Thursday, June 16, 2011

Ohio SB 17 Restaurant Carry Goes to the Governor (Not law yet)

Yesterday a slightly amended version of Ohio Senate Bill 17 passed the Ohio House of Representatives and received concurrence in the the Senate.  It now goes to Governor John Kasich to be signed.

The amendment was a minor legal tweak to make sure that drinking beer was also prohibited along with other forms of alcohol when carrying a firearm.   While perhaps redundant with other sections of the Ohio revised code prohibiting the consumption of intoxicants while carrying a weapon, it doesn't appear to have had any negative affect on the bill.

Again, House Democrats attempted to kill the bill by adding toxic amendments and subjected the bill to additional mostly repeated debate for almost 40 minutes.  Representative Bill Patmon even managed to try to find a way to play the "race card," comparing standing by the 2nd amendment to standing by the long ago removed part of the Constitution counting a black person as 3/5ths of a person.  Even has he and other Democrats argue that their inner city [mostly black] constituents are too dangerous and untrustworthy to be allowed to carry weapons to protect themselves.  It is just ok for rural [mostly white] people to have guns.  Urban areas should have different rules they say.  Perhaps urban citizens should only be able to carry 3/5ths of their gun.

Here is a link to the 40 minutes of House debate.  The modified bill was then sent to the Ohio Senate for concurrence where it was agreed to so quickly that I couldn't find video for it.

With luck, the Governor will do the right thing and sign the bill soon.