Category: OFF Alerts

12.04.2024

There is still time to take advantage of Oregon’s Political Tax Credit.

Donations to our Political Action Committee may qualify for a credit on your Oregon taxes of up to $100.00. Please see this link for details or consult your tax advisor.

Because of the generosity of people like you, OFFPAC has been able to assist good candidates even when facing disgraceful attacks by people on their own “team.”

With the balance of power now solidly in the hands of the far left anti-gunners, and so few Republicans willing to stand up to their attacks, our ability to support the few good candidates is critical.

But we must receive your contribution by Dec 31st for you to take advantage of the credit for 2024. Postmarks don’t count and when you mail it does not count.  We have to have received it before the end of 2024.

We strongly encourage online donations to avoid any problems with mail delivery.

Remember, this is a credit, not a deduction, which means if you owe the state of Oregon money you can actually reduce the amount that goes to Kotek and the rest of the cabal that is working overtime to eliminate your rights, so your donation could cost you nothing.

Please use this link to donate to OFFPAC and be sure to pick “Political Action Committee” from the “Donation Category” drop down menu.

Thank you.

Out With The Old.

In With… The Old.

 

 

 

11.19.2024

The Oregon House Republicans have picked a new leader for the 2025 session.

And the winner is… Christine Drazan.

Just days ago, outgoing Republican Leader Jeff Helfrich said in a letter to colleagues :

“I thought of our caucus as a team and I was its captain. Instead, I found myself playing a solo in the band and my own teammates heckling me along the way.”

“What I was not prepared for, however, was the endless drama within the caucus. I went into the job expecting tough fights with Democratic leadership. Instead, the toughest fights were with the caucus and party.”

“If we want to win, we need to be united…”

Well Jeff had no reason to worry. In a press release dated Nov. 18, Drazan said:

“Our Caucus is united in our resolve to push for policies that put people before politics ahead of politics…”

Just like that, problem solved.

You will recall that under Drazan’s last reign of failure the Oregon House Republicans gave away the store to the Democrats, exiled their most committed and ethical member, (Mike Nearman) and humiliated themselves with a “deal” Drazan made with then speaker Kotek.  Kotek, of course, pulled the football away and screwed the Republicans. (In all fairness, the “deal” was a joke anyway and was essentially meaningless.)

Not satisfied with with those disasters, Drazan then called for a vote to censure Kotek. A move that had a 0% chance of success and a 100% chance of retribution. (Which would explain the comical and pathetic scene of Republican House Reps running for the door to avoid that vote.)

Drazan left her position to run for Governor.  She was replaced by Vikki Iverson who, while every bit as bad as Drazan, at least has found a way to make a pile of money off of other Republican candidates win or lose.  (Her husband was also half of the clown show called “Oregon Gun Rights.”  But that’s another grotesque story.)

After her defeat in the Governor’s race, Drazan told the Clackamas County Republican Chair that she was taking a break from politics. Before their coffee was cold she announced her bid to unseat James Hieb, the Republican who replaced her in the House.

In the spirit of protecting Republican incumbents, the House Republican Caucus immediately turned their attention to screwing over James Hieb…their incumbent.  Drazan was back.

Meanwhile, Jeff Helfrich had become the new leader. But there was never any question about him holding onto that job once it was clear that Christine was once again, in the game.*

Drazan has an almost perfect record of capitulating to Democrat demands and voting for their bills no matter how bad they are.

“I’m looking forward to fighting alongside them every day for a future that puts the people of Oregon ahead of political partisanship.” Drazan said of her colleagues in the press release.

“I am excited to support Christine as she leads our caucus and becomes the voice for common-sense Oregonians state wide.”  Helfrich replied, as he handed over the helm of the Titanic.  One big happy dysfunctional family again. 

This move makes the House Republican’s unconditional surrender official. At least now it’s on the record.

This means that once again we can expect no help from Republicans when the torrent of anti-gun bills start rolling in.

The Republicans will make a lot of meaningless noises, send out an endless stream of fundraising emails promising to fight back if they just have enough money,  the Democrats will reword one paragraph and the Republicans will declare victory.

There are only two things that are certain in Oregon in 2025.  Taxes and Republican surrender.

That means it’s up to us.  So buckle up folks, it’s going to be an eventful year.

* Drazan’s hilarious and deceitful protests aside.

“Drazan said she isn’t yet thinking about returning to caucus leadership or a future run for higher office. “I promise that I will talk about that when I’m ready to talk about it,” she said in an interview.”

 

The Dust Never Settles

11.08.2024

Your contributions to the Oregon Firearms Political Action Committee are more important than ever.

As you know, donations to our PAC may qualify for a tax credit meaning your gift to OFFPAC could cost you nothing. For details on PAC donations and credits please see this link or consult your tax advisor. Secure online donations can be made here: https://oregonfirearms.ejoinme.org/MyPages/DonationPage/tabid/70447/Default.aspx

WHY IT MATTERS.

We have avoided the unthinkable.  The ascension of a low IQ quota hire to the White House could well have meant the end of the Republic. But even before all the results of this year’s election are in and counted the left has begun its expected drumbeat of hate and violence.

So there is still much to be done and while we can savor the 2nd Amendment victories in national elections let’s be cautious.

There is no question that a Harris victory would have been catastrophic, but Trump does have a history of making uninformed and bad decisions about guns. The recently defeated “bump stock” ban being the most prominent one.

Trump has taken some bad advice in the past, and his reliance on the NRA in that decision was just one example. The floundering NRA regularly endorses anti-gun candidates and its approval of bumpstock bans and “red flag” gun confiscations were typical of the kind of mixed messages that bedevil the gun rights community.  The federal judge who ruled that a state wide ban on gun purchases and a prohibition on virtually all firearm’s magazines was constitutional was a Trump appointee.

