Guns in Your Car
ORC 2923.16 — what permitless carry did and did not change
Before 2022 this section was the one that caught people out, because a handgun could be legal to own, legal to carry on foot, and still charged the moment it went into a car loaded. Permitless carry rewrote most of that, but not all of it, and what survived is the part worth knowing.
Who handles this in Ohio: Ohio State Bar Association lawyer referral; and legal aid programs and the state offices, listed in the Ohio directory.
- A qualifying adult, meaning twenty one or over and not prohibited from possessing a firearm, may have a loaded concealed handgun in a vehicle. The old transport restrictions no longer reach them.
- The duty to disclose still applies and permitless carry did not remove it. In a vehicle it is in this section, 2923.16, and since 2022 it is tied to the officer asking rather than to volunteering it on contact. The section on carrying covers what is contested about that.
- Hands stay in plain sight from the moment the officer starts approaching.
- Where the vehicle is going still matters. A school zone, a courthouse, or a police station does not stop being off limits because you are in a car.
Two things stayed criminal for everyone, license or not. Discharging a firearm from a vehicle is a fourth degree felony, with narrow hunting exceptions that do not cover ordinary situations. Having a loaded handgun in a vehicle while under the influence of alcohol or drugs is a fifth degree felony, and a fourth degree felony where the handgun is concealed on the person. Neither is affected by being a qualifying adult.
Long guns are a separate question from handguns. The concealed carry rules are written around handguns, and how a rifle or shotgun may ride in a vehicle is governed by its own divisions of the same section.
“Before I reach for anything, there is a firearm in the vehicle and I am a qualifying adult. Tell me how you want me to proceed.”
This section is one of the most amended in the chapter. Anything written before June 2022 about guns in cars in Ohio describes rules that were replaced.
Sources for this section (5)
- ORC 2923.16 — Improperly handling firearms in a motor vehicle
- ORC 2923.111 — Concealed carry by qualifying adults without a license
- ORC 2923.12 — Carrying concealed weapons
- ORC 2923.126 — Duties of a licensee, and the places a license does not cover
- ORC 2923.122 — Weapons in a school safety zone
Legal information, not legal advice. Verified as of September 2026. Applying it to a particular situation is the work of a licensed Ohio attorney.