The word at the Statehouse is that there will be a vote on HB86 TOMORROW in the Ohio House of Representatives.
So please read this short email and then take action below!
As you know, due to a blundering oversight in last year’s HB228 (that the bill’s hapless managers and sponsors never caught because they weren’t reading their own bill), unless a fix is enacted before March 28th of this year, gun owners who own popular firearms like the AR15 would be in possession of “dangerous ordnance” and vulnerable to a felony charge.
HB86 is likely to come to the floor of the House in tomorrow’s voting session, but there is a problem.
When the House Federalism Committee amended HB86 to include the “emergency clause” language we were insisting upon, they neglected to strike the “retroactive” language that was already in the bill.
Had they struck the retroactive language, the bill would have mirrored SB53 by Senator Kristina Roegner, and the bill would have been super clean.
Some are telling us that the retroactive language was left in the House version as a fail-safe, in case there isn’t the super-majority of votes needed to enact the bill’s emergency clause.
A problem that arises, however, with retroactive language such as is included in HB86 (located on page 8, 9) in that retroactive language is vulnerable to a court challenge, as retroactive language is generally not allowed under the Ohio Constitution.
There is a danger in tomorrow’s voting session that, if there are not the super-majority of votes needed to enact emergency legislation, and if HB86 is the bill that makes it through the House and Senate and gets signed by the Governor, that it will face a court challenge by anti-gunners.
The issue of severability also comes into play here, as a court could rule sections 4 and 5 of the bill to be unconstitutional, and leave the rest of the bill alone.
As you can see, this is NOT a clean fix, and we are not satisfied that the General Assembly is handling this in the correct manner.
That’s why we’re asking you all to make their email inboxes and phone lines EXPLODE over the next 30 hours!
We’ll be at the Statehouse today testifying in favor of Senator Kristina Roegner’s bill, SB53, to make sure that it’s advancing as quickly as it can through the Senate process.
For the Second,
Chris Dorr, Director
Ohio Gun Owners
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