But it’s important to note that Trump does seem to be surrounding himself with a better class of people than in his first term and if he is wise he will take advantage of the work the Heritage Foundation has done in the last 4 years to find and vet high integrity candidates for positions in his administration.

The left has already proclaimed its determination to do all it can to undermine him and the recent actions of federal law enforcement agencies have demonstrated what he will be up against taking on the deep state.

But OFFPAC deals with Oregon races and issues, so why is your support so important?

Once again, we have seen that the biggest threat to committed, constitutional, Republican candidates is…the Oregon Republican Establishment.

And while we are pleased to be able to say that the very few candidates we could ethically support have won, it was in spite of the disgraceful efforts of the cabal of insider Republican grifters who worked overtime with the money from unsuspecting Republican donors to torpedo any candidate that stood up for your rights.

Not only did they do their best to crush good Republicans, one Republican “leader” actually worked to elect an extreme anti-gun Democrat.   Even after this duplicitous backstabbing the Republican Establishment protected House Rep Kim Wallan.

Let’s not forget that Wallan voted against an anti-gun bill because she didn’t think it punished gun owners enough!

The Cartel Republicans also joined together to throw pro-gun, Marine Corp Vet, James Hieb to the sharks to pave the way for the return of Christine Drazan. Drazan’s tenure as House Republican Leader was a carnival of capitulation to the far left.  Not only did the caucus abandon one of their most committed members, but the Clackamas County Party, which knows better than most what a disaster Drazan is and will be, refused to endorse Hieb’s candidacy sealing his fate to the lobby funded sell-out Drazan.*
*UPDATE. It should be noted that while the party voted against supporting Hieb, there were many patriots in the Clackamas Party that recognized the lunacy of supporting Drazan. In the end they were narrowly outvoted by the Cartel, many of whom rarely showed up to party meetings but were there to stick it to one of the most committed legislators in Oregon’s House.

The list of reprehensible dirty tricks by the “take the money and run” wing of the Oregon Republican establishment is too long to list. This was one of their most brazen and deceitful.

But while the results of this election in Oregon prove that no policy is too big a failure for the blue counties to embrace and repeat, the election of a handful of candidates is something to cheer about. 

Dwayne Yunker, (House 3), Noah Robinson (Senate 2) and Diane Linthicum (Senate 28) won handily even though the Republican establishment did everything it could to torpedo them.  We are pleased to have endorsed and supported them.  Alex Skarlatos won the House seat that was vacated when Christine Goodwin attempted to move to the Senate. Her loss to Noah Robinson and her replacement by Skarlatos was a double victory for anyone cheering for candidates of integrity.

Their victories tell a story you won’t hear from the regime media and you won’t hear it from the establishment Republicans.  The fact is, these people, and others in more local races, won because of the financial support of people like you and the tireless courageous work of the Josephine County Republican Party which refused to go along with the losing game and stood up for these candidates. 

In spite of the underhanded tactics of the frauds who brought vicious and deceitful attacks and created fake “pro-gun” organizations, the Josephine County Party stood strong, worked like crazy and elected people who actually stand for something. They should be considered a role model for county parties state wide. Rest assured the people they helped elect will be targets of the establishment and will need all the support we can give them. Skarlatos particularly, being new to Salem, will be under tremendous pressure to go along with the old failed guard. We cannot allow it.

The donations you give to OFFPAC go directly to solid candidates. They are not filtered through the caucus PACS who then distribute your money to candidates who agree to “play the game.”

That’s why your support is so important. You simply cannot rely on “insiders” to choose where your hard earned donations go. Back stabbers like Kim Wallan and gun control supporters like Kevin Mannix should not be getting the money you thought was going to pro-gun candidates.

The results of this election mean most of the same compromising Republicans and Marxist Democrats are returning to sell out your rights.  We must be able to support the few good candidates who are willing to fight the odds on your behalf.  Good principled candidates and legislators are facing attacks from both sides. Your support has been critical to show the honest few that they are valued.

Please consider a donation to OFFPAC and thank you for all you have done for freedom.

Secure online donations can be made here. https://oregonfirearms.ejoinme.org/MyPages/DonationPage/tabid/70447/Default.aspx

A mailing address is included if you prefer to donate by check or money order.

10.30.2024

Mz 114 Appeals Court ReCap

 

If you missed yesterday’s Appeals Court hearing on Measure 114, you can watch it here:

https://oregoncourts.mediasite.com/mediasite/Channel/default/watch/0c96fdeaf26c44c9aaa42e84a0f83dbc1d

The court did not make a decision on the constitutionality of the measure and none was expected. This will probably take several months.  Meanwhile, the regime media continues to act as the propaganda arm of the state in its reporting about this clearly dangerous and unconstitutional measure.

Tony Aiello, the lawyer who argued on behalf of gun owners, once again, did a spectacular job.

Tony has demonstrated an outstanding grasp of the issue and is amazingly well prepared and articulate in his defense of our rights. We all owe him a debt of gratitude for a job well done.

As usual the state based its arguments on a passionate and determined refusal to read the very simple language of the Second Amendment and Oregon’s Article 1 Section 27.

As with state lawyers across the country, Oregon’s lawyer argued that nothing is protected unless it is “commonly used in self defense.”  Now keep in mind, they are not arguing that something can be used in self defense, they are arguing that if it’s not frequently used in self defense it’s not protected.

(And now, after decades of pretending that gun rights are only about hunting, the left is saying that hunting rifles are not protected!)

