11.29.2023
While we are gratified and encouraged by the recent victory in Harney County, it’s important to note that legal efforts to protect the most fundamental rights of gun owners are a long way from over.
As you know, not only have Oregon’s far left power brokers promised to appeal and overturn the Harney County injunction against Measure 114, there is still a federal lawsuit grinding its way through the courts.
While gun owners have had repeated and significant legal victories across the country, there have been setbacks. Some of them would be too bizarre to take seriously if they weren’t so dangerous.
Case in point. A Colorado judge reached the truly idiotic conclusion that the right to own a firearm did not include the right to acquire a firearm. While any rational person would conclude that this decision is simply stupid, it does serve to continue the attack on Constitutional rights.
In many other cases where reason and sanity have prevailed and gun owner’s rights have been upheld, the government has immediately appealed making the courtroom victories mostly academic.
The judge in OFF’s Federal lawsuit to stop Measure 114 decided to completely ignore clear and unambiguous direction from the US Supreme Court when she decided that it was perfectly constitutional to outlaw a necessary component of firearms (magazines) and create a “permitting” system that was impossible to comply with. Of course appeals are in the works.
But Oregon’s Department of “Justice,” whose sole reason for existing is to spend millions of your tax dollars to strip you of your rights, is determined to do all it can to eliminate lawful gun ownership in Oregon.
Oregon’s Attorney General and her cabal of tax payer funded law sharks are asking the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals to take no action on the appeals filed to overturn the clearly wrong decision by the Federal Judge in our lawsuit.
They are asking that the appeals be held in “abeyance” until after a different case is resolved in California. According to Ellen Rosenblum, Oregon’s far left attorney general, : “Holding these appeals in abeyance pending Duncan thus would conserve considerable judicial resources, promote judicial economy, and greatly benefit the parties.”
(“Duncan” is the “Duncan v Bonta” case in California challenging California’s magazine ban. A circuit court there as already (and again) declared that ban to be unconstitutional but the 9th Circuit Appeals Court will be hearing an appeal to that decision.)
The problem is, quite simply, the 9th Circuit is stacking the deck. If you want to learn more about the games they play, see this video.
The goal is make sure any appeal is only heard by anti-gun judges.
But while the Duncan case does deal with magazine bans, and the ruling there could impact the Oregon magazine ban, the case has nothing to do with impossible permit to purchase laws. As was pointed out by pro gun lawyers :
“Second, Duncan will have no effect on the permit-to-purchase issue in these cases. Under Oregon Ballot Measure 114, an applicant who wishes to obtain a firearm must first obtain a permit—not just to carry a firearm, but to purchase one. Plaintiffs have brought a Due Process Clause challenge to Ballot Measure 114’s permit regime in addition to a Second Amendment challenge. Nothing in Duncan will have any effect on the resolution of the former challenge, and Duncan will likely have only marginal impact on the latter. “
They also note:” A majority of the judges who voted to retake that case en banc are statutorily ineligible to vote on whether to take a case en banc in the first instance. See 28 U.S.C. § 46(c).
And so it’s clear that Oregon’s radically biased Department of Justice is hoping to take advantage of the 9th Circuit’s shameful and transparent efforts to squash the 2nd Amendment. And while arguments in “Duncan” are expected next March, final rulings (if there really is such a thing) could be far, far out in the future.
We appreciate your past support in these unfairly costly battles and will keep you informed as this case plods on. For now, gun owners are still protected by the injunction in the state case. For now….