Admitting that legislation it passed Monday will not stop violent crime, Cleveland politicians instead came up with excuses for imposing it on citizens anyway, Northeast Ohio Media Group reported. All but one Council member, Zack Reed, voted in favor of the new edicts, which in many areas duplicate state law, but supposedly will allow the city to keep resulting fines.
Whether any such coveted revenues will outweigh further legal costs the city will face is a question taxpayers should be asking their representatives who insisted on reopening an issue presumably already settled in the courts. Ohio Revised Code claims preemption by the state in the field of non-federal firearms regulation, and the matter was supposedly already settled when the City of Cleveland lost against the state in 2010, with the Supreme Court of Ohio “uphold[ing] as Constitutional state law displacing local gun-control ordinances.”
In addition to the duplicate laws and creation of a “gun offender registry,” the Cleveland diktats create several new burdens on law-abiding gun owners, including presuming to dictate reporting requirements for private sales (creating a de facto registry) and to impose storage mandates. Ohio Code declares “a person, without further license, permission, restriction, delay, or process, may own, possess, purchase, sell, transfer, transport, store, or keep any firearm, part of a firearm, its components, and its ammunition,” meaning the city has nothing lawful to say about imposing constraints. The new decree also imposes a stolen gun reporting requirement that would appear to exempt criminals, as requiring them to attest they were in violation of the law prohibiting them from possessing a gun in the first place would also require self-incrimination in violation of the Fifth Amendment.
Rather than directly addressing Councilman Reed’s challenge to show how the new edicts would have prevented any of the 25 homicides the city has experienced so far this year, supporters of the legislation offered unsubstantiated platitudes. Safety Director Michael McGrath fell back on the “possibility of saving a life” talking point used to restrict the rights of everyone else while saving nothing and no one. Councilman Michael Polensek even admitted “the bad guys are not turning in their guns. The bad guys are not registering. The kids who want to shoot indiscriminately on the street won't stop," and Council President Kevin Kelley “said that the legislation was not designed to stop gun violence” and instead offered bromides about “council's values and ... good public policy intended to encourage responsible gun ownership.”
In other words, knowing full well what they are imposing will accomplish no reduction in violent crime, and in fact, violate Ohio law, they are nonetheless using the coercive force of the city to mandate citizen compliance -- or else. But the desperate to appear effective politicians behind the scam will all get their names in the press and claim bragging rights that they are both “doing something” and showing leadership.
In any legitimate field of endeavor, that would be considered not just malpractice, but outright shameless fraud.
UPDATE: From an email alert received moments after publishing this article:
read the rest @ http://www.examiner.com/article/cleveland-gun-edicts-violate-law-infringe-on-rights-and-won-t-stop-violence?CID=examiner_alerts_article
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