trying to get out in front of what they see as a looming barrage of gun control bills coming from Biden and a Democratically controlled federal government.

    However, he offered lukewarm support of the bill and said courts would likely need to work out its contours.

    “BFA supports what they’re trying to do,” he said. “We’re not sure exactly what the best way is to achieve this, that provides real protection for gun owners form federal overreach. But we’re definitely supportive of what it is they’re trying to accomplish.”

    The bill is sponsored by GOP state Reps. Mike Loychik, of Bazetta, and Diane Grendell, of Chesterland.

    “Especially with the current climate and rhetoric at the federal level, the preservation of our second amendment is now more crucial than ever before and it is my intent to protect this right for the people of Trumbull County,” Loychik said in a news release.

    State lawmakers don’t get to pick and choose which federal laws will apply to our state, said Kristine Woodworth, volunteer with the Ohio chapter of Moms Demand Action, which advocates against gun violence.

    If the recent rash of mass shootings across the country and the daily gun deaths right here in Ohio doesn’t wake up our state and federal lawmakers to the need for common-sense gun safety, I don’t know what will.” – Kristine Woodworth, volunteer with the Ohio chapter of Moms Demand Action

    “This bill also includes provisions that threaten local law enforcement and officials with lawsuits, fines, and the loss of employment simply for doing their job.

    “The majority of people in Ohio support common-sense public safety measures like background checks because they keep guns out of the hands of dangerous people who we can all agree shouldn’t have them, like domestic abusers, people with violent criminal records, and people prohibited from owning a gun for mental health reasons. If the recent rash of mass shootings across the country and the daily gun deaths right here in Ohio doesn’t wake up our state and federal lawmakers to the need for common-sense gun safety, I don’t know what will.”

    Gun advocates in Ohio are still coming off a high from a major win in the past several General Assembly sessions and have other long-sought policy aims in the hopper.

    On Thursday, a House committee is scheduled to begin its review of separate gun legislation that would remove licensure requirements for Ohioans 21-and-older to carry a concealed weapon.

    This comes after Gov. Mike DeWine signed into law “stand your ground” legislation earlier this year that removes the requirement to reasonably seek to retreat before responding to a perceived attack with deadly force. Other wins in the past two decades include establishing a concealed carry program, weakening requirements to obtain licensure within the program, and passing a state law that prohibits cities and counties from passing gun control legislation of their own.

  • Ohio Republicans go full Calhoun on nullification. Never go full Calhoun

    Ohio Republicans go full Calhoun on nullification. Never go full Calhoun

    Commentary by David C. DeWitt from Ohio Capital Journal

    Ohio Republicans in the state legislature have apparently decided to go full Calhoun with a proposed bill attempting to nullify not only any federal gun laws they don’t like but also any court rulings related to gun laws with which they disagree.

    They do not possess the power to do this under the U.S. Constitution, the Ohio Constitution, or precedent set by the U.S. Supreme Court, the highest court in the land that some Ohio Republicans seemingly believe they have the power to flout. Again, they do not.

    As they’ve spent much of the COVID-19 pandemic wailing ignorantly in misunderstanding about the separation of powers in the Constitution and the checks and balances among government branches, they’ve turned most recently to proposing and passing laws defying these elemental aspects of American civics.

    Take first Ohio Senate Bill 22, which bestowed upon the state legislature veto authority over executive branch emergency and public health orders by concurrent resolution. Statehouse Republicans declared this was a response to the executive branch allegedly overstepping its authority — the authority the legislative branch itself gave the executive branch through law more than a hundred years ago — and their solution was to overstep their own authority.

    You see, the Ohio Constitution requires the General Assembly to actually pass law to exercise the power of law, not resolution. Laws must be signed by a governor, or a governor’s veto overridden by the legislature, in order to be enacted. This is an intentionally cumbersome process. A resolution requires neither. So simply ignoring the Ohio Constitution relieves them of this constitutional burden. The non-partisan Legislative Services Commission warned Republicans of the unconstitutionality of their proposal, and they ignored the LSC too.

    This middle finger in the face of the Ohio Constitution was even shepherded through the Ohio House by current speaker and former Ohio Supreme Court Justice Bob Cupp, who should definitely know better.

    Why did they do this? They do have the authority to rewrite law if they so wish. They could rewrite Ohio Revised Code and override the governor’s veto in doing so just as well. But apparently ignoring constitutionality was easier. This middle finger in the face of the Ohio Constitution was even shepherded through the Ohio House by current speaker and former Ohio Supreme Court Justice Bob Cupp, who should definitely know better.

    Now comes House Bill 62 that seeks to declare any federal law, executive order, administrative action, or court ruling to be “null, void, and of no effect in this state” if it infringes upon the Second Amendment. This attempt by a state legislature to overrule federal law and courts is called nullification, and as a concept, it has never once been upheld in federal court in American history. Its most ignominious test came when the state of South Carolina attempted to nullify federal tariff law in 1832-33, led by slaver and slavery advocate John C. Calhoun.

    Courts at the state and federal level, including the U.S. Supreme Court, repeatedly have declared that under the Supremacy Clause of the U.S. Constitution, federal law is superior to state law, and that under Article III of the U.S. Constitution, the federal judiciary has the final power to interpret the Constitution. Ohio even lost its own fight over nullification in a battle against the Bank of the United States in 1824.

