Category: OFF Alerts

07.01.15

As some of you noticed, this morning’s email about Yamhill County had the wrong date on it. Thank you to those who pointed that out, we have corrected it on the website.

Today the House Rules Committee adopted amendments to SB 315 and sent it to the House Floor for a vote.

315 started life as a bill that would allow gun stores and pawn shops to forward their registration records of used guns to the police electronically rather than by hand delivery or regular mail.

Since all used gun sales by dealers must be registered with the police and all “private” sales of guns will soon have to go through gun dealers, universal gun registration is about to become the law.

However, the bill was gut and stuffed by House Rep Brian Clem and it no longer has anything to do with electronic records.

Now the bill adds even more ambiguity to the registration bill, SB 941.

Clem demanded some “concessions” when he agreed to vote for the registration bill and the newly amended SB 315 is what he got.

We told you about this bill in the past. With the amendments adopted today, you will no longer face criminal charges if you lend a gun to another person (after having conducted a background check) and someone else commits a crime with it. That’s certainly an improvement, but the bill still creates more problems than it solves.

For example, while you will now be able to lend a gun to someone you “know” for seven days, (you still need to do a background check, you just don’t have to do it at a gun store) there is nothing in the bill that discusses what happens if the gun is not returned in 7 days.

There is nothing in the law that  discusses whether returning the gun requires another background check. In short, this bill simply adds confusion to the mess created by SB 941.

The bill passed out of committee on a straight party line vote with all Democrats voting yes and all Republicans voting no.

07.01.15

Tomorrow the backlash against SB 941 continues.

SB 941 enacts near universal firearms registration, ends private property transfers, and puts all gun owners at risk of arrest for activities they have engaged in honorably for generations.

 But while the Democrat majority in the legislature clearly has no interest in the will of the people, more and more counties are stepping up and saying “no”.

 Tomorrow the Yamhill County Commissioners will be joining Lane and Linn Counties and voting on a resolution stating they will not enforce SB 941, the Prozanski/Hoyle universal gun registration law.

 Please consider standing up to the Bloomberg crowd and coming to the Yamhill County Courthouse tomorrow at 10 am to show your support for Yamhill’s Resolution in support of Second Amendment liberties.

 The Courthouse is located at 5th and Evans in McMinnville. Your presence in support of the Commissioners would be appreciated.

If you can’t be there in person, please drop a note of support to the commissioners.

Yamhill County Commissioners

06.18.15

With the recall campaign against Floyd Prozanski in full swing and gun owners from across the state (and country) joining the battle with donations and offers to volunteer, Floyd and his alter ego in the House, Val Hoyle, took another hit yesterday.

Yesterday Linn County joined Lane County and the City of Canby to tell the gun grabbers they are on their own.

Linn County Commissioners passed Resolution 2015-218 which states they will not expend any county resources to implement SB 941, the supremely flawed gun owner registration bill.

With every passing day it is becoming more apparent what a colossal  and unenforceable mess 941 is. Now Floyd and his cronies are trying to figure out if they have just outlawed common construction tools with this mindless measure.

 

Meanwhile more and more people are recognizing that Prozanksi and Hoyle rammed through a measure even lawyers don’t understand, just to pay back New York billionaire, Mike Bloomberg.

We are grateful to the Linn County Commissioners, especially John Lindsey, for taking this step and proving once again what liars Hoyle and Prozanski are. The deception that “86%” of Oregonians supported this nonsense is revealed more each day.

And it’s not only gun owners who are seeing how dangerous and duplicitous people like Prozanski and Hoyle are.

Former Senate Candidate Monica Wehby, who has formed a PAC to promote conservative causes, has called for Hoyle’s resignation even as a recall campaign against Hoyle continues.

In Salem Prozanski has sent the CHL reciprocity bill (HB 3093) back to committee after it was exposed that the amendments he added to it rendered it meaningless, which of course, is what the point was in the first place.

Remember, before Prozanski ruined this bill, it had near unanimous support in the House. Once again it looks like Oregon will remain the only “shall issue” state that will not recognize a single other state’s CHL.

