The Cincinnati City Council unanimously approved two new ordinances on Wednesday that aim to extend gun restrictions in the city.
These ordinances come after a Fairfield County judge denied a request from Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost to block firearm regulations recently enacted by the city of Columbus.
The ordinances mandate safe storage in areas where children may have access to firearms and forbid the possession of firearms by people convicted of misdemeanor domestic violence offenses or those who are the subject of temporary protection orders or restraining orders involving intimate partners or intimate partners’ children. As city ordinances, both new charges would be misdemeanors punishable by up to one year in prison.
Mayor Aftab Pureval (D), Vice Mayor Jan-Michele Kearney (D), and council members Scotty Johnson (D), Meeka Owens (D), and Liz Keating (R) have co-sponsored the legislation.
According to Kearney, there is no reason why individuals shouldn’t have their guns locked away, and if they don’t, they should get locked up themselves.
“Our message is lock it up or get locked up. And just so you know, our Cincinnati Police Department has free gun locks … we have free locks, there is no excuse to have a gun that is not locked up,” Kearney said.
The safe storage ordinance imposes a requirement that individuals keep “dangerous ordnances” out of reach of children. This includes weaponry such as rifles, rocket launchers, explosive or incendiary devices, blasting agents, and explosive compounds. The ordinance makes some exclusions for certain firearms such as some antique weapons, or guns that are inoperable as long as an individual cannot quickly make them operational again.
The definition of “safe storage” under the ordinance includes both a mechanism mounted directly on a firearm that prevents a user from operating it without first deactivating the device as well as a safe, case, or lockbox.
Columbus passed similar legislation in December despite questions of its legality.
Yost sought to have the Columbus statute blocked, but a Fairfield County judge last month upheld the restriction. Yost said that the city’s requirements are unreasonable because they make it a crime for people to fail to conceal their firearms in places where even their teenage children couldn’t find them and because they make it impossible for someone to use a firearm for self-defense, even if a child lives in the home. According to Yost’s office, “We will seek appellate review in the decision and are reviewing the appropriate mechanisms to do so.”
The domestic violence ordinance aims to prohibit a person convicted of domestic violence or under a court order related to stalking, harassing, or threatening an intimate partner or child from owning a handgun.
The Buckeye Firearms Association released a statement after the city’s initial announcement vowing to fight the proposals. In the past, Ohio’s gun lobby has successfully sued Cincinnati and other cities to overturn local gun restriction laws.
“Buckeye Firearms Association and Ohio’s 4 million gun owners will fight this. We will not allow rogue cities to eviscerate the progress we’ve made over the last two decades just so they can grandstand and pretend that they’re fighting crime, when all they’re doing is wasting taxpayer dollars on political theater,” Executive Director of Buckeye Firearms Association Dean Rieck said.
Communication Director for the Attorney General’s office Bethany McCorkle told The Ohio Star that any changes to Ohio’s gun laws need to go through the General Assembly.
“Ohio needs to have a uniform law for the entire state so that citizens don’t have to guess whether they’re breaking the law because they passed a municipal boundary. There is a process for how laws are changed and if we’re going to have changes to Ohio’s gun laws, they need to go through the General Assembly,” McCorkle told The Star.
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Hannah Poling is a lead reporter at The Ohio Star and The Star News Network. Follow Hannah on Twitter @HannahPoling1. Email tips to [email protected]
Photo “Gun” by Karolina Grabowska.
