What impact does Ohio gun law, carry concealed, have in Columbus
Homicides are down in the city of Columbus from the record of 205 set in 2022.
That’s moving in the right direction, but no consolation to those living in fear in neighborhoods plagued by gun violence or to the families and friends left to mourn the nearly 130 lives taken thus far in 2022, all but a handful to gunfire.
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Such heartbreaking violence would be hard to tackle in any city or any state.
It is made even more challenging in Columbus due to legislation approved by Ohio lawmakers and signed by Gov. Mike DeWine that make it easier to possess, buy or otherwise obtain firearms.
Columbus City Attorney Zach Klein told our editorial board that the city’s efforts to combat gun violence are being stymied by the Republican-led state legislature.
The latest example is a back-and-forth court battle between his office and that of Attorney General Dave Yost over gun restrictions the city wants to institute and a state law barring municipal gun regulations — Ohio Revised Code Section 9.68, the state’s so-called “Right to bear arms — challenge to law.”
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Klein said cities are facing the ramifications of the extreme decision made by the state in the name of second amendment rights above all others.
The impact of new Ohio laws relaxing gun restrictions has not yet been measured, but Klein cited information he has received from police officers working in Columbus as evidence.
“They are just seeing so many guns,” he said. “Everyone has a gun.”
Klein pointed to a March study by the Washington, D.C. think tank Third Way that shows so-called red states controlled by Republican elected officials like Ohio have more homicides.
Recent studies by Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health found that states with relaxed carry and conceal laws have increased police shootings and a 10% increase in firearm assaults per 100,000 people.
“There is a direct correlation between lacking gun laws and the violence we are seeing, and that is a problem that cities across the nation see,” Klein said. “The state of Ohio is trying to put its thumb on the scale and run guns in our streets — then turn around and blame big cities.”The state’s “stand your ground” law was signed in 2021. Laws approved this year allowing legally qualified Ohio residents 21 and older to conceal firearms without training or permits and drops the training hours a teacher needs to be armed in school from 728 hours to about 24.
Columbus’ ability to curtail gun violence is being stymied by lawmakers who should be striving to protect all Ohio’s citizens.
The meaning of ‘stay’
Columbus officials’ hopes of enacting a trio of gun regulations might hinge on the meaning of a stay issue by Franklin County Common Pleas Judge Stephen L. McIntosh and how enforced home-rules are or are not applied.
City officials want to prohibit those who can legally buy guns from purchasing them for those who can’t, ban large-caliber ammunition magazines containing more than 30 rounds and require the safe storage of firearms when minors could reasonably be in danger of getting a hold of them.
Early this month and after being sued by Columbus for inaction on its 2019 case, McIntosh temporarily blocked a portion of an Ohio law that keeps cities from passing local gun laws.
City officials say that law infringes on its home-rule rights under our state constitution and that it should be able to add the three gun restrictions.
On Nov. 11, McIntosh granted a preliminary injunction stay requested by Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost’s office.
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Yost told us that the stay stops the city from proceeding with the gun restrictions. Klein contends that it does not and only pertains to further proceedings in the case itself.
Yost says his position is about following the law as handed down by lawmakers and not a comment on the city’s proposed regulation.
“I completely agree that we cannot ignore the carnage that is going on,” he told us, noting that among his office’s undertakings are efforts to solve crimes through ballistic testing using the National Integrated Ballistic Information Network.
He pointed Hamilton County Prosecutor Joseph T. Deters zero plea-bargain policy for cases involving guns and applauded Columbus police Chief Elaine Bryant’s attempts to target areas of high criminal activities.
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Yost acknowledges that home-rule is allowed in other sections of Ohio law partly because “there are things that matter in urban environments that may not matter as much in a rural or exurban areas.”
The Ohio law restricting cities from devising their own gun laws intends to prevent a patchwork of different laws when it comes to possession of firearms, he said.
“A citizen should not have to worry about crossing the street and going to a different jurisdiction (where guns restrictions are contrasting),” Yost said. “We should have one law for possession of what the government says is contraband.”
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We understand his points, but think is more important that there are safeguards in place to help protect citizens in this city from the pain and heartbreak cause by weapons that large-caliber ammunition magazines containing more than 30 rounds were made to carry.
Targeting criminals is clearly not enough on its own.
Lives being left in shambles
McIntosh or an appeals court judge will make their call, but it is counterintuitive that gun laws are somehow exempt from home rule which, according to information prepared for members of the Ohio General Assembly by the Legislative Service Commission Staff, “include the power of local self-government, the exercise of certain police powers, and the ownership and operation of public utilities.”
Gun violence may not be as big of a problem in rural and suburban communities, but it is certainly a problem in Columbus and other major Ohio metro areas.
“We are responsible to the million people in the city of Columbus, and we see violence every day,” Klein told us.
On the heels of a gun-related homicide record set in 2020 and broke in 2021, Columbus Mayor Andrew Ginther declared gun violence a public health crisis in February.
“My life is still in shambles,” Jackie Casimire, the mother of slain 2020 gun violence victim Corneluis “Ray” Casimire said as part of a Dispatch article on the declaration. “The guns on the street are causing death daily … this is a story that is being repeated over and over again.”
A citizen of Columbus should not have to fear the impact or pay the ultimate price for untethered gun rights.
Columbus and other cities should be able to enact sensible gun laws that protect people.
The state legislature sadly has shown no signs it is willing to do so. In fact, the opposite is the case as Klein says. Decisions from the Statehouse are making guns more easily obtainable to the potential peril of people who live in cities like Columbus.
“They are flooding the market (with guns) across the state of Ohio,” Klein said. “There are real world consequences.”
Those consequences have sent far too many people here to early graves and left far too many mourners behind to keep a tally of those taken by gun violence.
Far too many are left in shambles.
Ohio’s gun laws are moving Columbus and the rest of the state in a very dangerous direction.
That should be criminal.This piece was written by the Dispatch Opinion Editor Amelia Robinson on behalf of The Dispatch Editorial Board. Editorials are our board’s fact-based assessment of issues of importance to the communities we serve. These are not the opinions of our reporting staff members, who strive for neutrality in their reporting.
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