Of course, a child could read both the US Constitution and the Oregon Constitution and see that neither limits firearms to just self defense.  The Second Amendment refers to “militias” and the Oregon Constitution refers to defense of self and the state. It’s troubling that so many law school graduates struggle with reading comprehension.

The state takes the position that most self defense shootings involve fewer than 3 rounds and therefore there can be no defense of magazines that hold more than ten. (Of course, why not ban magazines that hold 3 or more?)

They argue that firearms do not require standard capacity magazines to function and limiting firearms to reduced capacity magazines violates no one’s rights. (As any gun owner knows, you can fire most guns with no magazine, so we should anticipate the next move on the state’s part will be to ban all magazines, which Mz 114 almost does already.)

They also argue that magazines have been used in the commission of crimes, therefore the state has an interest in banning them. The Supreme Court has already made it clear that this argument (no matter how absurd it is) cannot be used to justify an attack on constitutional rights.

But across the country, government agents have simply thumbed their noses at the Supreme Court and keep trotting it out.

One highlight of the hearing was when the state’s lawyer contended that magazines are not “arms” and therefore were not protected. One of the judges immediately responded that they were “components” of firearms, an observation few judges have made.  The state’s lawyer at first acknowledged that and then tried to walk it back. But it was an indication that the judges were paying attention and at least asking thoughtful questions.

As we have noted before, no matter what decision the court reaches, there is nothing to stop the Oregon legislature from simply enacting all these bans themselves. The legislature is free to enact clearly unconstitutional legislation and then simply say “sue us” and the whole circus begins again.

As you know, the Democrat candidate for Attorney General has stated in no uncertain terms that he intends to enact and defend as many attacks on gun rights as he can. The Republican candidate, Will Lathrop, has not taken a position on 114 in spite of numerous inquires from us and others.

UPDATE 11.01.2024. On the Bill Meyer show on KMED, Will Lathrop says he WILL defend MZ 114 and continue the state’s assault on your rights. In this interview Lathrop seems to believe the Oregon Court of Appeals has already ruled on this and found it constitutional!)

It’s safe to say that the battle for gun rights in an increasingly dangerous state will be going on for some time.  If you want to contribute to this battle you can make a donation directly to the lawyers fighting it. Please consider doing so.

Their contact info follows:
Tyler Smith & Associates PC
181 N Grant St Suite 212
Canby OR 97013
https://ruralbusinessattorneys.com/
www.givesendgo.com/StateCourt_StopMeasure114

Another Disgraceful Sell Out

10.24.2024

By now you should have received your ballots in the mail. If you live in Clackamas County, you may have the added convenience of having your ballot return envelope already sealed for you by the county clerk.

But wherever you are, you will have to face the grim reality that what’s left of your rights is in serious danger, and not just from Democrats.

Tobias Read is the Democrat running for Secretary of State. Read is a far left, extremist, gun banner as can be seen by his list of endorsements. It reads like a who’s who of Neo-Marxist, anti-2nd Amendment radicals.

Running against him is Dennis Linthicum.  Dennis has been one of the most stalwart defenders of gun rights and liberty in general.  As you probably know, Dennis gave up his right to seek re-election to his Senate seat when he refused to bow to the Democrats and walked out of the charade that is the Oregon Legislature. (His wife Diane is currently running for his Senate seat and is one of the very few candidates we can support.)

So it would seem like a no brainer that Republican legislators would be all in for Dennis.

Not so fast.

House Rep  Kim Wallan, Republican of Jackson County has now endorsed…Tobias Read.

Wallan, you may recall, chose to vote against Dacia Grayber’s anti gun bill because in Wallan’s view it did not punish gun owners enough.

To make matters worse, Wallan is the person who the Republican Party of Jackson County has given the power to pick candidates in that county. 

How can the county party, or the state party, continue to allow this kind of disgraceful behavior?  Is it because the Democrats control the money? Is it because the leaders of the elected Republican caucus are determined to torpedo any candidate with principles and are happy to spend your money to do it?

The Republican establishment in Oregon has, for all intents and purposes, ceded all control to the far left.

The Republican’s choice for Attorney General, Will Lathrop, refuses to say whether he will continue to spend your money to defend the clearly unconstitutional Mz 114 which 2nd Amendment advocates have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to defeat.

Lathrop’s website says “Oregon’s attorney general must enforce our laws justly and without a political lens” but he won’t say whether he will keep spending your money to take your gun rights away should he win.

Compromise, capitulation, and straight up sell outs have become the hallmark of Oregon Republicans. Our choice for President is clear, but until the “leadership” of the Republican Party starts to call out people like Wallan, who is openly and unapologetically helping the people who are stealing our rights, Oregon gun owners are in serious trouble.

 

UPDATE 10.25.2024

The following X post is from Reagan Knopp.  Knopp is the son of the former Senate Republican Leader Tim Knopp, who set up his most conservative colleagues with a walk out that cost them their futures. After they walked out  Tim Knopp gave the Democrats everything they wanted, making the walk out a useless exercise.  Reagan Knopp, you may recall created a fake “pro-gun” organization along with the husband of  Vikki Iverson who was the House Minority Leader who sold out everything to the Democrats during her disastrous and failed tenure.  The only purpose for this fake group was to promote the Iverson family’s lackeys.  The rot in the Republican Establishment is deep.

Measure 114 Update

Lawyers, Guns, and…Money

10.11.2024

While our federal case to overturn the clearly unconstitutional Measure 114 continues to plod slowly through the 9th Circuit (a court determined to eliminate 2nd Amendment rights) the state lawsuit is moving ahead.

