(The Center Square) – Ohio’s capital city continues to try legal avenues to allow it to enforce its gun laws against a lawsuit challenging those regulations.
Columbus wants the Ohio Supreme Court to reverse a decision of a lower court to place a preliminary injunction on its gun regulations passed in 2022 that makes it illegal to possess gun magazines that hold 30 or more rounds of ammunition.
In April, a Delaware County judge granted a preliminary injunction in a lawsuit filed by Columbus-based policy group The Buckeye Institute, stopping enforcement of the law.
It’s the city’s third appeal after two others were denied.
“After being denied its requests to lift the preliminary injunction in Doe v. Columbus, Columbus is now pinning its hopes on the Ohio Supreme Court,” said David C. Tryon, the director of litigation at The Buckeye Institute. “Asking the court to let the city enforce a law – making criminals of The Buckeye Institute’s clients and countless other Columbus residents – that violates the Ohio and U.S. constitutions.”
As previously reported by The Center Square, The Buckeye Institute filed suit in February 2023 to stop the ordinances. The city prohibited large-capacity magazines of 30 or more rounds, created penalties for people who do not keep firearms stored out of the reach of children, and penalized someone who sells a gun to someone prohibited from owning one.
The suit was filed in the Delaware County Court of Common Pleas on behalf of five central Ohio residents who are not named. In a release, the institute said the plaintiffs are not named because the new law has made their previously lawful possession of the prohibited magazines illegal.
