Ohio House poised to eliminate permit requirements for carrying concealed weapons

COLUMBUS, Ohio — The Ohio House is set to pass legislation Wednesday to allow people in the state to carry a concealed handgun without a permit and no longer require them to proactively tell law enforcement during traffic stops that they’re armed.

Senate Bill 215, which passed out of a House committee on Tuesday, is just one of several GOP bills under consideration that would loosen gun restrictions in Ohio. On Tuesday, the House Rules Committee scheduled a Wednesday floor vote on the measure.

The legislation would allow anyone 21 or older to carry a concealed firearm unless state or federal law prohibits them from possessing a gun. Ohio would become the 22nd state to allow conceal-carry in public without needing a license, according to the Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence. Ohio currently requires conceal-carry applicants to take eight hours of training and pass a background check.

SB215 would also no longer require motorists to tell law enforcement about concealed handguns in their vehicles, though drivers would still have to truthfully say whether they have a gun with them if an officer asks.

Right now, drivers who fail to pre-emptively notify an officer in Ohio that they have a gun with them face a first-degree misdemeanor, punishable by up to six months in jail, a $1,000 fine, and suspension of their concealed-handgun license. HB227 would eliminate that penalty.

Supporters of SB215 note that both the U.S. and Ohio constitutions guarantee the right to bear arms, and neither mention anything about training requirements. They also say that so-called “constitutional carry” will make Ohioans safer by lifting restrictions on their ability to carry a concealed firearm.

But opponents of the bill, some of whom testified Tuesday, say the legislation would make Ohio more dangerous for residents and law enforcement. Hamilton County Sheriff Charmaine McGuffey and the Fraternal Order of Police of Ohio, among others, have come out against SB215.

Before voting 8-5 to report SB215 on Tuesday, the Ohio House Local Government Committee unanimously voted to make two amendments to the legislation.

The first amendment says that, should the bill become law, people wouldn’t be allowed to carry a concealed firearm without a permit if they are fugitives from justice or were found guilty in the past three years of assaulting a peace officer, a misdemeanor offense of violence or falsification of a concealed-handgun license.

Existing Ohio law already prohibits such people from carrying a concealed firearm with a permit.

The other amendment made by the committee would allow law-enforcement officers to continue with “Terry stops” — during which police briefly detain people when there’s a reasonable suspicion they committed a crime.

“We do want individuals in Ohio to be exercising their Second Amendment rights,” said state Rep. D.J. Swearingen, a Huron Republican who offered the amendments. “We also want to continue to support our law enforcement officers in their jobs in maintaining law and order within our state, and we all believe this amendment does that.”

SB215 already passed the Ohio Senate last December. However, because the House amended SB215, the legislation must be re-passed by the Senate in order to head to Gov. Mike DeWine’s desk.

Last November, the Ohio House passed a similar but separate “constitutional carry” bill, House Bill 227. That legislation has been idling in the Ohio Senate.

DeWine, a Greene County Republican, has been trying for more than two years to pass a gun-reform package that he proposed after a mass shooting in Dayton in 2019. His proposals include creating a voluntary state-level background check process for gun sales between private sellers, increasing state penalties for illegally selling a firearm and expanding the state’s existing “pink-slip” law to allow authorities to send people with drug or alcohol problems to a psychiatric hospital, where they cannot legally have access to guns.

However, his proposals have been dead on arrival in the Republican-dominated Ohio General Assembly.

Instead, GOP lawmakers have introduced several bills to expand gun rights in the state. They include:

• House Bill 62 would make Ohio a “Second Amendment sanctuary state” by banning several steps that “might reasonably be expected to create a chilling effect on the purchase or ownership” of firearms, including taxes and fees, registering or tracking of gun owners and gun confiscation from law-abiding citizens. The legislation has yet to get a hearing in the House.

• House Bill 99 would allow Ohio teachers and other school personnel to carry firearms on school grounds without prior peace-officer training or experience. The House passed the bill last November; it’s now being considered in the Senate.

• House Bill 297, the “Firearms Industry Nondiscrimination Act,” would require state or local officials entering into contracts worth $100,000 or more with any company to get written verification that the company doesn’t discriminate against firearm trade entities or firearm trade associations. The bill has had two hearings in the House Local Government Committee.

• House Bill 325 would take away authorities’ current power under state law to prohibit guns in a cordoned-off area while suppressing a riot or where there is a “clear and present danger” of a riot. The House passed the bill last month; it’s now pending in the Senate.

• Senate Bill 265 would give a sales-tax exemption to purchases of shotguns that are 10-gauge or smaller or other firearms that are 50-caliber or smaller. The bill received its first hearing Tuesday in the Senate Ways and Means Committee.

• Senate Bill 293 would prohibit requiring fees or liability insurance for people to possess firearms. The bill was referred to the Senate Veterans and Public Safety Committee.