As soon as an Oregon Judge in Harney County declared the measure to be a fundamental violation of the Constitution, the state filed an appeal.

The Oregon political regime is working overtime, with your money, to end the sale of firearms. That is what Measure 114 does and all the lies told by its supporters and the cartel media echo chamber will not change that.

The date for oral arguments is Oct 29th.  Currently the panel of judges listed to hear the appeal does not include Jim Egan, whose demented rant against gun owners morally disqualified him from ever hearing a firearms related case. (Or any case really.) But that is no reason to relax.

No rational person could conclude that a law that essentially ends the sale and possession of most modern firearms and magazines could be constitutional. However that is exactly what judge Karin Immergut decided in our Federal case, which is now being appealed. So the outcome of the state case will decide, at least for the foreseeable future, whether law abiding Oregonians will be able to purchase firearms and firearm magazines.  Needless to say, the outcome will have exactly zero effect on criminals.  But let’s face it, that was always the intent.

As we have pointed out in the past, we have no realistic expectations that the majority of Oregon’s elected Republicans will stand up for us in Salem. And the few who do can anticipate that they will be pilloried by the Republican establishment as “right wing extremists.”  So, like it or not, for now the battles continue to be in courtrooms where activism means nothing and all that matters is who can still pay lawyers.

The attorneys who are working on all of our cases ( two against Measure 114 and one against HB 2005) are dedicated and hard working. But just like the rest of us, they need to pay the bills.  So, while we refrain from sending a daily blitz of emails that all end in a request for donations, we have no choice but to count on you to provide the means to pay these folks. 

Contributions to our Educational Foundation go 100% to the legal battles. The Foundation pays no staff and no rent. So every single penny you contribute goes to these fights. 

We are dangerously close to a crucial event that will have a profound effect on our rights no matter how it goes.

Please consider making whatever donation you can afford so we can send a message to the state that we are not rolling over to their treachery.

You can make a secure online donation here: https://oregonfirearms.ejoinme.org/MyPages/DonationPage/tabid/70447/Default.aspx

That link includes information if you prefer to donate by mail.

We cannot let these people win.

Thank you.

This is a link to the Appeals Court Webcast.

This is a link to the Appeals Court Calendar

 

VOTE

09.27.2024
While it seems unlikely that anyone who reading this would miss a vote, the reality is many gun owners do not register to vote or return their ballots.

We get it, it’s easy to conclude that it doesn’t matter, that your vote doesn’t count.  In Oregon, where the Republican establishment regularly grovels to the ruling party and does its bidding, any thinking person might wonder what the point is. (Dennis Linthicum and a tiny handful of others being the exceptions.)

But it does matter.  What has gone on in the last few months, and what is, no doubt, still to come, has demonstrated beyond doubt that the forces of the left will do absolutely anything to stay in power. And we mean anything.

We do know this; no matter what happens, Kamela Harris will not be running the country next year. The forces that elevated her from a boat anchor on the Democrat ticket to the “queen of joy” and our “savior” will not allow an imbecile to be in charge. While Biden’s incoherent ramblings are mostly attributed to his age and cognitive decline, Harris is simply a low IQ quota hire.  Whoever was pulling Biden’s strings will be jerking Harris around like a marionette on amphetamines.  America simply will not survive four more years of this.

If the President of the United States is the product of DEI who cannot answer a softball question from a fawning sycophant like Oprah Winfrey, with anything more informative than “I was raised a middle class kid” there is little hope for the Republic.

That’s why it is absolutely imperative that you vote in this election. We know, Oregon’s “vote by mail” system is a breeding ground for fraud and failure. Any small sorting error at the Post Office could make your ballot disappear or be delivered to someone else.  Recent events have proven that Oregon’s system for registering voters by the DMV is the natural habitat for scams. And we don’t know the half of it.

But it’s those very sad realities that make it all the more important that your ballot be completed and returned in the safest possible way to your county elections clerk.  And please, do not wait till the last minute. We have not seen the last of the left’s shenanigans.  If it looks like the election is not going their way, there is no end to what kind of mysterious and unexpected “technical problems” could make your ballot and your vote evaporate.

So please get your vote in as soon as possible and make sure it’s counted.

As you know, we are in the midst of multiple lawsuits trying to protect what is left of our gun rights and doing the job elected Oregon Republicans won’t do.  Work is going on to prepare for the next step in our lawsuit against Oregon’s ban on personally made firearms, the state case against Measure 114 will be before Oregon’s Appeals Court next month, and our Federal lawsuit against 114 continues to wind its endless way through the Ninth Circuit, which will do all it can to delay a ruling in hopes of another Democrat administration to stack the Supreme Court against us.

Let’s face it, the dice are loaded against us in court. Across the country in firearm’s related cases judges are openly defying the rulings of the Supreme Court to reinterpret black letter law in an effort to squash gun rights. The judge in our Federal case against Mz 114 flipped the Supreme Court’s direction on its head by requiring our side to justify modern firearms when the Court had made it clear that it is the state’s job to justify its restrictions.

What was once “lawful purposes” is now “lawful purposes for self defense.” A limiter invented by lower courts to derail the Supreme Court’s clear directions.

“Dangerous and unusual” has become “dangerous or unusual.”  “In common use” is being contorted into “common use for self defense,” a word game that opens the door to ban virtually anything.

But these battles simply must be fought and they must be paid for.  We are very grateful for the generous support gun owners have provided to allow us to stay in the fight. 

We could not do it without you.  Please consider helping us continue to stand up for you against the anti-gun militants.

You can make a secure online donation here: https://oregonfirearms.ejoinme.org/MyPages/DonationPage/tabid/70447/Default.aspx.

