Gun veto, city ban both tossed
Law will abolish all 80 ordinances across Ohio
Jon Craig, The Enquirer (Cincinnati)
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COLUMBUS - The Republican-controlled Senate narrowly overrode Gov. Bob Taft's veto of a concealed-carry weapons bill Tuesday.
The override, the first of any governor in 29 years, means that more than 80 local gun ordinances, including Cincinnati's assault weapons ban, will be abolished in 90 days.
Mayor Mark Mallory, a state legislator for 10 years, said he is discouraged by the Ohio General Assembly's vote against home rule.
Cincinnati's ban on assault weapons was reinstated Friday by the Ohio Supreme Court after more than two years of court appeals.
The local ban will be unenforceable, again, March 13, meaning that residents can own military-style, semiautomatic weapons with magazines that hold dozens of bullets.
"We had a court ruling which upheld the concept that the city of Cincinnati was . . . well within its rights" to enforce an assault weapons ban, Mallory said.
"The legislature set that ruling on its ear ... or all of the legislative talk about local control, we continue to see examples of the legislature saying, 'No, we can't decide this at the local level.' It's very disappointing."
Taft spokesman Mark Rickel said "the governor vetoed the bill because he thought it was the right thing to do.
"The bill was overbroad and wrongly overturned local laws."
Rickel said the governor recognized the possibility that his veto could be overridden.
"But the decision was made to do what was necessary to best protect the citizens of Ohio," Rickel said.
Groups supporting gun owners say the state legislation overturns a confusing patchwork of local bans and restrictions.
"It's really arrogant for them to just ignore the will of the people," said Toby Hoover, executive director of the Ohio Coalition Against Gun Violence. "It shows they just don't have any respect for us at all. We're terribly disappointed. It's a pretty determined bunch of people in favor of the gun lobby."
There was no debate before the Senate's vote. Attorney General-elect Marc Dann, a Democratic senator from Youngstown, joined two other Democrats and 18 of the Senate's 22 Republicans to support the override.
Dann said the reason for his vote hadn't changed from the reason for which he supported the bill when it passed the Senate last month. "Having contradictory gun laws all over the state doesn't make sense," he said.
That was the argument of backers including the Buckeye Firearms Association, Ohioans for Concealed Carry and the National Rifle Association, which defended the clause as bringing uniformity to a confusing array of local gun laws.
Mallory said he respects opposing views, but: "It's not the kind of support I was hoping to get from the legislature on public safety. We need every tool available to us" to fight a near-record homicide rate, already at 79 murders this year. The most murders in Cincinnati for one year was 82 in 1967.
"This doesn't help."
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