Open carry laws for ohio

[David (OHGO)]

thethirddon submitted a new blog post


Open Carry Laws for Ohio

Before you load your firearm up and waltz around your town square shouting about your 2nd amendment rights, understand that there are still places you can not carry that weapon without limitations. Please note that if you poses a valid concealed handgun license for the state some exceptions to these rules apply. This article however assumes that you DO NOT have a valid CCW Permit for whatever reason.

Continue reading the Original Blog Post.

 

[MyWifeSaidYes]

When you talk about open carry, you mention "the actual code behind it".


It should be noted that, at the state level, open carry in Ohio has always been legal.


R.C. 9.68 took effect in 2007 as the General Assembly's preemption of local firearm laws. This had the effect of invalidating any laws political subdivisions may have had against open carry, or other restrictive firearm laws. About the only law a city can have now is restricting their use (ie. no discharging firearms in city limits).


If your city or village has any firearm restrictions left on the books, let me know. I'll be happy to call them.

 

[~ZENAS~]

I was going to mention that as well, MyWifeSaidYes. R.C. 9.68 was not a statute that gives Ohioans the right to bear arms. The Ohio Constitution does that. It is not a statutory right, but a constitutional one. As you pointed out, 9.68 was a law created to counteract the Toledo Metroparks case where the Supreme Court found that Ohio's firearms laws were not "general" and therefore state law didn't preempt local laws. So the legislature passed 9.68 to make clear the intent WAS to preempt local law. This was upheld in Ohioans for Concealed Carry v. Clyde case.


Open carry in Ohio is legal because we have a constitutional right to bear arms and there is no statute restricting open carry. We do have a statute restricting concealed carry (R.C. 2923.12) which is why we need a permit to carry concealed but do not need one to carry open (not to mention at this point any statute making open carry illegal would be unconstitutional).