That link includes a mailing address if you prefer to donate by check or money order.

And please, make sure your ballot is returned and counted.  If the forces behind Harris succeed you can bet our Supreme Court will be unrecognizable very soon.

 

Today You Became A Criminal

 

 

09.01.2024

Today, Oregon’s latest bipartisan gun ban takes effect.

Oregonians who have honorably followed in the footsteps of America’s most innovative firearms creators by crafting firearms or firearm parts themselves are officially criminals.

HB 2005 makes it a crime to make or be in possession of any modern firearm or certain firearm’s parts unless those have been serialized in accordance with federal rules.

The only exceptions are firearms made before 1968 if the manufacturer did not include a serial number.

Make no mistake, this latest effort to trash the Second Amendment was brought to you by both Republicans and Democrats and could have easily been stopped if the Oregon House Republicans had a spine instead of an obsessive need to capitulate to the ruling party.

The reporting on this new law by the regime media has been amazingly sloppy even by today’s standards of “journalism”. Let’s not even get into their absurd assumption that “unserialized guns are assembled at home and can be easily purchased online, but can’t be picked up in a metal detector.”

 Lauren Drake, from OPB, the state’s official propaganda arm, wrote:

“ The Oregon Department of Justice has issued a fact sheet to explain key parts of the new law and a list of federally licensed gun dealers in the state that can serialize firearms.”

Drake apparently did not bother to read the one page “fact sheet” (which included few facts) that she quoted.  The “fact sheet” does nothing of the sort. In “fact”  the sheet actually says:

“To comply, firearms, frames and receivers that do not have serial numbers can be taken to a federally licensed gun dealer (FFL) to be serialized. Visit your local gun shop and ask how you can get your items serialized. A list of FFLs in Oregon is available on the ATF website.2”

Drake, who knows better because we told her, does not see the absurdity in the Attorney General of Oregon advising gun owners to get a legal opinion from a gun store.

This idiotic advice from a rabidly anti-gun Attorney General is like advising someone searching for a 1972 Ferrari to Google “used car dealers.”  Currently we know of no FFL’s who both have the proper licenses and equipment to serialize guns and are willing put their names on a gun made by someone else.  If you know of any FFL’s that are willing to provide this service please let us know.

But if there are any it will probably no longer matter.  As of today, the simple possession of a personally manufactured firearm or frame or receiver is a crime. And while the gun grabbers at the AG’s office are misrepresenting the law they are pushing, we see no road for compliance.

“If you own a ghost gun as of September 1st, it’s required to have a serial number on it,” said Michael Kron, the special counsel for Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum’s office….

Kron said the Oregon ghost gun law does not actually ban people from assembling their own guns at home. They just need to be officially serialized after they’re made.

But wait a minute. Amie Wexler, Oregon chapter lead for Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America said:

  “When Governor Kotek signed the bill, it immediately made it illegal for people to transport or sell or transfer these type of unserialized weapons. But now it’s actually also illegal to own the parts in your own home without taking them to your local gun dealer and getting them serialized.”

If it’s illegal to own or make any firearm, frame, or receiver without a serial number then you are already a criminal when you attempt to have the item serialized, if you can even find someone to do it.  So the AG’s position that the “Oregon ghost gun law does not actually ban people from assembling their own guns at home” is clearly BS.

In response to an email from KGW, we explained this but as of now they have seen no reason to report it.

As you know, a Judge in Portland denied our request for an injunction against this latest unconstitutional ban. She, like so many other judges across the country, chose to misapply or ignore the rulings of the Supreme Court for 2nd Amendment cases.  The game these judges are playing from coast to coast is to either pretend that whatever is being banned is not an “arm” and therefor is not protected, or to claim that they are “not in common use for self defense.”   But while  pivotal  cases did refer to “self defense” at no time was the intention to limit the right to own an “arm” strictly for self defense. Something  the judge in our case pointedly chose to ignore.

This dishonest approach means virtually anything can be banned if our side cannot produce an extensive list of self defense uses of the item being banned.  So not only can any single firearm or component be banned in the absence of a long list of recorded self defense uses, any new innovation can be banned simply because it has not existed long enough to be in “common use.” 

In the case of personally made firearms, not only do they use this bogus policy to imply they have no legitimate use, but they also conflate the crappy data the ATF supplies concerning conventional firearms that had their serial numbers removed with actual personally made firearms.

Furthermore, to justify this attack on your rights and privacy they drag out this nonsense:

“According to the Federal Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms, “From 2016 through 2021, there were approximately 45,240 suspected privately made firearms reported to ATF as having been recovered by law enforcement from potential crime scenes, including 692 homicides or attempted homicides.”

“Suspected privately made firearms” from “potential crime scenes.”  Ok got it.

The left continues to claim that personally made firearms can be banned because they are used in crimes.  So anything anyone uses in a crime is fair game for banning. They claim they are “dangerous and unusual “ so they can be banned.  All firearms are dangerous and “unusual” is clearly in the eye of whomever is pushing the ban.

All of this idiocy could have been stopped if the Republicans we elected to protect our rights actually did that.  But in Oregon the few who stood up in the Senate were sold down their river by their “leader” and cannot run for their seats again.  The entire House Republican Caucus rolled over and refused to stop this when they could have at no cost to themselves. 

It is clear that there is very little chance that we are going to make changes in the legislature when the people on “our side” are more interested in sending out an endless stream of fundraising mail disguised as petitions and surveys than in actually doing anything.  That leaves us in expensive court battles where the Judges are virtually all anti-gun political appointees.  It’s the worst of all possible situations but it’s what we have.

