Gun owners could store firearms with dealers or police

In Ohio, the Keep Them Safe Act would give gun owners a way to take a lawfully possessed firearm out of circulation without surrendering it for good. A person who owns the gun, or someone the owner authorizes, could store it with a federally licensed firearms dealer, or FFL, or with a law enforcement agency after an application and agreement, and the proposal would give participants civil immunity.

The bill comes from Republican Sen. Kyle Koehler. It defines “legal cause” as any legal authority that would prohibit someone from receiving or possessing a firearm, including the federal prohibition in 18 U.S.C. 922(g), the law that keeps certain people from having guns.

A temporary off-ramp

The storage offer is voluntary on both sides. Dealers and law enforcement agencies would not be required to take a firearm, and they would not have to do it for free. Dealers could also set their own intake and return policies, as long as those rules are shared with the person handing over the gun.

The bill adds one practical guardrail for dealers: they could not enter a storage agreement if their federal license would expire during the storage period unless they had filed a timely renewal and were still authorized to keep operating. Available vote records show the bill advanced without recorded no votes.

No return past a gun ban

The part that matters most is the one that keeps the storage program from becoming a workaround. A firearm would not be returned if doing so would directly violate state or federal law, including when the person trying to take it back is barred under 18 U.S.C. 922(g).

That makes the measure less about creating a new path into gun ownership than about building a safer exit ramp for people who already have a gun and want it stored elsewhere for a time. The bill’s promise is simple: a temporary handoff, not a loophole.