Ohio Suppressor Bill Reaches Governor

Ohio lawmakers just sent Governor's desk a bill that would stop treating suppressors, short-barreled rifles, and short-barreled shotguns like contraband under state law.

Driving the news: SB 214 cleared floor votes in both chambers of the Ohio legislature and now awaits the governor's signature.

• What it does: Removes suppressors, SBRs, and SBSs from the definition of "dangerous ordnance" in the Ohio Revised Code.
• Why it moved fast: The bill tracks a broader national trend of states pulling back restrictions on NFA-regulated items that have survived federal registration and taxation for decades without becoming a public safety problem.
• What's at stake: Under current Ohio law, these items carry a classification shared with items like explosives and automatic weapons — language that predates modern federal case law on suppressors and short-barreled firearms.

The legal question: Ohio's "dangerous ordnance" label has long added a layer of state-level risk on top of the federal NFA process, meaning a law-abiding owner who jumped through ATF's tax-stamp hoops could still face stricter state scrutiny. Removing that label doesn't touch the federal paperwork — suppressors, SBRs, and SBSs remain regulated under the National Firearms Act — but it strips away Ohio's extra classification, aligning state code with recent federal decisions that have chipped away at the rationale for treating these items as uniquely dangerous.

What's next: The bill now sits with the governor, who can sign it into law or veto it. NRA-ILA is urging Ohio residents to contact the governor's office and ask him to sign.

The bottom line: If signed, Ohio joins a growing list of states cleaning up decades-old statutory language that treated suppressors and short-barreled firearms as inherently more dangerous than the evidence — or current federal courts — support.