Petition certified for proposed gun background check
Published 12:00 am Saturday, July 20, 2019
COLUMBUS — The Ohio Attorney General’s Office today certified a revised petition for a proposed law that would expand background checks for firearm sales.
On July 9, the attorney general’s office received a written petition to amend the Ohio Revised Code by initiated statute, entitled “An Act to Close Loopholes in Background Checks on Gun Sales.” A previous version of the petition was rejected on June 20.
The attorney general’s role is to determine whether the petition summary is a fair and truthful representation of the proposed law. The revised petition meets that requirement.
“Without passing on the advisability of the approval or rejection of the measure … I hereby certify that the summary is a fair and truthful statement of the proposed statute,” Attorney General Dave Yost said in a letter certifying the petition.
Once the summary language and initial signatures are certified, the Ohio Ballot Board must determine if the proposal contains a single law or multiple laws. The petitioners must then collect signatures for each proposed law from registered voters in each of 44 of Ohio’s 88 counties, equal to 1.5 percent of the total vote cast in the county for the office of governor at the last gubernatorial election.
Total signatures collected statewide must also equal 3 percent of the total vote cast for the office of governor at the last gubernatorial election. Once signatures are verified by the Ohio Secretary of State, the Ohio General Assembly has four months to act upon the proposed law. If the proposal is not passed, the petitioners have an opportunity to gather the same number of signatures to have the proposal placed on the ballot.
The full text of the certification letter and the petition can be found at www.OhioAttorneyGeneral.gov/Petitions.