In Ohio, a law is under judicial challenge. It stems from a shooting in a bar several years ago. No one was killed, but the incident may overturn a state law.
The problem? It seems some are more interested in making the law seem to be something it's not.
In particular, they're making it sound like the law prohibits a particular behavior when it goes well beyond that.
The state Supreme Court on Tuesday agreed to hear what could be a landmark case for gun laws in Ohio, taking up a challenge brought by a man accused of shooting the other in the neck after a bar fight in a men’s bathroom at 2 a.m.
The ruling could overturn a longstanding Ohio law that prohibits those who consume alcohol from carrying a concealed weapon at a bar. Such a decision would continue a long series of gun deregulations that Republican state lawmakers have enacted in Ohio over the past two decades.
The state court’s decision to take up the case marks the first major Ohio gun rights decision since the U.S. Supreme Court in 2022 issued its own major ruling that dramatically narrows’ states’ abilities to restrict who can carry a gun and when.
After a night of drinking, Elijah Striblin entered the men’s bathroom of a Muskingum County bar after 2 a.m. when an altercation escalated into a fist fight, according to court records. Striblin, five drinks deep that night, ended the scuffle by drawing a pistol and shooting another man in the neck.
Now, we all know that guns and alcohol aren't a great mix, but as there are laws from around the time of the nation's founding regarding not using a gun while drunk, it's easy to argue that the law should be upheld.
After all, five drinks is usually enough to get someone legally drunk, especially depending on just what he was drinking--some will make you more drunk than others, after all--so this should be a no-brainer, right?
Except that the law here is misrepresented in the first part of this piece. Look at what Striblin was actually charged with.
The man survived, and a grand jury indicted Striblin on six charges. He struck a deal with prosecutors and pleaded no contest to inducing panic along with a charge of illegal possession of a firearm on a liquor premises.
That's right. He wasn't charged for using a gun while drunk. He was charged with having a gun in a bar in the first place and that is the law under scrutiny.
Kind of changes things, doesn't it?
If the law precluded drinking while carrying, I don't think it would have much of a chance of being threatened under judicial scrutiny, even under the Bruen standards. As noted, there are similar enough laws from back in the day that it would probably be upheld.
But the law doesn't just address that behavior. It also means that the sober designated driver can't carry either, and that takes it too far.
OK, in fairness, if you have a concealed carry permit, you can carry if you don't drink. However, Ohio is a constitutional carry state. You're not required to have a concealed carry permit to carry a firearm, which is now part of the issue.
That's also where the issue of framing comes in as well because the above-linked story makes it look like the case is about letting drunk people carry guns. While that might be the after-effect of the law being overturned, the legislature can then prohibit that if they so desire. I really think that would be upheld, though I'm not exactly in favor of that, either, because it would eventually bite someone in the posterior because they used a gun in self-defense after a night out on the town.
Still, that could probably survive.
This, though?
This, I'm not so sure about. Again, the state is a constitutional carry state, so telling people they can't carry in a bar without a permit kind of flies in the face of that. I'm not sure the state supreme court is going to just shrug that one off.
