Substitute House Bill 347 Changes AND Hearing Audio

Written by Jeff Garvas

Tuesday, 07 March 2006

The Ohio House Criminal Justice Committee adopted Substitute House Bill 347 today, which includes various changes. Thanks to the efforts of a regular OFCC Volunteer who has been recording hearings for us, we can report the following. Please note that this information is believed to be accurate, but not verified against the actual language of the substitute bill yet. Excellent sponsor testimony was provided by Representative Jim Aslanides. Rep. Aslanides did a great job of describing the changes that are taking place in HB347. That testimony can be heard here: Substitute HB347 Testimony (MP3, ~20 minutes) UPDATED: The Legislative Services Commission has uploaded the official version of Sub HB347 with the actual amendments applied to the bill. You can download it here: downloaded here This document is now also only 172k as opposed to 11 megabytes. To read the changes in a summarized list, please continue reading. The Sheriff will not be required to notify licensees of expiration. (not in existing law) The penalty of possession of a loaded firearm in a car will be increased to a 4th degree felony. (Assumed non CHL holders) Failure to immediatly notify a stopping officer of a concealed weapon is raised to a third degree misdemeanor. (new) The affirmative defense for discharging a firearm for self protection is removed. This may mean that you can be charged with discharging a firearm in the city limits if you defend your self. The new bill still permits the newspapers to have access to ccw lists. (details unknown) The new definition of a loaded firearm has been removed On the positive side: Pre-emption has survived. To what degree is yet unknown. The substitute bill provides for the issuance of ccw to people with expunged records. (OFCC has pushed hard for this) Requires all sheriffs’ offices to be open at least 15 hours per week. There has been a safe harbor provision added to permit the licensee to have someone else hold their gun if they should choose to drink. And finally, a huge win that OFCC has orchestrated since this was introduced in the legislation. With the help of at least two or three non-citizen license holders who were outraged OFCC saw that the committee heard ample testimony on this situation. The citizenship issue has been removed from HB347: The requirement for US citizenship in the original bill has been removed.