This movement is gathering momentum across the country as many see the federal government engaged in overreaching in its gun control actions. Despite constitutional issues, more states ponder going their own way when it comes to ensuring the liberties of their citizens.
House Bill 51 is designed to protect those rights by prohibiting law enforcement officers and prosecutors from enforcing or attempting to enforce federal acts, laws, executive orders, rules, regulations, and a host of other actions contrary to constitutional freedoms.
A shining example of the type of overreach this bill attempts to head off is the recent controversial action by the ATF to regulate stabilizer braces for handguns.
Rep. Jean Schmidt of Loveland summed it up well. “The ATF’s recent attempt to curtail Second Amendment rights by classifying legal handguns as illegal short-barrel rifles was a clear overreach of the federal government against law-abiding citizens.”
Schmidt said the “straightforward” bill creates a wall of defense against unlawful rules. She added that it eliminates references to the United States Code related to Ohio’s gun statutes.
The bill goes further, banning local communities from employing a person who is or was hired or deputized by the U.S. government acting to try to impose Second Amendment infringements onto the citizenry.
Currently, law enforcement officials in Ohio enforce both state and federal gun laws. This is meant to end as HB 51 removes any reference to “Federal Firearms Law.”
One of the sponsors is state Rep. Mike Loychik of Cortland. He argues that the bill is backed by the Tenth Amendment. This feature in the Bill of Rights declares that unless a power is specifically granted to the federal government, it is reserved to the states.
This is the Reserved Powers Clause and is key to states being capable of forming their own constitutions and laws.
The Supremacy Clause also comes into play in this argument. It is based on Article VI, Paragraph 2 of the Constitution and established that federal laws take primacy over conflicting state laws. Loychik explained that HB 51 is based on the Reserved Powers Clause and does not run counter to the Supremacy Clause.
“The Supremacy Clause states that federal constitutional law usually takes precedence over state constitutional laws. House Bill 51 does not challenge that. It simply states that the state of Ohio will not help the federal government agencies enforce their gun control agenda.”
There are many facets to federal laws related to gun control that would fall under the category of statutes that Ohio would not assist in enforcement. Pistol stabilizing braces are one, and the ban on bump stocks is another.
While gun control advocates claim that such a measure would make law enforcement more difficult, others say there is precedent for this type of action at the state level. Dean Rieck, executive director of the Buckeye Firearms Institute, compared gun control to controversies involving marijuana.
“Marijuana is illegal across the board at the federal level here in Ohio,” Rieck explained. “We’ve chosen to legalize it for medicinal purposes. So, in Ohio, we simply don’t enforce marijuana [laws] if you have a medical marijuana card.”
The correlation with federal gun control, he said, is clear. “So this bill would do something very similar with firearms. If the federal government has laws that we do not agree with here in the state, the state would simply not enforce those laws.”