Representative Brian Clem’s “fixes” to SB 941 were also yanked off the floor and sent back to committee after it was revealed that his “improvement” to 941 put even more gun owners in danger of going to jail because they followed the law. This is what happens when you make “deals” with people like House Speaker Tina Kotek and Floyd Prozanski.

Even HB 2357, which was only supposed to be a simple clarification of where retired and off duty police could be armed was so butchered by Prozanski that it too, went back to committee.

There are no actions scheduled on any of these bills and it is looking increasing unlikely that there will be any.

While that is more bad news for gun owners, the good news is even after the passage of 941 we continue to see the facade cracking.  We look forward to more counties and cities following the lead of Lane and Linn Counties and the City of Canby.

06.11.15

Today both the Oregon Senate and House took action on gun bills by not taking action.

HB 3093 was scheduled to be heard on the Senate floor but the clock ran out and now this bill is scheduled for Monday. And Monday should be interesting.  HB 3093 is a “reciprocity” bill that lots of people have been working on for a long time. Its purpose was to allow Oregon to recognize other states’ concealed handgun licenses.

Currently we recognize… none. Virtually no other “shall issue” state has such a restrictive and mindless policy.

HB 3093 was supposed to change that and many legislators have worked tirelessly to get that done. But of course, there is always… Floyd Prozanski.

He rammed amendments into the bill that now appear to make it pointless.

Legislative Counsel, the lawyers for the legislature, have reviewed the bill as amended by Prozanski and determined that based on FloPro’s amendments the number of states Oregon will likely recognize for reciprocity is probably…zero.

There is little reason to doubt this was Prozanski’s intention from the beginning.  The Republicans who worked so hard for so long to make this bill happen may well take their names off the bill. It is clearly a charade.

SB 315, which was used as a vehicle for House Rep Brian Clem to insert even worse language into the universal registration bill, was scheduled to be heard on the House Floor today. This bill was one of the worst pieces of legislation we have ever seen, and we have seen some garbage.

Clem made a “deal” with the House Speaker, anti-gun crazy Tina Kotek, to insert some changes into the universal gun owner registration bill(SB 941)  in exchange for selling his vote in support of this awful legislation. But as so often is the case, he got hosed by Kotek and the final bill actually made SB 941 far worse.

In Clem’s bill you can now go to jail because you DID the background check. Really, we are not making this up.

Today, it appears the unthinkable happened. It appears Clem actually READ his bill. (Yes we know this is unprecedented.) After reading his own bill Clem made a motion on the floor to send the bill to the House Rules Committee to ” fix” it.  Good luck Brian. Your bill is atrocious, the bill you were trying to “fix” is atrocious and you have nothing left to bargain with.

Advantage … Tina Kotek.

06.09.15

Today the House passed SB 525, a misguided bill promoted by anti-gun groups with a mountain of lies.

The bill was sold as a way to stop domestic violence, but the promoters were all reading from the same playbook and the playbook was a fraud.

As we told you in our alert on 6.4.15, the cabal of anti-gunners who were pushing this, claimed (falsely) that this was needed because Oregon police cannot enforce Federal law prohibiting persons with domestic violence misdemeanors from possessing guns. This is, of course, a lie. The legislature’s own lawyers told them so.

As in the committee debates, the same false examples were used to push the bill.  The narrative was that in a home with a domestic abuser, restricted by a restraining order, the mere presence of gun would lead to mayhem and violence. The problem is, those people are already not allowed to be in the home! How would this bill change that?

Losing your gun rights as a result of a mere accusation of domestic abuse is frighteningly easy. You don’t have to be convicted of a crime to lose your rights. A judge can deny your rights on a whim.  Now imagine being in a place like Josephine County with virtually no law enforcement.  One of the very few police in the county  has to leave patrol to confiscate your firearms based on an allegation with no proof of a crime being committed. Their precious time is wasted and you are deprived of the only means of protecting yourself even when you have not been accused of a crime and your county has almost no law enforcement.

The bill passed today with 100% support of the House Democrats, which is, sadly, no surprise. Rep Ann Lininger made much of the NRA’s neutrality on the bill.

