Law Shield supports Ohioans for Concealed Carry (OFCC), a gun-advocacy group has sued the city of Cleveland because the city adopted new gun-control ordinances — despite a 2010 Ohio Supreme Court ruling that state gun laws preempt and overrule local ordinances.
In the suit filed in Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court, OFCC’s complaint argues that state law prohibits local officials from making their own gun laws. The Ohio Supreme Court has already told the city that state statutes nullify local gun restrictions. OFCC wants an injunction against the city from enforcing the new laws.
In 2007 the Ohio Legislature adopted Ohio Revised Code 9.68, a statewide comprehensive approach to uniformly standardizing firearms laws across the state. One year later the Ohio Supreme Court decided in Ohioans For Concealed Carry v. City of Clyde that the statute was a general law and prevailed in a home-rule challenge — that is, localities couldn’t make their own gun laws.
In 2010, the City of Cleveland challenged R.C. 9.68 again in Cleveland v. State and the court again upheld the law stating, “R.C. 9.68 is a general law that displaced municipal firearm ordinances and does not unconstitutionally infringe on municipal home rule authority.”
Upon cursory review, this seems cut and dried to us. Cleveland ignored state law and enacted its own regulations, including requirements that “gun offenders” register with the city’s safety department, that citizens must report a lost or stolen gun to police, and that private sellers must report firearms transactions to authorities.
But, as always, the courts will decide the matter.
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