“I look forward to working with members of the legislature in the future to keep guns out of the hands of criminals and to protect the rights of citizens who follow the law,” DeWine said.
He said he was disappointed lawmakers didn’t add the measures he sought for more than a year that would toughen background checks and boost penalties for felons committing new crimes with guns.
The governor has pushed these proposals since the Aug. 4, 2019, Dayton massacre that killed nine and wounded more than two dozen.
Nan Whaley, the Democratic mayor of Dayton and a sometime ally of the governor, said she couldn t “express my level of disappointment and accused him of giving into extremists in his own party. Shortly after the Dayton shooting, she and DeWine pledged to work together on a bipartisan effort to change gun laws.