Unfortunately, cowed by the fear of being labeled “wife beaters,” most House Republicans voted “yes” as well. The House Republicans who had the courage to say “no” and stand up for common sense were : Greg Barreto, Sal Esquivel, John Huffman, Mike Nearman, Bill Post, Jim Weidner, Gail Whitsett and  Carl Wilson. They deserve your thanks. Special thanks to Bill Post and Carl Wilson who made a compelling case against the bill on the floor today.

Others who we believed might stand up folded.

Rep Duane Stark rose and spoke in opposition to the bill until he was told by Rep Carla Piluso that gun confiscation would not be “mandatory.”  The problem is, Piluso has not spoken one true word about this bill since she started campaigning for it. For reasons we cannot understand, Stark accepted her nonsense as fact and voted “yes.”

Sherrie Sprenger voted against this bill in committee. We praised her for her courage. But under pressure from the anti-gun lobby, Sprenger folded too. Far too many people care more about image and PR than about justice.

 

Remember the brave ones at election time.

06.04.15

Before we get into the news from Salem, we wanted you to know that the City Of Canby passed a resolution opposing wasting any money on the enforcement of the Prozanski/Hoyle universal gun owner registration bill.

Resolution 1217 was passed last night on 4-1-1 vote. Councilman Greg Parker abstained and Councilwoman Tracie Heidt voted against the resolution.  Parker had nothing to say, but Heidt (who drove a car with a “Shame On The NRA” bumpersticker until she started campaigning) insisted that background checks were a great tool to stop criminals.  This was after she was provided with the OSP stats proving that background checks are a joke. This is no surprise. There is simply no point in reasoning with these people. (Heidt’s profile talks about the value of “inclusive community”. Apparently gun owners are not included.)

There was the expected, shrill commentary by a handful of nanny-staters who suggested that Canby would now become the center of the illegal gun trade in Oregon, but fortunately most people who spoke were rational.

Thanks to everyone who came and made their voices heard, especially our friends at Canby Rod and Gun Club and Oregon Hunter’s Association.

Given the passage of Lane County’s resolution against the enforcement of SB 941, it’s clear this battle is far from over. Please keep working locally to return Oregon’s gun laws to a semblance of sanity, because it sure is not going to happen in Salem.

So then, on to Salem.

The House Judiciary Committee has passed SB 525 to the House Floor. This bill has passed in the Senate.

The proponents of the legislation had two talking points. One, which was repeated word for word in most of their written testimony, was “It is well documented firearms and domestic violence are a dangerous combination.”  That phrase is repeated parrot like in almost all submitted testimony. But the other talking point repeated endlessly was that the bill was needed because Oregon police cannot enforce the federal ban on firearms possession by persons with domestic violence misdemeanor convictions.

For a full page of testimony making this assertion see this link.

The people who make this claim include district attorneys, city council members, feminist groups, Senator Laurie Anderson, Representative (and former cop) Carla Piluso, and our top lawyer, Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum. The entire reason for this legislation was based on that claim. And that claim, as we have been saying for months, is a lie. The chairs of the committees that passed this bill know it’s a lie. But in the usual deference they show to the anti-rights groups, they simply sat there and allowed themselves to be lied to by the  people who funnel money into Democrat coffers.  The shamelessness knows no limits. But now their own lawyers are telling them it’s a lie. Rest assured it won’t matter.

Yesterday, the bill too perfect to be amended, SB 941, the universal gun owner registration bill, was…amended. Remember the Democrats refused to consider a single Republican amendment?  Although already signed into law by Kate Brown, the House Judiciary Committee Democrats voted to use SB 315 as a vehicle to change some of the language in SB 941. Not a single Republican on the committee voted yes. And that’s good.
The changes that were made make a very bad bill even worse. These changes were made so House Rep Brian Clem could say he got some “pro-gun” concessions. Clem is slated to carry this garbage on the House Floor when it comes up for a vote.

Under the changes made and approved by the Democrats, you will now be subject to arrest if you transfer a firearm with an approved background check and the transferred firearm is used in a crime! The crime does not even have to be committed by the person you transferred the firearm to. It could have been stolen from that person.

