It was an eventful week for gun rights, not only in Oregon, but nationally.
A bill to protect the privacy of concealed handgun license holders passed out of the House Judiciary Committee, although heavily watered down from its original language.
President Obama went to Mexico where he blamed their orgy of violence on the US and pledged to ratify a gun control treaty.
Obama, as expected, replayed the totally discredited lie that the murderous drug gangs in Mexico get “90%” of their guns from the United States.
While absurd, it plays well into the Obama administration’s efforts to impose draconian regulations on Americans. Obama did not mention that vast quantities of firearms made in the USA wind up in the hands of Mexican thugs when their police and military defect and join the drug gangs, bringing their US made weapons with them. It should be noted that Obama has also pledged Blackhawk helicopters to the Mexican government. It should not be long before we see those showing up in the hands of the drug cartels.
At the same time, the new head of the Department of “Homeland Security” issued a report stating that gun owners, pro-lifers, people who believed in secure borders and returning veterans, were prone to be dangerous “right wing extremists.”
The report coincided with a bill in the Oregon House to turn over thousands of private mental health records to the Obama administration with the express purpose of using them to prevent gun purchases.
The bill in question, HB 2853, said nothing about mental health records when it was written, but amendments were drafted (and more are coming) to “gut and stuff” the bill with extremely dangerous language to force Oregon into compliance with the NRA backed Brady expansion bill passed by the US Congress in 2007.
We have been able to delay action on this bill, but it is still scheduled to be heard, so it is essential that you contact the Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee with the simple message, “DO NOT HEAR HB 2853. Our private records should not be turned over to an administration that has pledged to eliminate gun rights.”
The bill to require Oregon to recognize other states’ concealed handgun licenses (which actually passed out of committee only to be withdrawn when committee Democrats objected) has been delayed numerous times and, although is now scheduled for a work session, may not survive. If it does, it’s safe to say it will be amended into something far from its original intention. This is extremely unfortunate, since even the sheriffs, who for years fought this concept, are now on board. Once again, committee Democrats are attempting, behind the scenes, to dilute this bill. We will not know what their intentions are until the proposed amendments are available, which may not be until the day the bill is voted on in committee.
On the Senate side, SB 603, a bill we requested to define the term “not readily accessible” for purposes of carrying a handgun in your car, was scheduled for Monday but now has been rescheduled for Thursday the 23d of April. Legislative schedules are changing on an hourly basis, so we cannot tell you with any certainty if this bill will be heard on that date or changed once again.
The Chairman of the committee slated to hear that bill, Senator Floyd Prozanski had led us to believe he would also hear SB 573. This was an incredibly simple bill that did nothing more than fix a previous legislative screw-up.
Currently Oregon law says that a person with a felony conviction can ask the court to have her rights restored to buy a firearm. So, someone who made a mistake, or violated one of the thousands and thousands of rules that can make you a felon, could go to a court, demonstrate that they had turned their life around, and ask for permission to have their rights restored.
Keep in mind, they could only “ask.” There is not a guarantee their request would be granted.
But here’s the problem. While that person could request permission to BUY a firearm, current Oregon law still forbids them from OWNING it. It’s clearly an error, But in spite of numerous e-mails, phone calls and personal meetings with Prozanski (at his request), we could never get him to understand that the law simply makes no sense.
Prozanski is an attorney and a prosecutor, but he continued to mix up this section of the law, with a completely different section of the law that is supposed to return gun rights after 15 years to a person with only one felony.
That section of the law also contains errors. In that section, a person with only one felony (which did not involve a homicide or a weapon) AUTOMATICALLY, gets their gun rights back after 15 years. But only to no longer face “felony in possession” charges. They can still be charged with “misdemeanor unlawful possession.”
Multiple attempts to address THAT mistake have gone nowhere with this legislature.
Frankly, we are baffled by Prozanski’s refusal to address what is clearly an error in the law.
The deadline for scheduling bills was today at 5 PM. Prozanski has chosen to ignore this simple but important bill.
While it is still possible for the bill to move ahead if extraordinary steps are taken, right now it’s almost certain that the bill is dead.
No matter what your position on gun ownership is, it is hard to explain why a legislator would prefer to protect a law that simply makes no sense.
Finally, a bill that would have allowed CHL holders to bypass background checks has been delayed and rescheduled, as have many. We cannot predict which bills will be heard or when. The fact that they appear on a schedule is no guarantee that they will be acted on. But, should any action take place, we will let you know.