“Instead of fights between state and local leaders, the public deserves sensible solutions.”

Friday, May 12, 2023 CONTACT: Cameron Keir | [email protected] | 614-359-5346

Columbus, OH — In case you missed it, The Columbus Dispatch Editorial Board just echoed Mayor Andrew Ginther’s calls for action to end gun violence. The bottom line, enough is enough and it’s time to get to work. In a column published this week, the Editorial Board does not mince words, saying state lawmakers have failed to protect Ohioans from gun violence, stood idle as cities like Columbus are blocked from enacting common sense gun legislation, and ignored calls for sensible solutions. The column follows similar demands from Mayor Andrew Ginther for radical state and federal lawmakers to show up and help Columbus end this senseless violence, or shut up and get out of our way.   

“Mayor Ginther has made it clear, radical state and federal lawmakers that think they know better have two choices. They can join Columbus in finding sensible solutions to gun violence or get the hell out of our way and let Columbus do what is needed to protect the people of this city. Violent criminals have no place on our city’s streets, and making sure they are off our streets is the Mayor’s top priority,” said Ginther campaign spokesperson Cameron Keir.  

Read more from the Columbus Dispatch Editorial Board HERE and below: 

• Time after time, Ohio’s elected officials have diverted their eyes from or explained away the grim and often deadly reality of the gun-related violence wrecking lives in urban, suburban and rural communities.
• Gun violence incidents — even high-profile ones right in our face like the recent bloody shootings in the Short North — are not addressed and forgotten as just the way it is.
• Thwarted by state leaders, cities and their residents pay the price as they are painted as “dangerous” for inactions partly beyond their control. Fears of what could happen swells.
• It is disappointing, but not at all surprising that two bloody shootouts within blocks of each other in the Short North — one of Ohio’s largest entertainment districts — has warranted no action and little talk from state leaders who could do something to curtail gun violence.
• “An explosion of gunfire rang out,” Columbus police Chief Elaine Bryant said during a press conference about the Short North shootings and three other cases involving deaths.
• At that press conference, Columbus Mayor Andrew Ginther called for a list of sensible gun laws that includes universal background checks, red flag laws, and banning the sale of both bump stocks and automatic weapons.
• “We need lawmakers at the state and federal levels to step up and help us get illegal crime guns off our streets,” he said. “If these folks are unable or unwilling to do their part to address this nation’s growing gun crisis, we have a simple request: get out of our way. Let us lead at the local level to enact basic, common sense gun safety legislation.”
• The GOP-led legislature is publicly resigned to do nothing but tie the hands of cities who want to enact local gun laws to address a range of gun violence spanning from accidental shootings to domestic violence murder.
• The city’s efforts to reduce gun violence have been blocked.
• On a challenge from the right-leaning Buckeye Institute, Delaware County Common Pleas Judge David M. Gormley last month halted enforcement of the gun-related ordinances Columbus City Council passed in December that includes a ban on certain firearm magazines of 30 or more bullets and requirements for safe gun storage.
• The city had seemingly won until Gormley’s ruling stopped its gun laws in its tracks because a sliver of Columbus is in Delaware County.
• State lawmakers’ resistance to even small restrictions is illogical and flies in the face of self-preservation. It could be them or their family member who gun laws protect.
• The violence has to stop if this city and state is to be a place where people can safely and fully live, work and play and businesses can thrive. There is no political will, but there is common ground.
• Instead of fights between state and local leaders, the public deserves sensible solutions.
• Solutions must be found before it is too late.

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