But wait, you think that’s nuts? There’s more.  Under the changes made to SB 315, you can also be prosecuted if the firearm is transferred with the OSP’s approval  and the person who receives it is prohibited from owning a firearm under state and federal law.

It is the official, written policy of the OSP to approve transfers of firearms to certain felons. Felons who are PROHIBITED FROM OWNING FIREARMS! Let’s let that settle in.

You conduct a background check. The OSP gives its approval to transfer to a person they know is a prohibited person,  and you  go to jail.

This is the great bargain Brian Clem got in exchange for his selling his vote on SB 941.

But we’re not done yet. Today, the Senate Judiciary Committee passed another amendment to HB 3093, the CHL reciprocity bill. This bill was dragged back into committee after having been passed on June 1st. The Senate Judiciary Committee rescinded the amendments it had previously approved and replaced them with amendments that once again, amended the bill too perfect to be amended, SB 941.

Seems that a lobbyist for the homebuilders association became concerned that under 941, a background check would be required for the transfer of nail guns that use small caliber cartridges to drive fasteners into concrete and other surfaces too hard for other devices.  So the CHL reciprocity bill was changed to include an exemption for tools of that kind.

This brings up a few issues.  First, what other problems and unintended consequences will ooze up as this idiotic law is implemented?  Second, if, in fact, those kinds of tools are considered “firearms” under Oregon Statute and would be regulated under SB 941, why are they not regulated as “firearms” now?

 SB 941, the universal gun owner registration bill, just got worse. Yes, that’s hard to believe, but in a party line vote in the House Judiciary Committee, the Democrats, actually achieved that.

They used SB 315 as a vehicle to do this.  That bill, which dealt with record keeping on used guns for pawn shops and gun stores, was “gut and stuffed” with changes to SB 941.  The “dash 8” amendments inserted into SB 315 were the product of a “deal” struck by House Rep Brian Clem in exchange for voting in favor of the massive new registration scheme.

 

So what changes? First, you can now lend someone a gun for hunting or target practice and they can actually have the gun while on the way to and coming back from the range or hunt. The amendment actually says “during the time in which the transferee is preparing to engage in, is in engaged in or is in the process of completing activities related to hunting trapping or target shooting.”

While that sounds like an improvement, it does open the door for plenty of misunderstandings, confusion and bad judicial interpretations and is still far worse than even California law, which allows you to lend a firearm to a person for an entire hunting season.

But the really strange part is a new provision that says you may loan a firearm to someone you know for up to seven days without going to a dealer for a background check.  But don’t think that’s some kind of great deal. You would still need to do the background check, but under this change you could do it yourself over the phone. 

But wait, there is no explanation for the 7 day limit. There is no clarification of a process for returning the firearm. There is no mention of what happens if the gun is not returned “on time.”  And, the amendment says that if you conduct a background check, and if the person to whom you are loaning the firearm PASSES the background check, and that person uses  the gun in a crime, you face the same penalty as if you had not done the check at all!   You face the same penalty if the police approve the person and he turns out to be a prohibited person! We are not making this up.

These changes were made to provide cover for House Reps Clem and Paul Evans who pretend to be pro-gun but voted to attack your privacy and your Second Amendment rights.  They only serve to make this bill even more incompressible and put more people at risk.  The changes were the result of many back room deals and lots of deceit.  The bill with the “gut and stuff” amendments now goes to the House floor where it will no doubt be passed by the Democrat majority, most of whom will not have read it.

That, of course, is the bad news. The good news is that Lane County today passed a resolution saying it is “unable to expend any county resources for the implementation and enforcement of Senate Bill 941”

Thanks to the County Commissioners of Lane who voted for this 4-1 with the only “no” vote coming from Commissioner Sorenson.

Tomorrow night the City of Canby will be voting on a similar resolution. Please contact the City Council and urge support of Resolution 1217.

 

06.01.15

Today the Senate Judiciary Committee passed HB 3093 and HB 2357.

