Aslanides to Gun Week: HB347 to be out of committee this year

In an interview for the Second Amendment Foundation's Gun Week magazine, Rep Jim Aslanides told senior editor Dave Workman that he hopes to have his sweeping firearms law reform legislation (HB347) out of committee by the end of this year.

From the story:

Aslanides told Gun Week that his intent is to have “a single, common law that everyone in Ohio can live with, so that traveling from city to city doesn’t catch gunowners” in conflict with some local ordinance.

Almost immediately, the Buckeye Firearms Association (BFA) endorsed the legislation, filed as House Bill 347 (HB-347). Aslanides already has 47 co-sponsors out of a 99-member House of Representatives, and he insisted that other lawmakers will support the measure. He hopes to have it out of committee by the year’s end.

The article goes on to offer a summary of some of the bill's other major components, and then continues:

Click on the "Read More..." link below for more.

BFA’s Jim Irvine told Gun Week that he expects bitter opposition from Ohio anti-gunners, who contended that the current concealed carry law would lead to bloody shootouts in the streets and taverns. None of their dire predictions has come true, he noted.

He said there are tenets of the bill “that should make everybody happy.”

Under HB-347, local gun control ordinances would be rendered moot, as state preemption would take over, eliminating problems that have erupted in Toledo over gun bans in public parks, and more recently in Columbus, where the city council passed a ban on so-called assault weapons, costing that city the 2007 NRA annual convention.

Aslanides told Gun Week he took “a long look” at the current statute and tried to write his legislation in a way that it would address the problems that have arisen and fix them.

Related Stories:
Buckeye Firearms Association Endorses HB347

Aslanides Bill Has Benefits for Sportsmen and Target Shooters