According to Firearm Chronicles
Ohio Governor Mike DeWine was feeling some heat last year. Following the Dayton shooting, he was getting pressured to enact some kind of gun reform in the state. Nevermind that the shooter was a habitual drug user who couldn’t legally purchase a firearm. Nevermind that he also broke all those laws on murder. No, anti-gunners wanted DeWine to do something.
So, he put together a plan. It was a desperate bid to try and balance pro-gun concerns and anti-gun desires in a way that probably wasn’t going to make anyone happy.
And, it really didn’t.
Now, though, that effort has amounted to nothing because of a pesky little bug called COVID-19.
Gov. Mike DeWine said last year that his top priority for 2020 would be passing his STRONG Ohio gun-reform package, which he proposed after a mass shooting in Dayton last August.
But his proposals attracted only lukewarm support from fellow Republicans, and since the coronavirus crisis arose, the legislation has been pushed even further from a priority.
Wait, really? I mean, it’s not like there’s nothing else going on right now that would warrant attention from lawmakers. There’s no pandemic killing tens of thousands of people coupled with a hamstrung economy that could kill hundreds of thousands more or anything.
I mean, why wouldn’t they focus on a gun “reform” effort that they thought was stupid in the first place?
DeWine’s plan would create a voluntary state-level background check process for gun sales between private sellers and expand the state’s existing “pink-slip” law to allow authorities to send people with drug or alcohol problems to a psychiatric hospital, where they cannot legally have access to guns. It would also increase Ohio’s penalty for illegally selling a firearm from a fourth-degree felony to a third-degree felony.
Which, of course, didn’t actually make anyone happy and everyone with even a lick of sense knows just how pointless such a measure would actually be. DeWine, however, argues that the bill is reasonable and should be passed.