OFF, along with other great pro-rights organizations like Firearms Policy Coalition  will continue to fight as long as we have your support. 

Please consider donating to these important battles.  You can make a secure online donation here: https://oregonfirearms.ejoinme.org/MyPages/DonationPage/tabid/70447/Default.aspx

Thank you.

BUILD A FIREARM, GO TO JAIL

 

08.20.2024

Today, Judge Adrienne Nelson, denied our request for a restraining order to delay the implementation of HB 2005, the bill banning the ownership of privately made firearms.

A brief review of her decision will display a determined effort to avoid both common sense and an understanding of plain English.  But it will also display the dangers of our side playing their game and accepting limitations the founders never imagined.

The Second Amendment is not complicated, does not prevent Americans from owning firearms appropriate for combat or ban any item that is misused by criminals.  But once again, both sides of Oregon’s legislative aisle have worked together to punish the people they were elected to serve.

HB 2005 will turn thousands of law abiding Oregonians into criminals and perpetuate the bigoted myth that innovative and talented people have criminal intent because they like to make things themselves. The incessant urge of Oregon lawmakers to subjugate the people is truly insatiable and Oregon’s judges’ blatant and arrogant disregard for the clear dictates of the Supreme Court is chilling.

It will come as no surprise that Judge Nelson was a Kate Brown appointee elevated to the Federal Court by the soon-to-be-removed Joe Biden.

So what does this mean for people who own personally manufactured firearms? It’s impossible to say.

While the politicians and their rubber stamp parrots in the media insist that this simply requires that you have a serial number added to a firearm or unfinished part you own, the reality is that it’s not that simple.  It is completely unclear how anyone would go about doing this.  The serial number cannot be affixed by the person who constructed the firearm. Only “a federally licensed firearm manufacturer, importer or dealer, or a gunsmith with a federal firearms license, in accordance with federal law”.

While the law is so poorly written that no one really knows how to comply with it, the bigger problem is that people who do choose to obey one more outrageous and unconstitutional attack on their rights, (like bumpstock bans and pistol brace bans) really have no way to comply.

Although the bill allows an authorized person to take these newly illegal items into their possession to apply a number, it’s still illegal for the owner to have it in the first place.  And if a person were to make one now, it would be illegal for them to create it even if they intended to have a number applied to it.

The criminal penalties take effect Sept 1. We do not have any information on who is willing to apply serial numbers to firearms they did not make. We do not have any opinions we trust on what people can do to avoid legal jeopardy.  We do know that all of this could have been avoided if the members of the Republican House Caucus under the failed “leadership” of Vikki Iverson had simply done their jobs and said “no.”

Next steps are being discussed. We will keep you posted.

THE REPUBLICANS RAN AND HID. WE WON’T.

08.05.2024

As soon as Oregon House Republicans helped pass HB 2005, the ban on possession of personally made firearms, they comically and theatrically appeared on the Capitol steps with a giant fake check claiming that they would be funding a lawsuit against the bill they just help pass.

 

As with most politician’s promises, this one was quickly forgotten.

So now countless Oregon gun owners who, perfectly legally, manufactured their own personal firearms, could face felony charges.

But while Oregon’s House Republicans may be committed to carrying water for the anti-gun Democrats, we’re happy to announce that Oregon Firearms Federation has joined with our friends at Firearms Policy Coalition to challenge this disgraceful attack in Federal Court.

For decades OFF as encouraged and relied upon grassroots gun owner activism to protect our rights in the legislature.  But as the House Republicans, and many in the Senate, have become nothing more than yes-men to the Democrats, we have had no choice but to move our fights from the legislature to the courtroom.  We wish it were not so, but for now, it’s the hand we have been dealt.

Oregon’s elected officials from both parties are determined to strip Oregonians of their Second Amendment Rights as sure as they are determined to encourage violent criminal behavior. We have no choice but to go around them.

We are no fans of Federal Courts in Oregon, but that is where the battle is.

You can view a copy of the complaint here.

Oregon’s House Republicans pulled a “bait and switch” and extorted money from their members with a false promise of funding a lawsuit against the bill they helped pass. Since then they have pretended it never happened and just don’t want to talk about it.

They have our address if they want to actually keep their word.  In the meantime, we’ll just have to rely on people who do keep their word. Our supporters.

If you would like to help us win this latest court battle, you can do so here.  Donations to the Oregon Firearms Educational Foundation, which pays for our lawsuits, are tax deductible.

We want to express our gratitude to the Firearms Policy Coalition for being a national leader in these fights.

Kamela Harris Is A Cackling Imbecile

 

07.31.2024

 

Simply put, Harris is a low IQ quota hire with no actual accomplishments, whose rise to mediocrity was based on who she was having sex with in California.

Her most memorable moments are convoluted, word salad, embarrassments that serve only as fodder for memes and parodies.  She is so without redeeming qualities that she was essentially laughed out of the presidential primary in the last race by her fellow Democrats. There are credible reports that until recently there were behind-the-scenes discussions on how to remove her from the ticket in 2024. In short, she is a talentless, Marxist, bobblehead who spews inanities and whose only qualifications for office are her race and genitals.

And she could very well be the next President of the United States.

Make no mistake, the same people who rigged the last election and have employed every conceivable machination (including murder) to prevent Trump from winning the next election have anointed this loser as their standard bearer and there are plenty of people in America who are eager to vote for her because she is a quota hire.

It’s a terrifying reality. The same person who was run out of the race for President because she is a buffoon (even by Democrat standards) has now become the chosen one to defeat Trump.

Having watched the surreal display of the heads of federal law enforcement agencies boldly lie to Congress, and refuse to even answer questions that they admitted they had the answers to, it’s undeniable that there will be no one in a position of authority to oversee the legitimacy of the next election.

