Ohio Bill Seeks to Give Preemption Law Some Teeth

One of the biggest issues with most states’ preemption laws is that they lack sufficient teeth in which discourages local governments from testing the law. We’ve seen plenty of examples of local city councils deciding they could just ignore preemption laws and create their own measures. In my home state, Savannah has been a recent example.

There are steps to be taken, but few to really discourage local governments from these kinds of shenanigans.

In Ohio, though, a new bill seeks to try and do just that.

Senator Terry Johnson (R-McDermott) has introduced two new pieces of legislation, Senate Bills 278 and 279, that seek to fix serious problems across Ohio.

BFA helped pass preemption protections nearly 20 years ago, mandating that gun laws are dealt with exclusively at the state level. Ohio Revised Code 9.68 outlines the rules clearly: cities and other political subdivisions are forbidden from regulating firearms, their components, ammunition, and knives.

Yet Columbus, Cleveland, Cincinnati, and other cities have repeatedly flouted the law with illegal local ordinances. The current law allows for lawsuits against offending cities, but even though they are liable for legal fees, cities feel very little pain when they lose in court, given their deep, taxpayer funded pockets.

SB 278 seeks to add teeth to the law by giving individuals the power to seek punitive damages against cities that pass gun control measures. This would allow a court to punish cities by inflicting financial pain and potentially preventing them from passing gun control laws in the future.

That’s a fantastic place to start.

I’d rather see individual lawmakers held financially liable for ignoring preemption since that might do better to discourage them–punitive damages are still just city money, which many of them seem more than willing to spend freely anyway–but it’s also a more defensible measure in most people’s eyes.

The truth is that too many communities seem to think that this idea of “we should be free to decide for ourselves” on a matter involving a constitutionally protected right is a viable thing, and that it should be a one-way street. They’re fine with statewide laws that ignore the needs of communities that count on gun rights to help keep people safe. That shouldn’t matter, just their own needs.

I’m more than a little sick of it.

I’d love to find out that something like this is sufficient, and I think it will definitely help. It’ll punish cities that try this sort of thing, and while I’m sure local city council members who pass gun control measures won’t care, the voters might. After all, these punitive damages will come from their tax money. It’ll be cash that’s not available for sidewalks or police salaries or any number of other things folks want in their towns.

So I’m all for it, and I sincerely hope this passes in Ohio.

I also want to encourage legislators throughout the nation to look at their own preemption laws and see if they also lack teeth to discourage this kind of thing. If not, introduce your own measures to address the problems. Yes, even if it hasn’t come up yet, because I promise you, it will.

Editor’s Note: The Schumer Shutdown is here. Rather than put the American people first, Chuck Schumer and the radical Democrats forced a government shutdown for healthcare for illegals. They own this.

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