U.S. Senate candidate P.G. Sittenfeld is launching a campaign to amend the Ohio Constitution to restore the right of communities such as Toledo to enact local gun laws that are stricter than state laws. Good for him.
Congress and the Ohio General Assembly have failed to enact even the most modest gun control measures, despite a spate of mass shootings around the nation. This default has pushed the battle for public safety and reasonable gun control to the local level.
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Mr. Sittenfeld and anti-gun activists concede they may not get the proposal done in time for this year’s general election. But he vows to press on, regardless of whether he is on the November ballot.
The Cincinnati City Council member has made gun violence a central campaign issue in his bid for the Democratic nomination to run against incumbent Republican Sen. Rob Portman; the primary is March 15. The positions of his Democratic primary opponent, former Gov. and U.S. Rep. Ted Strickland, once the darling of the National Rifle Association, have been disappointing.
Senator Portman’s positions have been disastrous: In 2013, he helped block bipartisan legislation that would have closed dangerous loopholes in federal gun law. Last year, he voted against two amendments that would have broadened background checks for gun purchasers and prohibited people on the federal terrorist watch list from buying guns.
Comprehensive background checks, bans on assault rifles, and limits on the size of magazine clips have all been shot down. With Congress and the legislature pushing for even more lax gun laws, local governments have a duty to wield whatever home-rule authority they have to protect their citizens.
And it could get worse, given some of the zany and reckless proposals coming out of the General Assembly in recent years on gun ownership and use. A bill proposed last year would have allowed virtually any Ohioan to carry a gun, without a permit or training.
Mr. Sittenfeld’s proposed amendment would restore the constitutional home rule authority of local government to act on guns. That authority was eviscerated in 2006, when state lawmakers voted to prohibit local gun laws more restrictive than state or federal law. The amendment would enable cities to, among other things, ban assault-style weapons and restrict where firearms may be carried.
After the Ohio Supreme Court upheld the misguided 2006 law, Cleveland’s ban on assault weapons was invalidated. Toledo was forced to allow guns in city parks.
Predictably, gun-rights advocates are reacting to Mr. Sittenfeld’s campaign by throwing a hissy fit. They have one valid point: Uniform state laws have advantages in enforcement and compliance over various local laws.
Even so, some variance in local gun laws would hardly pose an undue hardship. A gun owner from Cleveland, for example, might have to check Toledo law before he brought his AR-15 assault-style rifle to a family picnic at the Toledo Zoo. But a little inconvenience doesn’t trump the rights of local communities to protect their citizens — especially when state and federal governments have taken a powder.
Restoring home-rule authority to local communities would not provide a blank check for gun control. Local restrictions would still have to fall within constitutional limits — as Chicago learned in 2010, when the U.S. Supreme Court struck down that city’s long-standing gun ban.
But there is plenty of constitutionally protected ground between the excesses of Chicago and the extremist positions of the NRA and gun lobby. Ohio’s local communities need the power to use it.
First Published March 1, 2016, 5:00 a.m.