It is simply not believable that the world’s “premier” protective agency “overlooked” a clearly visible location a killer could use to assassinate the former President and there just happened to be a nearby 20 year old, with virtually no social media history, who had a drone and a rifle and an opportunity to climb a roof unnoticed by police. What a coincidence.

That’s why, as insane as it may sound, this idiot could very well become the next President.

So it is absolutely essential that gun owners register to vote and vote.  Oregon’s vote by mail system was created and modified to allow the most possible corruption and manipulation. Our voter roles are a mess. The US Mail system cannot be relied on to deliver new ballots to voters or marked ballots back to election’s offices.

Every single one of us must recognize the critical importance of voting early and getting our ballots safely to the elections offices, and we must do all we can to encourage, cajole, and badger other gun owners and lovers of liberty to do the same.

The left is brilliant and ruthless at harvesting ballots, legitimate and not.  The Oregon Republican Party has shown no similar history of powerful get-out-the-vote efforts.

Let’s face it. Our rights are hanging on by a thread.  Oregon is one expensive court decision away from a complete ban on the sale of firearms and the outlawing of virtually all magazines and most shotguns.  And if this puppet becomes President even moving out of state will not be an option. Whoever has been pulling Biden’s strings will be making Harris dance like a marionette in the hands of a Portland tweaker.  Bank on it.  You can rest assured that her coronation was only agreed to by the people in charge because she can be controlled. And if you thought a senile Biden was bad… you ain’t seen nothing.

Please do not underestimate the power of the corrupt deep state to rig the next election. (If they haven’t figured out a way to kill Trump first.) We must make sure that every rational person who can vote is registered, fills out a ballot, and makes sure it is as safely as possible in the hands of the county elections office. 

Our Republic is already crippled by the corruption and weaponization of once trusted and revered agencies.  We cannot allow inaction to result in the installation of another big state puppet in the Oval Office.

The have tried everything they can dream up and they are not done yet. Please don’t let your guard down.

In other news, the battle against Measure 114 in the state case continues.  Attorney Tony Aiello continues to do a masterful job disassembling the state’s arguments. But the fight is in the hands of Oregon’s Court of Appeals and the state likes to protect the state.  Although by all indications the state is doing a sloppy job, the court seems to be willing to let them ignore protocol and miss deadlines.  So we are still very much in danger.

We have never preferred to have our battles in courtrooms where activism does not matter and all it comes down to is money. But that is the hand we have been dealt and as long as elected Republicans in Oregon continue to be more interested in collecting donations than they are in fighting for our rights, we are forced to continue to fund these battles.

Your support is essential to protecting what rights we have left. Please consider whatever contribution you can to help us fight these endless courtroom wars.  Donations to the Oregon Firearms Educational Foundation qualify for a tax deduction and are used to finance these efforts.

You can make a secure online donation here:  https://oregonfirearms.ejoinme.org/MyPages/DonationPage/tabid/70447/Default.aspx

Thank you.

 

HB 2005 Lawsuit

 

07.17.2024

In 2023, Oregon Republicans greased the skids to pass one more attack on your rights and property with HB 2005.

HB 2005 outlawed the possession of constitutionally protected, personally made firearms.

The law is, as you would expect, a convoluted mess that a careful reading will demonstrate, makes no sense.

After helping the Democrats pass the bill, the Oregon House Republicans, in a cynical and disgraceful display of bait and switch, posed on the Capitol steps with a giant fake check that they said was going to be used for a lawsuit against the bill they had just helped pass.

The money that check represented was collected from the PACs of the various House members.

As you know, the Republicans were lying.  There was never a lawsuit and as far as we know, none of the House Reps whose money was grifted from them ever got it back. But that’s their problem.

Our problem was the bill, and the Republican’s part in passing it and their con game about fighting it in court.

Well we have some good news. It appears there actually will be a lawsuit and not from the duplicitous Republicans.

Firearms Policy Coalition has announced their intention to fight this plainly unconstitutional law.

They are currently seeking Oregon residents who could be plaintiffs in the case. This could be the fight so many have been waiting for.

If you, or someone you know wants to be considered to be a plaintiff use the following link for more information.

https://forms.firearmspolicy.org/landing/2024-1012-or-hb-2005

 

 

Independence Day 2024

“But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.”

With those words, almost 250 years ago, the Founders of our country laid an unapologetic framework for liberty .

They are no less true today.

Year after year we have watched as our country has descended into tyranny and planned chaos while the agencies of the state have grown, usurped our freedoms and our property, lied to protect their power, and even killed people for political gain.

“Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed…”

Few of us would concede that we have “consented” to the endless attacks on our freedoms we have experienced on a state and national level. 

Most of us would agree that it is absurd that we are forced to spend vast sums of money to defend our God given rights against a government determined to control every aspect of our lives while doing all it can to render us helpless against the evildoers it protects. But that is where we find ourselves.

America is in crisis.  Even the most delusional deniers have had to admit that the President of our country is mentally unfit to serve.  The rest of us we have always known he is morally unfit as well.

But while these epic struggles will continue as long as men succumb to their own nature, and we push ahead with two critical lawsuits to defend what should never have been threatened, there is positive news.

There have been several significant and positive Supreme Court decisions.  The left, hell bent on destroying our traditions, our rights and our country, is reeling.  More voices are being raised against the outrages of the “elites” and the truth is breaking through as it never has before.

So on this, the greatest and most distinctly American holiday, we want to thank you for your tireless activism, your generous financial support, and all the good wishes and prayers you have sent our way for almost thirty years.

