Oregon gun safety advocates are working to collect signatures to put an initiative on November’s ballot that would require people to get a permit to buy a gun and would stop the sale of gun magazines that hold more than 10 rounds.
Initiative Petition 17 also would close the so-called Charleston loophole by requiring people to pass a background check before buying a gun.
Under current federal law, firearms dealers can sell guns without a completed background check if the check takes longer than three business days. That’s how the gunman in the Charleston AMC Church mass shooting in 2015 bought his gun and killed nine people.
It’s unclear in Oregon how many people have been able to buy guns as result of delayed background checks. The Oregon State Police’s Firearms Instant Check System, which tracks when a gun sale is denied and why, hasn’t updated its data since Jan. 31, 2021.
There would be exceptions under the initiative for high-capacity magazines made for military and law enforcement. Those who already own such large-capacity magazines could keep them but not sell or transfer them to anyone.
Permits to buy a gun would be good for five years and be renewable.
Penny Okamoto, executive director of Ceasefire, said Initiative Petition 17 would accomplish several important goals of gun control advocates.
“We’ve got too many guns in the wrong hands, and there’s too many bullets,” she said.
The campaign aims to obtain 140,000 signatures for the petition by July 8.
The gun control advocates are focusing on Initiative Petition 17, and don’t plan to collect signatures at this point for a second gun measure, Initiative Petition 18, which they will work to have introduced in the Legislature next year.
Initiative Petition 18 would ban selling and manufacturing many types of semi-automatic assault-style guns in Oregon and require people who already own those types of guns to register them with the state, will be part of a long-range approach
The owners would be restricted to using the guns at home, at shooting ranges or competitions or in certain outdoor recreational activities such as hunting. The proposal excludes the military and law enforcement.
The petition lists dozens of rifles subject to the restrictions. Semi-automatic shotguns and semi-automatic pistols also qualify as “assault-style” if they have any one of a number of augmentations or attachments. For pistols, the restrictions apply to a threaded barrel, capable of accepting a flash suppressor, forward handgrip or silencer; a second handgrip; or a stabilizing brace or any similar component.
Supporters have called for similar gun regulation measures for years. But they say the explosion of gun violence in Portland since 2020, and the latest mass shootings this month add to the urgency.
In Buffalo, N.Y, an 18-year-old man is accused of killing 10 people, almost all of them Black, at a grocery store Saturday. The next day, a 68-year-old man in Laguna Woods, Calif., is accused of opening fire on a Taiwanese congregation, killing one and injuring five others.
Portland recorded its highest number of homicides in 2021, with 92, and is on pace to surpass that peak this year. Thirty-eight people have died in homicides since January, most from shootings.
Oregon has seen four mass shootings so far this – three in Portland and one in Eugene — defined as four or more people shot, according to Ceasefire Oregon. Since 2014, Oregon has had 20 mass shootings, of which 12 occurred since Dec. 31, 2020, the group said.
The Lift Every Voice Oregon campaign started shortly after the 2018 shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, where 17 students and staff were killed and 17 others injured. The group ran out of time to obtain sufficient signatures for similar petitions that year. Bills reflecting the initiatives never got a hearing in the state legislature in 2019, and in 2020 and last year, the COVID-19 pandemic hampered signature-gathering efforts.
The Rev. W. J. Mark Knutson of Augustana Lutheran Church in Portland is one of the chief petitioners for the initiatives and helped start the associated campaign and political action committee, Lift Every Voice Oregon.
Knutson gathered Thursday night with the two other chief petitioners, Rabbi Michael Z. Cahana, of Congregation Beth Israel, and vocalist Marilyn Keller, who is in the Jazz Society of Oregon Hall of Fame, and other supporters. A community prayer service for recent victims of gun violence also was scheduled to follow Thursday night at Augustana Lutheran Church.
“We can’t just sit by with thoughts and prayers and weep,” Knutson said. “We have to see some action.”
“We can do this if we can get enough help in the next six weeks,” Knutson said, noting that teenagers to an adult in his 90s have been volunteering to obtain signatures.
Liz McKanna, who is involved in the Lift Every Voice Oregon campaign, said the group decided to focus on Initiative 17 this year because it addresses a broader class of guns and “will do more right away to reduce the injuries and deaths from gun violence.”
David Wheeler, also involved in the campaign, said requiring a permit and safety class completion to buy a gun is common sense, considering new drivers are required to obtain permits and licenses to get behind the wheel of a vehicle.
“We’re going to be strategic about how to use our resources,” Cahana said, adding that Initiative 18 will remain part of the group’s long-term approach.
Knutson said he’s optimistic Initiative 17 will get on the ballot and voters will pass it in November. Then, he said, he hopes those developments would “give the legislature the courage” to pass a ban on certain semiautomatic assault weapons next year.
To address illegal guns already on the street, Okamoto said that’s where law enforcement plays an important role. “They need all the help they can get to make sure they are disarming people who shouldn’t be carrying guns,” she said.
The initiatives would reduce the number of people who shouldn’t have guns but still get them legally, she said.
— Maxine Bernstein
Email at mbernstein@oregonian.com; 503-221-8212
Follow on Twitter @maxoregonian
