The cities of Columbus and Dayton have settled a years-long lawsuit with the state of Ohio over what the cities argued were gaps in the state's criminal background check system.
The cities filed suit in 2020 over what they called the state's failure to update the background check system that is used to investigate potential gun owners.
The suit claimed that those failures allowed people to buy guns who shouldn't have been able to. The state's database feeds into a federal background check system.
"For the first time ever, Ohio has a real plan to modernize our criminal background check system to make it work for those who use it every day—to keep deadly weapons out of the hands of violent individuals and ensure employers can access the information they need when hiring," Columbus City Attorney Zack Klein said in a statement.
A statement from Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost's office said, "We’ve always agreed that cooperation is the best course of action to achieve our mutual goal of an improved background check system."
Yost's office said that with the litigation over, the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Identification and the cities can now focus our collective resources on making the system a more effective public safety tool.
Eric Tirschwell is the director of Everytown Law, a legal group that works on gun safety laws and is co-counsel on the case with the cities.
Tirschwell said that the settlement should serve as a model for other states to ensure that all criminal convictions and other prohibiting records can be accessed when someone tries to buy a gun.
Everytown Law said that the state will create an online dashboard showing compliance rates by reporting agencies.
