Ohio Supreme Court shoots down local gun control

The Ohio Supreme Court today dealt a fatal blow to local efforts to regulate firearms, concluding that a more permissive state law should trump restrictions on guns in cities.

In a 5-2 ruling, the state's top court struck down Cleveland's assault-weapons ban and registration requirement for handguns.

Cleveland was the last city to press for tougher local firearms regulations after the Supreme Court voided a smaller town's law against guns in public parks in 2008.

In that ruling, as in today's, justices said lawmakers were within their rights when they enacted a uniform set of gun regulations for the entire state in 2007.

More at: http://www.dispatch.com/live/content/local_news/stories/2010/12/29/ohio-supreme-court-gun-control.html?sid=101

Not my state, but it looks like a win.

Oneshooter
Armed and Livin in Texas

In the growing list of victories!

It was such a good idea, to start suing!! Glad the other side showed us how to do it!

more liberal local laws are also void? like if a local law allowed CCWs in bars or state and local gov. buildings?

I could not find any. My google'fu has been weak lately, but I could not find any local ordinances in the state that allowed for things like that.

Problem is, the state already may have an exception. Meaning that if the state says "something" is illegal, than a local municipality cannot make a law saying that same "something" is legal. However, in some states where something is legal on the state level, in some cases it may be legal for a locality to make that same thing illegal.

If a state says that act X is a crime punishable by Y years in prison or $Z in fines, a city council can say "no it's not" if they want, but their action would have no force of law; act X would still be a crime even in that city. All they could do would be to hire a police chief who chose not to enforce that law, but they couldn't void the law.

Home Rule



The Ohio case turned on whether or not Cleveland's restrictions were permissible use of its Home Rule authority or an impermissible abuse of its police powers.

Most states apply the so-called Dillon's Rule to municipalities:



In almost all cases, these arguments have been framed where a municipality wants to restrict something further than state or Federal law allow. Typical examples from the past included things like "sunset laws" where blacks were not permitted in town after sundown, or as in this case, city residents could not own certain firearms that were legal everywhere else in the state.

Recent examples of cities being more permissive include San Francisco's short period of issuing marriage licenses for gay marriages, or cities declaring themselves as sanctuary cities and refusing to enforce immigration laws. These conflicts are similar to the disconnect between some State's medical marijuana laws and Federal law.

pot ticket. Michigan law was a felony. If A2 police caught you it was a $5 ticket. If Washtenaw County or state cops caught you it was a felony in the city.

If there are conflicting laws, the one more permissive should be the winner. Err on the side of liberty.

It was authoritarian.