#Columbus dispatch e edition code#
#Columbus dispatch e edition series#

Republicans from smaller cities and towns hold most of the top leadership positions in both chambers of the Statehouse.Ĭities fighting gun violence have found foes in state leaders who do not seem to understand or care about the concerns of people in big urban centers. Lawmakers from Ohio’s largest cities – Columbus, Cincinnati and Cleveland – don’t have much power at the Statehouse. “This act makes enforcement of federal firearms laws difficult and strains the important law enforcement partnerships that help keep violent criminals off the street.” Justice Department’s Civil Division, said as part of a press release about that law. “A state cannot simply declare federal laws invalid,” Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Brian M. Introduced earlier this year and entitled the “Enact the Second Amendment Preservation Act,” House Bill 51 would block Ohio’s local governments and police agencies from enforcing some federal firearm acts, laws or executive orders.Ī judge in March found a similar Missouri law unconstitutional after the federal government sued.

#Columbus dispatch e edition code#

Senate Bill 293 would amend the Ohio Revised Code to prohibit requiring fees or firearms liability insurance to possess firearms. The push to weaken Ohio’s gun laws continues. That same year, a study by researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health found that states with relaxed carry and conceal laws not only experience a 10% increase in firearm assaults per 100,000 people, but also have a nearly 13% increase in police shootings. “This is a great moment for Ohio and for those who wish to more fully exercise their Constitutional right to keep and bear arms.” “This is a day that will go down in history…,” Buckeye Firearms Association Director Dean Rieck said in a statement released at the time. A law that eliminated the requirement for concealed carry gun permits for Ohio residents 21 and older also became effective in 2022. Last year, a bill dropping the training hours a teacher needs to be armed in school from 728 hours to about 24 became law. Mike DeWine signed the state’s “stand your ground” law in 2021. Against the objection of a list of groups that included Ohio prosecutors, Ohio Fraternal Order of Police and a coalition of Ohio mayors, members of the state’s uber gerrymandered legislature approved, and Gov. The shift away from what the public overwhelmingly wants has ramped up in the years since Ohio’s deadliest mass shooting in modern history where nine people were killed in Dayton’s Oregon District on Aug. Ohio lawmakers are more interested in pleasing powerful and persuasive pro-gun groups like Buckeye Firearms Association and Ohio Gun Owners than they are the Ohioans they swore an oath to serve.ĭue to the influence of gun lobbyists, Ohio - a diverse state with large urban centers, suburbs and small rural communities - now ranks only after Texas and Georgia among the nation’s 10 most populous states on Gun & Ammo magazine’s score card of Best States for Gun Owners.

#Columbus dispatch e edition series#

The disconnect between what Ohioans want and what lawmakers give us makes sense when you understand who is pulling the strings in this state.Īs the latest installment of the Columbus Dispatch series “Under Fire” reveals and as in the “Wizard of Oz,” an unseen force is calling the shots from behind the curtain in Ohio, and that force doesn’t represent the will of the people. You would not know that from the illogical and dangerous gun regulations that have emerged from our Statehouse in recent years.