Court puts Columbus’ new gun restrictions on hold

(The Center Square) – A Fairfield County judge sided with Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost and temporarily stopped Columbus’ new restrictive gun laws from going into effect for 14 days.

Judge Richard Berens issued the ruling Thursday morning.

Yost argued state law effectively trumps the city’s attempt to place greater restrictions on guns.

“This request of the court is strictly a matter of the law – as state law supersedes what Columbus is attempting to do here,” Yost said. “The city has knowingly and deliberately overstepped its legislative authority.”

Earlier this month, the Columbus City Council passed legislation that prohibited possessing large-capacity magazines, required secure storage and prohibited straw sales of firearms.

Straw sales, according to the ATF, is when someone buys a gun for someone who is prohibited by law from possessing a gun or for someone who does not want their name associated with the sale.

“The issue here is that the Legislature has said, ‘We’re going 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 – and that law needs to be enforced,’” Yost said. “If we’re going to have changes to Ohio’s gun laws, they need to go through the General Assembly.”

Yost argued the ban on large capacity magazines and making a misdemeanor for not storing a firearm that complies with Columbus’ code violates the “uniformity” law. He also said the storage aspects also violates a person’s right to bear arms.

“The individual right to bear arms would be illusory,” Yost said in his motion, “if municipalities throughout the state had the power to enact local ordinances or regulations minimizing or circumscribing that right and cause citizens to have to play constitutional whack-a-mole while potentially facing jail time for exercising a fundamental right.”

As previously reported by The Center Square, Columbus wasted little time to take advantage of another recent court ruling that allows Ohio cities to pass gun restrictions.