COLUMBUS, Ohio — Two of Ohio's major cities had mass shootings in one weekend. The cities of Columbus and Dayton want better gun safety regulations, but the Republican supermajority at the Statehouse won't allow them, saying it won't fix the issue.
Columbus police are asking for the public's help in providing any information that can lead to the arrest of the shooter or shooters who injured at least 10 people in the Short North, the city's entertainment district. Two of the victims are juveniles, according to CPD.
A 19-year-old suspect who was allegedly driving the getaway car turned himself in to police 12 hours after the shooting, authorities said. He's been charged with obstruction but not with the shooting, according to court documents. He was arraigned Monday morning and is in custody.
All victims are expected to survive — which City Attorney Zach Klein is grateful for — but said this can’t keep happening.
"The reaction needs to be accountability and enforcement," Klein said.
It’s not just offenders that need to be held accountable, he added.
"Policy decision-makers on the Republican side of the aisle have created a world where everyone has guns and they're so easily accessible," he said.
Klein has been fighting for gun safety regulations. The city requires gun owners to lock up their guns around children when they aren't using them and banned magazines that can hold 30 or more rounds of ammunition. However, they can't enforce them due to ongoing litigation.
Columbus is seemingly constantly getting under the skin of legislators. In just the past year, the lawmakers have found issues with the city regarding gun safety regulations, banning flavored tobacco and suggesting a voluntary curfew after a string of shootings.
We have covered the city of Columbus and Klein's safety attempts as well as stories on home rule, evaluating how urban areas are trying to put forward firearm safety regulations — but are being shot down by state Republicans.
And while Klein was dealing with finding the suspects in his city’s shooting, another mass shooting became deadly just 70 miles West — in Dayton.
Seven people were shot around 1 a.m. on Monday, according to the Dayton Police Department. This was a drive-by shooting outside a party at a vacant house. A 22-year-old woman died on scene, and an 18-year-old man "is in life-threatening condition," Lt. Col. Eric Henderson said in a news conference late Monday afternoon. The rest of the injuries were non-life-threatening, according to police.
"There was likely more than one weapon," Henderson said.
ABC News affiliate in Dayton WKEF reported that police originally said there were eight people shot, but in the later press conference, police said seven.
"There were a large number of juveniles and young adults at this address," Henderson added. "This could have been a lot worse and there is a potential we could have a second individual who loses their life."
Dayton-area state Rep. Tom Young (R-Washington Township) said his community’s shooting is awful but that gun restrictions are not the way to fix the problem.
"We got to get more preventative," Young said. "We can show them that literacy matters and you will learn to read, you will learn to have a different path."
It is fixing "broken homes," he said, which will alleviate the problem of violence.
"There are a number of families that visit my home that have gone through a divorce and they have two separate families," Young said, noting that he is divorced but coparents well. "It was surprising to me what type of environments these young people grow up in."
Klein said that we can talk about upbringing in a respectful way that still gets to the heart of systemic ways that some kids find their way into violence.
"Society has failed them, the school system has failed them, their parents have failed them that they find themselves at two or three o'clock in the morning engaged in a gun battle — and that's their only solution to how they deal with conflicts," Klein said.
All of that being said, stronger gun regulations won’t stop criminals, Young said.
"They're gonna get any gun they can," he said, noting that it is illegal for teenagers under 18 to access a firearm. "If there's gun violence, they're going to get any gun they can.
It's not just Young that feels this way — both House and Senate leadership have no interest in creating additional gun regulations.
Republican Gov. Mike DeWine, however, goes back and forth.
It seems that DeWine has the same goal as the Democrats like Klein, yet he has signed every bill loosening firearm restrictions that has hit his desk — even after a mass shooting.
Right outside of Young's district in the Oregon District, a gunman killed nine people and injured 27 others in 2019.
After this tragedy, DeWine proposed his own form of gun safety regulations, one he called common sense at the time. This included a new form of state background checks, as well as beefing up existing ones. He told lawmakers he didn't want to see a gun bill on his desk until they dealt with his bill. They didn't, yet he still signed every bill loosening regulations.
After he skirted our questions during press conferences, we were able to address the concerns in a one-on-one with the governor in December.
Trau: "Do you feel like you've been complicit in signing that?"
DeWine: "I again am asking this year, for the legislature to look at the bill that we rolled out right after the Oregon District and Dayton tragedy... Basically, what this bill says is, if you have a member of your family — and it's usually a member of the family who knows something's going on wrong with that person — our bill would give you the right to go into court. You have to convince the judge, then and only then, would the guns be taken away from that individual. And again, you know, urge the legislature to take action on this."
Trau: "But you still signed permitless carry."
DeWine: "Look, I don't think it creates a real problem. The issue is, what are we gonna do going forward?"
RELATED: One-on-one with Gov. DeWine: crimes, complicity, concerns
On Monday, DeWine's spokesperson Dan Tierney addressed the shootings with me. DeWine wants harsher penalties for repeat offenders, with Tierney acknowledging that its unclear if the shooters had convictions before.
I asked if DeWine was still in favor of the gun regulations he proposed back after the 2019 shooting.
"The key issue there is that the governor believes it would either be held unconstitutional or has no chance to pass the General Assembly," he said.
Klein thinks the governor should speak out about wanting more safety guidelines.
"I think the governor can show a lot of leadership here by 1. advocating for common sense, gerrymandering reform and 2. advocating for common sense gun laws," Klein said.
"We don't have proper representation," State Rep. Dani Isaacsohn (D-Cincinnati) said. "The majority of elected officials in the majority party are, on some issues including this one, held captive by an extremist wing of the party."
The lawmaker then referenced numerous different polls, all that show that Ohioans — and people in the United States — want stronger gun legislation.
In a nonpartisan statewide survey done in 2023 by USA TODAY Network/Suffolk University, about 90% of Ohioans supported mandatory background checks, and 75% wanted safe storage and red-flag laws. The nonpartisan Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health mirrored the results, adding that more than 70% of Americans want there to be a permit process for people to buy a gun. When it comes to party division, the nonpartisan Pew Research Center found that 60% of Republicans and 91% of Democrats oppose the ability to carry concealed firearms without a permit.
This is one of the reasons why cities know what laws work best for their community members, Klein said, adding that lawmakers need to stop infringing on home rule.
The Ohio Mayors Alliance, a bipartisan coalition of mayors in the top 30 cities, has been routinely asking lawmakers to get out of the way, with Dayton Mayor Jeffrey J. Mims, Jr. participating with Columbus Mayor Andrew Ginther, Cleveland Mayor Justin Bibb, Cincinnati Mayor Aftab Pureval and Akron Mayor Shammas Malik.
He also said he understands that violence won't be solved by just one fix.
"No single law is going to prevent all crime from happening, but it can prevent a critical sector of crime from happening," the attorney said.