    But Ohio Statehouse Republicans’ self-contradictory views of home rule and local control appear to be based exclusively on their own political whims and no discernable standards or principles for the exercise of self-government.

    Plastic bags? According to the General Assembly, local government has no right to home rule or local control in regulating them. Nor, say Ohio Republicans, can locals decide against allowing the fossil fuel industry to run amok in their communities, injecting waste into their land while these fracking wells provide zero economic benefit to the area affected. But sustainable energy is a severe threat to home rule, the foulest tyranny, according to the Ohio General Assembly and its blissful lack of self-awareness.

    And how can we forget the gun issue itself? Ohio Statehouse Republicans appear to believe that the state can trump federal laws relating to guns and ignore any and all courts, but Ohio cities have stepped high above their station indeed for attempting to regulate guns themselves without the General Assembly’s approval.

    Power for me and not for thee appears to be Statehouse Republicans’ only real governmental operating ethos.

    Power for me and not for thee appears to be Statehouse Republicans’ only real governmental operating ethos.

    While the self-contradictions on the roles of levels of government show a political agenda with no consistent civic principles behind it, the real failure here is to take any sort of thoughtful long-view. I can only imagine their caterwauling if Statehouse Republicans were the victims of this kind of power grab instead of the perpetrators. I don’t even have to imagine it. Former Ohio Gov. John Kasich ate Statehouse Republicans’ lunch by using executive power to expand Medicaid in Ohio under the Affordable Care Act against their wishes.

    But let’s say Ohio Republicans don’t manage a permanent supermajority in the Statehouse, and that some day, perhaps decades from now, a Democratic General Assembly declares itself above the authority of the courts to decide issues of religious freedom, or abortion rights, or LGBTQ rights, or gun rights. Do you think Ohio Republicans would humbly accept the consequences of the path they’ve endorsed and chosen, or do you think they’d play the shameless hypocrite and contradict themselves entirely? I know my bet.

    It’s hard to take people seriously who do not take themselves nor the basics of American civics seriously.

    Due to extreme gerrymandering and the extremist and corrupt politics it breeds, however, Ohioans will be forced to continue to endure for some time longer a General Assembly that sees a radical faction of one political party and high-dollar donor special interests as their only true constituencies.

    The rest of us and our pesky constitutions, judicial precedents, rule of law, checks and balances, and separation of powers be damned.

  • After a week of gun violence, House Republicans seek to expand concealed carry

    After a week of gun violence, House Republicans seek to expand concealed carry

    By Jake Zuckerman and Ohio Capital Journal

    Columbus, Ohio – After a spate of seven mass shootings around the U.S. in seven days, Ohio House Republicans introduced legislation that would allow Ohioans aged 21 and older to carry a concealed weapon without a license.

    House Bill 227, introduced Tuesday by Republican Reps. Thomas Brinkman and Kris Jordan and co-sponsored by 20 more, also contains other gun rights expansions including:

    • Removing the requirement that licensed gun owners “promptly” notify a police officer during a stop that they have a weapon in the car. They would only need to tell the officer about the weapon if asked.
    • Creating an expungement system for people previously convicted of concealed weapons offenses

    Under current law, Ohioans must seek licensure from their local sheriff to lawfully carry a concealed weapon. They must complete eight hours of firearms training and complete criminal background and mental competency checks.

    Only fifteen states allow residents to carry concealed weapons without permits, according to analysis from the Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence.

    Constitutional carry bills like HB 227 have been introduced in every recent legislative session. However, gun advocates see this two-year session as critical, given it’s the last assembly comprised of members representing gerrymandered districts drawn on partisan lines that favor Republicans.

    “This is the session in which we need to pass a constitutional carry bill,” said Rob Sexton, legislative affairs director of Buckeye Firearms Association, discussing the bill and redistricting in a podcast last month.

    “This is the time to get it done.”

    The bill’s introduction comes on the heels of seven mass shootings (four or more killed or wounded) in seven days in the U.S., according to a CNN report.

    Ohio House Speaker Bob Cupp, R-Lima, declined to comment on the legislation while speaking to reporters Tuesday, saying he’s “reserving judgement” until he reads the bill. However, he generally affirmed his support for the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

    The legislation is likely to face staunch opposition from gun violence prevention advocates. Research from the Journal of Empirical Legal Studies in 2019 found that “right to carry” laws are associated with a 13% to 15% higher aggregate violent crime rate 10 years after adoption.

    Should the bill advance through the legislature, Gov. Mike DeWine could be a wildcard.

    After nine died and 27 were injured in a mass shooting in Dayton, he pushed for a comparatively modest set of gun control measures like increasing gun crime penalties and expanding a current legal mechanism allowing a judge to temporarily seize weapons from people with substance abuse or mental health problems.

    Lawmakers shelved the proposal and instead passed “stand your ground” legislation last year, removing the legal requirement to retreat before using deadly force in self-defense. DeWine repeatedly raised concerns with the bill, but unexpectedly signed it in the “spirit of cooperation” with lawmakers, he said at the time.

    DeWine spokesman Dan Tierney said the governor has not yet taken a position on the legislation.

    In 2004, Gov. Bob Taft signed Ohio’s constitutional carry program into law. Ohio Republicans expanded places where license holders can carry and decreased training requirements to obtain the license on multiple occasions since then.

    In 2020, more than 169,000 Ohioans were licensed to carry a concealed weapon. More than 400 licenses were revoked for causes including felony convictions and mental incompetence, according to a report from the attorney general.