Category: OFF Alerts

Senate Bill 1551 was not amended or voted on today, although there are several amendments being offered. The bill is now scheduled for a “work session” again tomorrow morning at 8:30.

One amendment adds “aunt or uncle” and “first cousin” to the list of people you can give a firearm to without subjecting them to an invasive check of their personal history.

Mothers-in-law and fathers-in-law must still undergo this pointless, and often failed, exercise in futility.

Two other amendments require that the County Sheriff and, “if applicable,” the local chief of police, be notified if a person is denied a transfer.

One amendment applies this requirement to anyone who is denied a transfer (that is the “dash-2” amendment); the other applies it to certain law-breakers, but not others. (That is the “dash-4” amendment.)

For example, under the “dash-4” amendment, if a person had a felony conviction and tried to buy a gun, the local police would be notified. But if a person had “any outstanding felony warrants for arrest” or “Is free on any form of pretrial release for a felony,” the cops would not be called. Furthermore, the cops would not be called if the denied person “Has been convicted of a misdemeanor involving violence or found guilty except for insanity under ORS 161.295 of a misdemeanor involving violence within the previous four years.” Even though this disqualifies them from a firearms purchase.

Note: the amendment only says the police must be notified. It does not require them to take any action.

As Dave Barry would say, you can’t make this stuff up.

Under the “dash-2” amendment, if a person was denied a transfer because the State Police screwed up and and said “no” to a transfer because the buyer did not have an Oregon driver’s license (NOT REQUIRED FOR A LAWFUL TRANSFER AND YES, THIS HAPPENS), that person may or may not find themselves being visited by the police, even though this would be entirely a mistake on the part of the ID unit.

It’s important to note that under this bill, you would be required to maintain a “gun registration” list of any gun you transferred for five years even though the state police insist they are “destroying” the records of those transfers in ten days!

If you lose the very records the OSP says they destroy, you can go to prison!

We can think of no other instance where a private party is compelled to keep records (that are not allowed to be kept elsewhere) under the threat of a prison sentence. (And of course you have to pay to do this and you must use a credit card.)

There is also a “dash-9″ amendment that just showed up.  It says “Where appropriate, a person may enforce the legal duties imposed by ORS 166.412 (7)(a) or (b), by the provisions of ORS 30.260 to 30.300 and ORS chapter 183.”.

At this time we have no idea what they are talking about.

Two other bills received action today.

HB 4035 allows some corrections officers to keep guns in their cars when they go to work. The original bill made no sense. We were able to draft amendments that made the bill workable (although we think the number of corrections officers who will benefit is far too small) and the amendments were adopted.  We believe this bill will pass out of the House Judiciary Committee tomorrow.

HB 4068 was intended to allow persons who had been convicted of minor marijuana violations in other states to have the same access to CHLs that people who had similar convictions in Oregon have.  The bill was well-intentioned but fell way short of what it should have been.  For example, it ignored those who had very minor convictions before 1973 in Oregon but who still are locked out of getting CHLs.

With some frantic last minute amending OFF was able to work with several legislators and Legislative Counsel to fix the bill and our amendments were adopted. (We are truly grateful to have some expert legal help that raced to craft these amendments.)

We expect that bill to pass out of House Judiciary tomorrow as well.

Today we received this absurd piece from Senator Michael Dembrow.

Here Dembrow, who has advocated for warrantless searches of gun owners’ homes,and a ban on all modern firearms, claims that SB 1551, (Floyd Prozanski’s gun registration bill) “does not create a gun registry – it simply expands the current system…”

But of course, the current system is a gun registry. And this is expanding it. To suggest that collecting all the personal information of the giver and receiver of a firearm andthe make, model, caliber and serial number, is not a “gun registry” (of the type used over and over throughout modern history to confiscate guns) is ridiculous on its face. It is the very definition of “registry.”

Dembrow defends his deceitful assertion by saying : “State law prohibits the police from keeping transaction records for more than five years, and in most cases the record is destroyed after ten days of approval.”

Even if we believed that the State Police destroyed records in 5 years, it’s bizarre to suggest this is not a “registry.” But we have no reason to believe they actually dodestroy the records.

Now let’s consider his comment “in most cases the record is destroyed after ten days of approval.”

As our friend  Chris Cochran pointed out in a recent Facebook post, this makes exactly no sense. If records are destroyed in 10 days, then there is no way the state can say you failed to complete a background check.

Ten days after your “transfer,” the records magically “evaporate.” So how can the state ever accuse you of failing to conduct a check if they have destroyed any record that you did?

It cannot. That’s another reason this whole thing is a charade.

Let’s pretend the OSP actually do destroy these records. (In conversations OFF has had with the previous head of the ID Unit, he could not explain how or when records were destroyed.) How long do you think it will take before Senators Dembrow and Prozanski and Burdick and Bates and Roblan start calling for the closing of the “records destruction loophole?”  We give it one session after they pass this registration scheme.

But there’s more.  Dembrow also said “SB 1551 does not prevent a person from loaning a gun to a friend, and it does not prevent gun ranges from renting firearms to customers.”

Let’s look at what Dembrow’s own lawyers “Legislative Counsel” said about “loaning guns to a friend.” What follows is their opinion:

“In the scenario of a person loaning a firearm to a nonrelative for an indeterminate length of time, we think that a court would likely view this as a gift. As noted above, the Oregon Supreme Court has stated that a gift is made when the donor gives the donor’s property to another person without any compensation in return. Therefore, for example, when a man gives his firearm to his girlfriend to use for protection without any compensation in return or any sort of expectation of a return date, a court would most likely see the transfer as a gift that would require a criminal background check under an amended ORS 166.436.”

As for his assertion that the bill would not prevent gun ranges from renting firearms to customers, here is the definition of a “transfer” from the bill:

“Transfer” means the sale, gift or lease of a firearm.

The bill does not define “lease” so we will provide the definition.

“…a contract renting land, buildings, etc., to another; a contract or instrument conveying property to another for a specified period or for a period determinable at the will of either lessor or lessee in consideration of rent or other compensation.”

Now exactly how Dembrow concludes that renting a firearm does not fall under that definition is anyone’s guess. Oh, by the way, Dembrow lists his occupation as “English instructor.”  You may want to ask for your money back if your child goes to PCC.

The truth is, this bill is nothing but another step in the march towards the elimination of your rights.

Dembow’s lies are quite in keeping with his fellow traveler Floyd Prozanski, who insisted he knew nothing about how Ceasefire Oregon got advance notice of the hearing on SB 1551, in spite of the fact that only Prozanski and his staff had that information.

These people’s agenda is clear. They will tell any lie and stack any deck to move forward their goal of a completely disarmed population.

Don’t let them.

If you want to share your feelings with Dembrow you can email him here:senatordembrow@gmail.com or here:

Sen.MichaelDembrow@state.or.us, or call him at (503) 986-1723.