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#Less-strict gun rules start in Ohio today

Your Right to Know

By Alan Johnson The Columbus Dispatch Monday March 23, 2015 8:16 AM

Chris Russell | Dispatch file photo A potential customer at the AimHi gun store and shooting range in New Albany examines a semi-automatic AR-15 rifle. Request to buy this photo ' class=''> Enlarge Image Request to buy this photo Chris Russell | Dispatch file photo A potential customer at the AimHi gun store and shooting range in New Albany examines a semi-automatic AR-15 rifle.

A new state law effective today will allow hunters to use suppressors on guns; permit Ohioans to buy rifles, shotguns and ammunition from any state; and implement a more-rigorous background check for concealed-carry permits.

It also reduces the training required to get one of those permits from 12 hours to eight, including some of it online for the first time; changes the definition of an “automatic” weapon; and makes concealed-carry permits issued from other states valid in Ohio, even without a reciprocity agreement.

“This is a very comprehensive bill,” said Jim Irvine, chairman of the Buckeye Firearms Association. “Over time, people will look back and see this as a watershed law that fixed a lot of little things.”

Jennifer Thorne, executive director of the Ohio Coalition Against Gun Violence, sees things differently. “There are a number of troubling provisions in the bill,” she said. “There’s nothing for us to celebrate in this bill.”

Thorne said “elected officials could have done better for Ohio. It reduces training and there is an expansion of reciprocity.”

“Everyone who is carrying a gun is a good guy up until the moment they aren’t,” she said.

What the former House Bill 234 does not include is a controversial “stand your ground” provision, which was debated but removed before the legislation was voted on by the General Assembly last fall and signed by Gov. John Kasich. The “stand your ground” provision would have changed current wording in state law, which says an individual must first back away instead of using violent force in a self-defense situation.

Irvine said while gun-rights supporters wanted “stand your ground” in the law, many “other issues that are addressed in the bill will benefit more people. Stand your ground doesn’t affect that many people’s lives.”

He said the new background check procedures are a big improvement.

“For the first time, Ohio is going to do real background checks,” he said. The new law empowers county sheriffs to check three national databases directly, instead of just one maintained by the Bureau of Criminal Investigation of the Ohio attorney general’s office. The federal databases contain voluminous criminal-history records, including warrants, protection orders and lists of people who don’t qualify for a permit because of a prior arrest or dishonorable military discharge.

Irvine got pushback from his members who feared the law will empower the federal government to decide who does and does not get a concealed-carry permit. “This has nothing to do with ceding power over firearms rights to the federal government,” he said.

The law also changes the old definition of an automatic weapon as one capable of firing 31 cartridges without reloading. The change entirely deleted reference to a specific number of shots in a magazine.

Another small change removes the penalty for a gun owner who brings a weapon onto the parking lot or parking garage of a business that has a posted sign prohibiting firearms. The old law made that a fourth-degree misdemeanor.

Ohio has not received good ratings from the national Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence and the new law won’t help, said Laura Cutilletta, senior staff attorney for the San Francisco-based organization.

“Our main concern is with the reciprocity part of it. That is exposing everyone in Ohio to a dangerous situation,” she said.