HB 3093 is a limited “reciprocity”bill sponsored by Bill Post. HB 2357 is a bill that gives retired police the same protections when carrying concealed that CHL holders have.

Both bills are limited in scope and were amended with pointless changes, but both are a step forward. To no one’s surprise, Ginny Burdick voted against HB 3093. She also insisted on, and got, amendments to HB 2357 that basically say, if a retired cop is a criminal he can’t carry a firearm. Ludicrous? Yes, but that’s how they roll in Salem. These bills now move to the Senate floor having both passed in the House.

The House Judiciary Committee heard and passed SB 525. This is a “domestic violence” bill that serves exactly no purpose. It has had the worst provisions removed but is one more bill promoted by lies. Supporter after supporter provided testimony with the exact same talking points and the lie that Oregon police may not enforce the  Federal law this bill copies. Even our top lawyer, Attorney General Rosenblum, repeated this nonsense. Her ignorance of the law is breathtaking and she would like to be our next Governor.

House Reps Bill Post and Sherrie Sprenger courageously voted no.

The House Committee also passed SB 173, a fairly nonsensical bill, but did amend it to remove the most offensive and unconstitutional language.

Current law says if you are in a public building you must allow a police officer to inspect a firearm you are carrying to determine if it is loaded.

This makes no sense. If you have a CHL, you may carry a loaded firearm. If you don’t have a CHL, you may not carry a firearm loaded or not, so what purpose does this serve?  The bill would have allowed you to show a CHL instead of handing over a loaded gun in a public place but would have made you a criminal if you did NOT show a CHL.  This was absurd. You become a criminal because you did not show ID even though you are not suspected of a crime?  The bill was amended to remove that provision, so now there is no criminal penalty for not showing a CHL.  The current law should simply be repealed, but this was a big improvement.

Tomorrow the House Judiciary Committee is scheduled to hold work sessions on two bills it held over from today.  SB 913, the ban on privately owned ivory and SB 315.  315 is another bill that should never have seen the light of day but now promises to get far worse.   The intent is to use the bill to further complicate the universal background check bill. The proposed amendments are bizarre.  There is no guarantee that either of these bills will actually move tomorrow, but we’ll be watching them.

Tomorrow, Lane County will be voting on a resolution to refuse to expend county funds to enforce SB 941, the universal gun owner registration bill. The anti-gun crazies are already mounting an effort to derail the resolution.  Please send the commissioners a note saying “Stand for liberty and support a resolution opposing SB 941.”  You can contact the commission here.

On Wednesday night, the Canby City Council will be voting on a similar measure. If you live in or near Canby, please come and make your voice heard in support. The Council meets in City Hall at 7.30 PM

05.26.15

Tomorrow, the Senate Judiciary Committee is scheduled to hold a “work session” on Rep Bill Post’s  HB 3093. Work sessions are where bills are amended and voted to the floor of the Senate (or House if coming out of a House Committee)

3093 is a simple and limited reciprocity bill that passed out of the House with only one “no” vote. (Anti-gun zealot Barbara Warner) But of course, no bill that could be even marginally considered “pro-gun” is going to get past Floyd Prozanski unscathed. An amendment has been introduced to this bill to further muddy the waters on the nightmare “background check” bill recently passed by the Democrats. (It should be noted that the anti-gun groups are already sending out alerts saying that “unqualified” out of staters will be able to carry guns in our schools. As with everything else they say, this is a lie. CHL’s only allow you to carry a firearm on school property in your own state, if your state permits it. But the girls have never let the truth get in the way of their propaganda.)

We believe the changes that are being stuffed into 3093 were requested by House Rep. Brian Clem.

Clem, who likes to promote himself as a friend to gun owners, sold his vote to the Speaker, and voted to impose the universal background check bill on gun owners.  But he insisted that he’d extracted some concessions for his sell out. The “dash 9” amendments appear to be the “great bargain” he struck.  So what did Clem get? Under this amendment, not only could you lend a firearm to a friend to go hunting, but he could also have it while going to and from hunting!  Wow.

