Measure heads to Gov. DeWine before Democrats gain power in January’s legislature
Ohio’s House and Senate passed Senate Bill 214 on Tuesday, approving legislation that would remove the state’s requirement that owners of gun silencers and short-barreled rifles and shotguns register the weapons under federal law. The bill passed mostly along party lines, with all Republicans voting yes and all but a small handful of Democrats voting no. It now heads to Gov. Mike DeWine, who can sign it into law or veto it.
The vote is the first major act by state lawmakers since Democrats routed Republicans up and down the ballot in last week’s elections, and it came ahead of January’s new legislature, in which Democrats will hold new power.
Current Ohio law generally prohibits possessing any “dangerous ordnance,” a broad category that includes short-barreled rifles, short-barreled shotguns and gun suppressors or silencers, among other weapons. The short-barreled group takes in “sawed-off shotguns” and guns manufactured with shorter barrels. State law carves out an exception for owners who complete a special federal background check that requires a $200 payment. Senate Bill 214 would eliminate that federal registration requirement.
Republicans and gun advocates have argued that the second background check process is needlessly duplicative and that the prohibitions themselves impose unnecessary limits on the constitutional right to own guns. Rep. Kellie Deeter, a Lorain County Republican, said suppressors are tools for ear protection rather than a stealth accessory.
Rep. Tex Fischer, a Mahoning Valley Republican, rejected Democrats’ criticism that looser gun laws mean more gun violence. “This is in no way shape or form anything that’s going to make Ohio less safe,” Fischer said.
Democrats argued that the expansion ignores gun violence. Rep. Darnell Brewer, a Cleveland-area Democrat who has pushed for years for different approaches to bills focused on reducing gun violence, questioned the zeal around expanding gun access. “I have a young man, literally just get shot steps from my house. And we are here today talking about this bill,” Brewer said Tuesday before a committee vote. “We need to save lives in Ohio.”
Senate Minority Leader Nickie Antonio, a Lakewood Democrat, said deregulating sawed-off shotguns sounds like a “political issue for somebody” but is wholly out of step with voters’ demands that leaders focus on bringing down the basic cost of living.
A small number of House Democrats voted with Republicans. Rep. Mark Sigrist, of the Columbus area, called the legislation a “limited adjustment” to reflect newly deregulated federal law. “Passing SB214 today aligns Ohio law with these federal developments and restores key Second Amendment protections for responsible citizens across our state,” Sigrist said.
Tuesday’s vote follows a 20-year history of Statehouse Republicans slowly weakening restrictions on gun possession. That era culminated in two bills long sought by gun advocates: the 2021 “stand your ground” law, which created new legal protections for people who shoot others and claim self-defense, and the 2022 “constitutional carry” law, which waived requirements for training, background checks and a permit before carrying a concealed firearm.
Gunshots killed more than 1,700 Ohioans in 2024, the most recent year of data available from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Democrats say the math is simple — more guns mean more people get shot.
Violations of Ohio’s dangerous ordnance laws are rare. The Legislative Service Commission recorded 26 incidents of possession of dangerous ordnance and 16 incidents of concealed carry of dangerous ordnance in 2025, though the tally relies on voluntary reporting from police departments and could undercount the total.
Nationally, about 1.3 million short-barreled rifles, 211,000 short-barreled shotguns and 6.9 million silencers are registered with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, or ATF, according to federal data.
The restrictions trace to the National Firearms Act of 1934, passed in reaction to violent gang episodes of the Al Capone era. The law generally prohibited possession of short-barreled shotguns and rifles and suppressors, but allowed ownership through an additional federal background check and a $200 tax. Congress seemingly passed the law out of concern that shorter weapons could be more easily concealed. Ohio imposed its own prohibition in the 1970s, attaching state penalties for anyone who flouted the federal requirements, according to Grant Balzer, a lobbyist for Gun Owners of America, who described the history during legislative hearings.
The federal framework shifted last year. The One Big Beautiful Bill Act, President Donald Trump’s signature legislative accomplishment, passed in 2025 along party lines and reduced the $200 tax to $0. A Texas judge ruled in August that Congress’ constitutional authority for the law rested on the tax element, meaning the zeroed-out tax leaves much of the act unconstitutional. The Justice Department declined to appeal the ruling, and the ATF announced last month that it would no longer enforce the registration requirement for suppressors and short-barreled rifles and shotguns.
Ohio Attorney General Andy Wilson, a Republican serving on an interim basis, flagged the issue for lawmakers in a letter last month. He said state law still requires registration for short-barreled rifles or shotguns with the federal government, and that if lawmakers want stricter gun laws, so be it. “If, on the other hand, the legislature sees these registration requirements as archaic remnants of an overly restrictive past, it is time to eliminate them from Ohio law,” Wilson said.