No matter what the near future holds we  share our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

Happy Independence Day.

06.14.2024

BUMP STOCK BAN OVERTURNED BY SCOTUS

It’s not often that we get to bring you good news, and lately it’s been extremely rare, but today we are pleased to report the third major pro-rights victory in two days. (We updated yesterday’s alert on the website to include the court victory against Biden’s efforts to entrap any gun owner who transferred a firearm.)

Today the US Supreme Court struck down the Trump “bump stock” ban, correctly noting, that politics and word games aside, “bump stocks” are not machine guns and do not make semi-auto firearms machine guns, no matter how hard ignorant or malicious people attempt to twist the English language.

Given that the dedicated public servants over at ATF have actually determined that a shoelace is a machine gun this is a tremendous victory for sanity, common sense, and the all too rare notion that words actually mean something.  Remember, the bump stock ban did not say bump stocks identified as machine guns. It said they were machine guns.

 

With the usual suspects dissenting and demonstrating a complete and embarrassing lack of understanding of simple mechanical principles (if you don’t know what a “woman” is you are going to struggle with concepts like “trigger groups”) the court correctly analyzed the definitions that are actually written into our laws and concluded that bump stocks do not meet the very clear definition of “machine gun” under US regulations.

“Bump stocks” were banned by Trump in a knee jerk reaction to a mass shooting in Las Vegas.  There may never have been a criminal event that was “investigated” more sloppily and with so little credibility. In the end, every single “conclusion” reached by the “investigators” was suspect. The much reported use of bump stocks in that horrible crime is likewise highly suspect.

The firearms community has long argued over the value of bump stocks and some have expressed the opinion that they are pointless gadgets that serve no useful purpose.  Some even felt that their prohibition was no big deal.  We disagree.  While the only real purpose they may serve is turning money into noise, if bureaucrats, even the President of the United States, can arbitrarily change the meaning of words, nothing is safe.  It is a short distance between saying sliding plastic parts are machine guns to saying AR-15’s are machine guns. In fact we have seen this very issue arise with the just overturned ban on stabilizing braces, the reinvention of what defines a “firearm” for the purpose of mandatory registration, and Biden’s demented attempt to say that any gun owner who wants to transfer a gun to another person is a “gun dealer.”

These victories are all the more rewarding given the vicious war on gun owners declared by Biden’s handlers and the rest of the far left apparatchiks in control of the government at this time. (Biden’s recent rambling speech at an anti-2nd Amendment group about keeping guns out of the wrong hands and “safe storage” while his crackhead son was being found guilty of gun crimes was surreal.)

While we have our own battles in Oregon with an anti-gun Democrat majority and a Republican minority that refuses to stand up and fight, a victory anywhere in the country is a victory for all gun owners. Your support and activism in these battles is the reason for every inch of ground we take back.  So take a moment to congratulate yourself. And thank you.

 

 

 

06.13.2024

And The Beat Goes On.

Today gun owners had another victory in the endless battle to protect their God given right to self defense.

The United States District Court for the Northern District of Texas ruled in Mock v Garland that the Biden ban on pistol braces “ …violated the Administrative Procedure Act …because it was arbitrary and capricious and was not a logical outgrowth of the Proposed Rule.”

This case has been bouncing around for a while and will certainly be appealed by the most tyrannical Department of Justice in US History.  Ironically, the defendant in this case, US Attorney General Merrick Garland, could well be convicted of breaking the law himself.

Never before has America had an Attorney General so committed to using his department as a partisan weapon to silence and intimidate his political opponents while protecting grifters in the administration.

While the pistol brace prohibition had been “on hold”, this is a positive and demonstrative step in the protection of gun owners.

As you know, the geniuses at the BATFE originally declared that pistol braces were unquestionably legal and unregulated. Or they were unregulated unless they touched your shoulder, or they could touch your shoulder but only for a second or so. Or something. Finally the BATFE, through an arcane, opaque, and indecipherable “rule” said that “no, they are not legal unless you register the firearm they were attached to as a short barrel rifle.”

This process involved contacting ATF and essentially telling  them that you wanted to “register” a regulated firearm that you already had and getting the required tax stamp after acquiring the firearm instead of before.  Some well versed folks opined that you were essentially contacting that most benign of all agencies and telling them that you were a felon and would they please send you a “get out of jail” card.  (The card would most certainly not be “free”.)

So unless there is a successful appeal by the most corrupt administration in the history of our great Republic, pistol braces are once again legal under Federal law. If you did register your pistol as an SBR, it appears you now have a strictly regulated firearm, although it is totally unclear what these guns will be considered going forward.

If you chose to ignore this clearly hate based stupidity you are now more permanently protected by this ruling. Of course, all of these victories are temporary but we’ll take what we can get and want to congratulate Firearms Policy Coalition and the plaintiffs in this case.

UPDATE: In other news, Biden’s attempt to force every law abiding gun owner to file to become and FFL has hit a snag.

Meanwhile, our battles against Measure 114 are moving forward at a glacial pace. We believe our Federal lawsuit will be several more years in the courts. The state case, which gun owners are winning at this point, is headed to the Oregon Appeals Court as we speak. There is simply no way to predict the outcome on that one, but it will happen sooner.  Victory there is simply essential.  If we lose there, gun rights in Oregon could basically end for the foreseeable future. 

Those legal bills keep coming in.  If you can help us with a donation to our Foundation your support will be greatly appreciated.

You can donate at this page (which includes mailing info if you prefer to donate by check).  Please use the drop down menu to indicate your donation is for the Oregon Firearms Educational Foundation.  Donations to the Foundation are tax deductible.

Thank you for your continued generosity.