Wait, there’s more.  Under this amendment you can now loan a firearm, to someone you know, for a whole 7 days!  Of course, you will still have to subject that person to a background check, but now, under this great compromise, you could invade their privacy and subject them to the failed background check system in the privacy of your own home by calling the State Police and registering your gun to your friend over the phone instead of dragging them to a gun store and paying whatever fee the dealer wanted to charge.

The police can, of course, still delay or deny with no justification, as they do now. This is nonsense and solves nothing.  HB 3093 should just be passed without more garbage being shoved down the throats of gun owners. If the Democrats want to repair some of the damage they did with SB 941 they should do it with real, meaningful changes and not this cynical dog and pony show designed to convince gun owners that sell outs like Clem are “not so bad.”

Please contact the Senate Judiciary Committee and tell them to pass HB 3093 as is, with no garbage attached. 

Dear Friends,

Next week we will be facing more gun legislation in Salem. There is no reason to tell you there is any positive news. But we’ll get to that in a minute.

First, while it’s clear that Bloomberg has managed to buy himself a legislature and the liars who are working to steal your rights and your property are making great advances, we’d be remiss if we allowed that to divert us from this important holiday.

Here at OFF, we want to say a word of profound thanks to everyone who has served our country and risked all in defense of liberty. There are no words to fully express our gratitude and pride in you.  We also want to say to everyone who has used their time in the military as cover for their shameless and vicious attacks on our rights, you will lose. You are a disgrace to the uniform you wore and the country you took an oath to defend. You know who you are.

To the brave men and women who served honorably, we owe you more than we can ever pay. You have been treated shabbily by your government. You deserve so much more. To those who have used their time in uniform for personal gain and the destruction of other people’s rights, you will know shame. Life is like that.

On to the latest in Salem.

Next Wednesday at 8am in the Senate Judiciary Committee, there is scheduled a work session on HB 3093. This is a very limited reciprocity bill that has been sponsored by House Rep Bill Post, who is turning out to be one of the boldest defenders of gun rights in the Oregon Legislature. Given that this bill will be before Floyd Prozanski and Ginny Burdick, it is a very safe bet that it will be used as a vehicle for anti-gun amendments. Prozanski and Burdick are mindless anti-gun zealots. The other Democrat on the Committee is Sara Gelser. She has become a fellow traveler and attacks gun rights every chance she gets. While anything can happen, the chance of this bill moving forward without being turned into something very bad is… very small.

On the same day, they will be holding a work session on HB 2357.  This incredibly simple and common sense bill simply addresses some issues in current law that prevent retired police from having all the protections  that CHL holders have and clarifies that off duty police are allowed to be armed. While you might think no one in their right mind would oppose this, Ginny Burdick has already complained that honorably retired police cannot be trusted. So that bill may have problems too.

On the same day at 3pm in the House Judiciary Committee, work sessions are scheduled for two bills. SB 315 and SB 913.

SB 315 seems to make a minor correction in current law. Right now, if a pawn shop or gun dealer takes a used gun into their inventory they are required to notify the local police and provide all the information on the firearm and the person they got it from. (Yes, it is gun registration.)  This law is obsolete and predates our current background check system.  The law serves no purpose and, in fact, many dealers and pawn shops don’t even know it exists and neither do most police departments. The change SB 315 makes is it allows the dealers to send this info to the police via email instead of being required to hand deliver it or send it by regular mail. Sounds good until you see it also offers access to this info to the Feds. More dangerous registration.

This law should be repealed instead of amended. Period.  In fact, we had good reason to believe the bill was dead. But as with all bad ideas in the 2015 legislature, it has been revived. This bill is a bad idea. But what Bloomberg wants, he most certainly will get.

Another really, really bad idea is SB 913, the”ivory ban” bill.  This bill is the brain child of Senator Mark Hass who also wants to ban transfers of firearms to family members! The bill is nothing more than state sanctioned theft of personal property and is an absolute outrage.  Passed by mostly Democrats in the Senate, we thought the House Committee would kill this and it appeared it had. But someone got their chain yanked and now the bill is headed for a vote. Keep in mind, votes are rarely held on bills in committee unless the fix is already in and the bill is guaranteed to pass. Clearly House Speaker Tina Kotek sent word to Committee Chair Jeff Barker, “pass this bill…or else.”  Prepare to have your property stolen by the state again.

