Name: Appeals court: City of Cincinnati must pay $168K over 'invalid' trigger activator ban
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Appeals court: City of Cincinnati must pay $168K over 'invalid' trigger activator ban

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Cincinnati EnquirerView CommentsThe city of Cincinnati exceeded its authority in 2018 when it banned "trigger activators" that make guns fire more rapidly, a state appeals court said.A decision handed down Wednesday by the 1st District Court of Appeals upheld a Hamilton County judge who struck down a city ordinance that banned the trigger devices&nbsp;within city limits.The devices – which include trigger cranks,&nbsp;slide fire devices as well as bump stocks – accelerate a gun's rate of fire and can approximate an automatic weapon, court documents say.In its opinion, the appeals court said the ordinance conflicted with state law governing the right to own and possess firearms and was “an invalid exercise of home-rule authority.”The appeals court also said the city has to pay&nbsp;attorney fees and costs that were&nbsp;imposed by Hamilton County Common Pleas Judge Robert Ruehlman. Court documents say that amount totals more than $168,000.A key question in the case, according to the&nbsp;opinion, was whether trigger activators qualify as gun components. Ohio law says citizens have the right to possess “any firearm, part of a firearm, its components and its ammunition.”The city said trigger activators are secondary accessories or attachments – not components. It argued that components mean “original equipment” or “standard equipment.”The appeals court, however, found that the law doesn’t say gun components are limited to parts that are standard or original to a gun.Gun experts for both sides testified that some guns, including those that are custom-made, are produced with trigger activators. In those cases, trigger activators “are components of the firearm without which the firearm would not function,” the opinion says.It was a 2-1 decision with Judge Candace Crouse dissenting. Crouse found that trigger activators are accessories because they’re not necessary to make the gun fire. Judge Robert Winkler, writing for the majority, said trying to distinguish accessories and components “unnecessarily obfuscates” what the court has to do, which he said “is to apply the plain language of” the law.Dean Rieck, executive director of the Buckeye Firearms Association, one of the groups that sued the city, said state law is clear."Cities in Ohio can't pass gun regulations," Rieck said.Rieck's organization has sued multiple cities, which he said "pass laws to see what sticks and force people to sue them…to get them to obey the&nbsp;law."A city spokeswoman did not immediately return messages seeking comment.Bump stocks&nbsp;gained notoriety in 2017 when they allegedly were found in the hotel room of a gunman who the FBI says killed 58 people and wounded hundreds&nbsp;during a country music festival in Las Vegas. They have since been banned by the federal government.View Comments

Cincinnati EnquirerView CommentsThe city of Cincinnati exceeded its authority in 2018 when it banned "trigger activators" that make guns fire more rapidly, a state appeals court said.A decision handed down Wednesday by the 1st District Court of Appeals upheld a Hamilton County judge who struck down a city ordinance that banned the trigger devices&nbsp;within city limits.The devices – which include trigger cranks,&nbsp;slide fire devices as well as bump stocks – accelerate a gun's rate of fire and can approximate an automatic weapon, court documents say.In its opinion, the appeals court said...

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Kevin Grasha

cincinnati.com

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Appeals court: City of Cincinnati must pay $168K over 'invalid' trigger activator ban

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