Very few gun-related bills have passed the Ohio legislature with broad bipartisan backing.
But, SB273, the “Keep Them Safe Act” received unanimous support from the Ohio House and Senate before Governor Mike DeWine signed it into law on June 18.
The legislation aims to put time and distance between a person struggling with thoughts of suicide and their firearms. It allows federally registered gun dealers and law enforcement officers to temporarily store firearms on behalf of gun owners who may be experiencing a mental health crisis.
“[Gun owners] will be able to go to any participating gun shop and temporarily and voluntarily store their firearm there for as long as they need to,” said Whitney Austin, who lobbied for the legislation on behalf of her gun violence prevention nonprofit, the Whitney/Strong Organization.
Austin, and other advocates, hope it can curb suicide deaths in the state. Suicides made up 59% of firearm related deaths in Ohio in 2023, according to data from the John Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.
The legislation received proponent testimony from mental health organizations, gun violence prevention groups and second amendment right advocates alike.
Finding firearm storage
Right now, many gun shops hesitate to store firearms on behalf of other people. Austin said that’s because it comes with major liability issues.
“If you go to gun shops today, there are a lot of concerns about storing firearms. For example: what would happen if they returned a firearm to someone and then some bad thing happened?” Austin said.
SB273 takes away those concerns by giving civil immunity to gun dealers who agree to store firearms. That way, Austin said, they can choose to store guns without the fear of lawsuits.
“That civil immunity really gives them the confidence to think first and foremost about ‘What is the right thing to do here?’ And the right thing to do is make sure that there's a safe place to store firearms when that's what someone needs because of a mental health crisis.”
Other states, like Arkansas and Louisiana, have passed similar legislation. Still, Austin said more research needs to be done: they don’t know how effective these storage laws are in preventing suicides.
“What we do know in regards to research is that gun owners are very comfortable with the idea of this solution,” she said. “So, when thinking about all the places a firearm could be stored, they rank this at the top of the list.”
And Austin said it’s not just for those in crisis: the legislation can also be used by Ohioans to temporarily store firearms when grandchildren visit or when they leave for a vacation.
Protecting veterans
Many Ohioans who advocated for the legislation pointed to the need for more options for Ohio veterans – who make up around 14% of suicide deaths in the state.
Cincinnati-area resident Patricia Krummrich testified in support of the bill. She lost her brother, Chief Warrant Officer 2nd Class Karl Phares, to suicide in 2022. He suffered from PTSD after serving in Afghanistan.
She said this sort of storage option could’ve made a difference for him.
“When you call the suicide hotline, one of the first things they ask you is: ‘Is there a gun in the house? And if there is, get it out of the house,’” she explained. “And then the question then becomes, where? Where do I store it?”
This legislation answers those questions for families, she said. And offers more time for people in crisis to reconsider suicide.
“If you can buy that person a little time where someone can talk to them and they can get past the moment, then often they can be helped,” Krummrich said.
Around three-fourths of veteran suicides in Ohio involve a firearm, according to the Ohio Suicide Prevention Foundation.
Finding common ground
The legislation’s passage comes nearly eight years after Austin was shot in a mass shooting in Cincinnati. She said it’s the first legislative win since her organization began advocating for gun safety measures in 2018.
“It's here, and it means that more will come,” Austin said.
Austin wants to work to find more solutions that can garner broad bipartisan support. She said she’s working on legislation in Kentucky to ban glock switches – a device that transforms a semi-automatic handgun into a fully-automatic handgun.
She’s unsure if that work will come to Ohio, but she said she’s confident there’s more common ground to find in the Buckeye State.
“With every program, event, behavior change or even policy change, that means lives will be saved. That’s the whole point.”
