Buckeye Reporter

A recent poll shows that 56.5% of Ohio registered voters would support banning the sale of AR-15 style rifles in the state, highlighting the potential impact of Issue 1, the August 8 ballot initiative that would  raise the threshold necessary to pass an amendment to Ohio's State Constitution from 50%+1 to 60%. 

The Ohio Pulse Poll, conducted for Baldwin Wallace University, surveyed 856 registered voters and was released in October of last year. 

44% of respondents said they "strongly" supported a ban on AR-15-style semi-automatic rifles, with 37.1% either "somewhat" or "strongly" opposed to such a ban. 

The future of gun rights in Ohio has become part of the debate over Issue 1. 

According to a July 27 report from the Cleveland Reporter, during a press conference on "summer violence" in Cleveland, Mayor Justin Bibb (D) expressed support for a ballot driven constitutional amendment in Ohio on gun control. 

"We can use our real political power to change our culture of guns," Bibb said at the press conference. "It starts by voting no on Issue 1, by the way, so that we can maybe put a ballot measure on our state Constitution."

Buckeye Reporter previously reported that Issue 1, which will appear on the ballot on August 8, would require petition-based amendments to Ohio's Constitution to pass with 60% of the vote rather than a simple majority.

In response to Bibb's comments, Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose wrote in a July 26 tweet, "The Mayor of Cleveland just said the quiet part out loud - they are desperate to defeat Issue 1 because the radical left's next risky scheme is to use their 'political power' to come after our gun rights."

As previously noted by Buckeye Reporter, Ohio is one of only fifteen U.S. states allow for ballot driven amendments to their constitutions. Of those fifteen, four of them, Illinois, Arizona, Florida, and Colorado, have thresholds for passage above a simple majority.

Last year, Measure 114 passed in the state of Oregon with 50.65% of the vote, a margin of fewer than 25,000 votes of the over two million total votes cast. Due to Oregon's 50% threshold to pass initiatives, Measure 114 would be the current law in Oregon if not for a number of legal challenges over the measure's constitutionality. According to a previous report from Buckeye Reporter, Measure 114 would ban magazines with more than a 10-round capacity and would require permitting to purchase and transfer firearms.

The National Rifle Association's Institute for Legal Action called measure 114 "the nation's most extreme gun control initiative," and found that under Measure 114 gun owner's personal information would be collected in a government registry and that this data would be published annually.