Firearms Owners Against Crime
Institute for Legal, Legislative and Educational Action
Institute for Legal, Legislative and Educational Action
In what appears to be an attempt to violate the rights of its citizens and turn thousands of people into criminals, the city of Columbus, Ohio is pushing new gun restrictions.
The series of Constitution-violating ordinances include new firearm storage rules that would make gun owners guilty of misdemeanors in the fourth degree and magazine capacity restrictions that would bring a minimum of 180 days in jail if violated.
The magazine capacity restriction includes standard AR15 magazines that hold 30 rounds. The city knows it lacks the authority to regulate the capacity of magazines. Still, in true anti-gun fashion, city officials are doing everything they can to override the rights of the citizens they represent without even providing a provision for the safe surrender of the so-called “large capacity” magazines.
Without court intervention, the ordinances proposed will instantly criminalize thousands of law-abiding City of Columbus Residents for exercising their fundamental right to bear arms. The State of Ohio is seeking a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction.
The application for TRO by Ohio Attorney General, Dave Yost against City of Columbus Attorney, Zack Klein, lays out what appears to be a clean-cut argument for the 2nd Amendment and explains how the City of Columbus is far overreaching its authority.
To prevent a patchwork system of conflicting local ordinances, the General Assembly passed The Firearms Uniformity Act (R.C. 9.68) in 2006.
It created firearm standards throughout the State of Ohio and prohibited local legislation from restricting or narrowing the State’s uniform firearms laws. After amendments to R.C. 9.68 in 2018 and again in 2022, the City of Columbus continued to pursue the complaint that the State’s law violated the home-rule provisions of the Ohio Constitution. A series of motions and appeals were made, ultimately resulting in the State being granted a stay on a preliminary injunction pending the outcome of an appeal.
It would appear that in defiance of the stay, the city of Columbus recently rushed to pass a set of firearms ordinances in violation of R.C. 9.68 and the Ohio constitution that would turn lawful gun owners into criminals overnight. The push to implement these new gun restrictions by the city was based on (as you would expect) an emotional ploy to move legislation.
In their argument, the city used all the typical anti-gun rhetoric and terminology you would expect, such as “armed gunman,” “mass shooting,” “gun violence,” “common sense gun control,” etc. The city claimed that “gun violence has ripped through our communities” and “gun control simply cannot wait.” But their rhetorical fear campaign may be losing its effectiveness.
The new case against the City of Columbus seeking a temporary restraining order and a motion for preliminary injunction asks the court to recognize the Supreme Court’s recently noting in the Bruen decision that “the government must affirmatively prove that its firearms regulation is part of the historical tradition that delimits the outer bounds of the right to keep and bear arms.”
Thanks to Judge Clarence Thomas, it would appear gun owners have a brand new and seemingly very effective tool called “historical tradition” that will be used to unwind many, if not most, of this nation’s unconstitutional gun restrictions. All the gun grabbers have is a tired old game of irrational fear and propaganda.