On June 1, the House Judiciary Committee will, once again, hold a work session on  SB 173. This bill had made it to the House floor when  House Rep Andy Olson, who was scheduled to carry it, requested that it be returned to committee for more work.  Often that means the bill is dead as this one should be.  But it’s not.

While well intentioned, this is a very, very dangerous bill.  Current law allows a police officer to inspect a firearm if you are carrying it in a “public building” to determine if it’s loaded. But that law makes no sense at all.

If you have a CHL, you may carry loaded in a public building. If you don’t have a CHL you may not carry at all. So why should a cop ever be allowed to seize and handle your firearm? If you’re legal you should be left alone. If not you should not be there.

The obvious solution to this problem is to, once again, repeal the law. Instead, the bill says that you can show a cop your CHL rather than hand him your loaded firearm.  But this is crazy.  You have no obligation to talk to the police ever. Unless you have been pulled over for a traffic infraction you have no obligation to show ID.  But this bill would make you a criminal if you simply chose not to answer a question and show id when you  have done nothing illegal! Under this bill you can be arrested simply for exercising your rights.   

The House Judiciary Committee is made up of mostly lawyers and ex-cops.
If this bill moves forward in its current form we are in very serious trouble.

God bless the people who fought and died to keep us free. Be prepared to defy.

5.19.15 Today the Oregon Legislature passed two bills.  The Senate Rules Committee passed SB 525 to the full Senate floor and the House Judiciary passed SB 385 to the full House floor. SB 525 does for domestic violence victims what SB 385 does to protect Municipal and Justice Courts.  Absolutely nothing. Everything in both these bills is already in existing law. In both cases the proponents of the bills (often judges and other legal “professionals”) displayed such breathtaking ignorance of the law, or a simple willingness to lie, that it makes you hope you never have to go to court.  We are seeing a spate of pointless and redundant legislation that is nothing but a squandering of your money. In the House Judiciary Committee, only Rep. Bill Post, who is the most junior member and one of only two who was never a cop or a lawyer pointed out the flaws in SB 385.  The other members and staff who were lawyers, told him he was wrong. But he wasn’t. He got it right. The lawyers screwed up. Tomorrow, as we told you, House Judiciary is scheduled to hear another pointless waste of time. Mark Hass’s SB 913. We believe with enough input, this nonsensical bill can be killed. But you can never underestimate the willingness of some folks to spend other people’s money.

5.19.15 SB 913, Mark Hass’s idiotic ivory ban bill will be heard tomorrow in the House Judiciary Committee. This bill is so moronic it seeks to protect animals that are extinct.  The bill makes a few exceptions that really make no sense. For example, you could have a firearm with ivory components if the firearm was made before 1976 and contained less than 20% ivory by volume. The bill offers no insights into how you prove when the gun was made. That would be up to the police to decide.  When the bill’s sponsor, Mark Hass, was asked how one determined the “volume” of a firearm, he responded “By volume…”  Ok Mark, we got it now.  This bill would not save a single elephant or wooly mammoth. It would render valueless expensive and legally acquired firearms, knives and countless other items.  This amounts to nothing more that government sanctioned theft. Please tell the House Judiciary Committee to vote no on SB 913. Representative Jeff Barker  Chair (503) 986-1428 Rep.JeffBarker@state.or.us Representative Andy Olson  Vice-Chair (503) 986-1415 Rep.AndyOlson@state.or.us Representative Jennifer Williamson Vice-Chair (503) 986-1436 Rep.JenniferWilliamson@state.or.us Representative Brent Barton (503) 986-1440 Rep.BrentBarton@state.or.us Representative Mitch Greenlick (503) 986-1433 Rep.MitchGreenlick@state.or.us Representative Wayne Krieger (503) 986-1401 Rep.WayneKrieger@state.or.us Representative Ann Lininger (503) 986-1438 Rep.AnnLininger@state.or.us Representative Bill Post (503) 986-1425 Rep.BillPost@state.or.us Representative Sherrie Sprenger (503) 986-1417 Rep.SherrieSprenger@state.or.us

