Ohio Sends Two Great Bills to Governor

It’s easy to focus on gun control bills being passed in various anti-gun states. For one thing, it means you guys are more likely to click on the link, but also because those are the kind of things we desperately need to fight.

In Ohio, there’s not a lot of chance of gun control. It’s a pretty pro-gun state that seems to be shifting even more pro-gun.

Gun control is so unlikely that two new bills going to Gov. Mike Dewine are specifically geared toward making gun control even harder to go into effect anywhere.

On December 18, the Ohio State Senate voted overwhelmingly to send amended Senate Bill 58 to Governor Mike DeWine’s desk to sign into law. SB 58, moving forward with a voting margin of 25-6, would prohibit any government entity in Ohio from requiring citizens to acquire firearm liability insurance or pay a fee to exercise their Constitutional rights to possess a firearm, component, ammunition or knife. Senate Bill 148, in the meantime, was amended into SB 58 and protects the privacy of Ohioans by prohibiting the government from maintaining registries of firearms or firearm owners and forbidding financial institutions from tracking firearms purchases.

The Buckeye Firearms Association (BFA) has supported SB 58 and SB 148, sponsored by Senator Terry Johnson, from the onset of the legislative session, with Senator Theresa Gavarone joining Johnson on SB 58. The group testified in the State House and Senate supporting both bills and is now urging Governor DeWine to sign them into law immediately.

“Opponents of our Second Amendment rights are an inventive lot, continually seeking ways to get around constitutional protections to prohibit or restrict firearms possession and ownership… 

But while some opponents of firearms rights seek to outright ban differing types of firearms and equipment, others take a more insidious approach by usurping our rights through government intervention such as attempts to levy taxes on individual rounds of ammunition,” said Rob Sexton, Legislative Affairs Director for Buckeye Firearms Association, in support of SB 58.

Let’s also keep in mind that using credit card companies to track gun purchases would most definitely be part of that effort. While these companies couldn’t actually look inside the shopping bag, they could provide any gun confiscation effort with a list of places to start looking, and taht’s an issue.

The truth is that this effort will put a check on a lot of popular efforts that some like to think don’t count as gun control.

They are.

Ohio has preemption, but depending on one’s interpretation, an insurance requirement could be ruled as not constituting gun control and thus not covered by the state’s preemption law. By singling it out in this bill, as well as the other things included, means

There’s a very good chance the governor will sign this bill. Sure, he pushed for gun control for a while after the Dayton shooting, but he’s also signed a lot of pro-gun legislation that was easily more problematic than this will be. So that means we’re looking at some pretty good news for folks in Ohio.