05.13.15

Today we were able to put the brakes on SB 315, a bill that requires gun dealers and pawnshops to share info with the Feds about used guns they have taken into their inventory. The original intention of this bill was to allow gun stores and pawn shops who acquire used firearms to report those acquisitions to local police via email rather than regular mail, as is now mandated. The existing law makes no sense. Police make no use of this info currently and police departments we have spoken to did not even know the law existed. Some pawn shops and gun dealers we spoke to also had no idea this was existing statute.  The statute is pointless and outdated and the better answer to amending this law is to simply repeal it. We have requested that this be done. The bill was not moved out of committee, but is by no means dead. Tomorrow, the Senate Judiciary Committee will be hearing 3 bills.  The one of interest to most gun owners is HB 3093. This is a very limited reciprocity bill and, as you might expect, already has the anti-gunners in a complete tizzy. They are trotting out the same tired, disproven and comical lies about blood running in the streets if people from other states are allowed to carry firearms here. The bill requires the exact same requirements of non residents to carry as we have here in Oregon. The anti-gunner’s arguments are, of course, hysterical nonsense. We believe this bill may be used as a vehicle to add provisions to the recently passed universal gun owner registration bill, SB 941. We’ll know tomorrow. There are MANY deals being proposed behind the scenes on gun legislation and we are not done yet by a long shot. We’ll keep you informed.

05.11.15 Today, unelected Democrat Governor Kate Brown, who replaced disgraced Democrat Governor John Kitzhaber, ignored the will of the people, the counties, and the sheriffs and signed into law SB 941, the universal gun owner registration bill. Today we also received an email from another sheriff who said he will not enforce it. As you know, the bill contains so many dangerous provisions, we cannot possibly list them all.  The parts of the bill outlawing the private transfer of guns, storing firearms for friends, neighbors or persons in need of safekeeping, along with the prohibition on providing firearms to persons who are in danger, take effect 90 days after today’s signing. If you store a firearm for a friend, or lend one to a neighbor without first taking the gun to a gun dealer and asking for police permission, you will be a criminal. Yes, this is a tremendous setback for gun owners. We cannot deny that. However, please do not think this is over. We urge you to defy this sinister attack on your rights. We urge you to refuse to comply. In the coming days we are going to ask for your most generous support in our fight to respond to this unconstitutional outrage. Please stay tuned.  My friends, this battle has only just begun. Don’t despair. Subvert.  As you know there are recalls underway for three of the people who helped pass this attack your rights. There will be more in the future.  Please do all you can to support these efforts. Val Hoyle Recall Chuck Riley/Susan McLain Recall

05.09.15

When SB 941, the universal gun registration bill, passed on Monday we told you to expect more gun legislation. Now we have it.

House Democrat Rep Brian Clem has introduced HB 3553. This bill is the result of the “concessions” he claims to have extracted from leadership to buy his “yes” vote on the worst gun bill ever passed in Oregon.  Clem told us that he agreed to vote to destroy your liberty, your privacy, and your rights in exchange for these important changes in the bill. (Clem had originally signaled that he would vote “no” on the bill.)

So Clem teamed up with Democrat House Rep Paul Evans and introduced this “compromise.” It is nothing short of comical.

(Keep in mind, Evans, who many were deluded into thinking was “pro-gun,” has called for universal gun registration and also blatantly lied about the registration portion of SB 941. )

So what did Clem get in exchange for selling out the gun owners of his district and the state? He got a pathetic joke of a bill that gives Oregonians a “tax credit” for the fees they will be forced to pay the state in order to register their firearms, enter their personal info in a state police database and further the goal of future confiscation.

Clem and Evans seem to think that Oregonians are so stupid that they will see this absurd insult as a “pro gun” bill. Sorry guys, your transparent effort to rehabilitate yourselves after bowing to the Bloomberg money isn’t fooling anyone.  If this is the best you can do after being slapped around by the Speaker, give it up.  We all know whose side you play for.