OPB is basically PBR/Oregon.
For many on both sides, the passage of Measure 114 feels deeply personal and will change day-to-day life.
www.opb.org
For many on both sides, the newly approved rules by voters feel deeply personal and will change day-to-day life
Juniper Rook, 17, is too young to vote. But that didn’t keep her from constantly refreshing the vote totals for Measure 114, which she campaigned for in the hopes that it would keep her and her classmates safe. When the lead of the Yes on Measure 114 campaign in Bend texted her to say it passed, she cried.
“It’s just so surreal to know that Oregon is one of the states that’s taking a first big step to creating a safer place for all people,” Rook said.
The high school student, who lives in Redmond, said she and many of her friends can feel anxious about going to school because shootings have become so common. She said she started advocating for stricter gun laws when 17 students were killed at Stoneman Douglas High school in Florida. She was 12.
“I feel like even adults who aren’t parents kind of have this responsibility to keep kids my age safe,” she said. “And it really was not happening up until now. It was super disappointing.”
This week though, she’s proud of the grown-ups.
Amazement, sadness, fear, relief, a renewed faith in humanity and a dark feeling that things will keep getting worse – all of these reactions swept the state as it became clear this week that
Measure 114 would pass by
about two percentage points.
Thirty days after the vote is certified, the new laws requiring a permit to purchase a firearm and banning magazines that hold more than 10 rounds of ammunition will go into effect. The change will rocket Oregon from the middle of the pack to among the 10 states with the tightest gun regulations in the country. And for many on both sides, the coming changes feel deeply personal in a way that will change their daily life.
Paul Donheffner, the legislative committee chairman with the Oregon Hunters Association who had advocated against Measure 114, was disappointed. What, he wondered, would his various hunting associations use for their fundraising raffles if they couldn’t give rifles to people who may not have up-to-date purchase permits?
“It had a very appealing title, ‘reduction of gun violence act,’” he said. “If that’s all you read before you voted, then you’d say yes. I mean, who’s for gun violence? Nobody.”
Donheffner, who lives in Marion County, takes gun safety seriously, but he thinks creating a permit system that requires a course in gun safety will be expensive and unwieldy. And he doesn’t think it will do anything to cut down on the increased gun violence in Portland or to reduce mass shootings.
“It is going to put a lot of honest citizens through the wringer,” he said. “The people that are committing gun violence aren’t going to get a [permit to purchase], you’re not going to get a background check, you’re not going to go through all this rigamarole.”
As might be expected, the measure passed overwhelmingly in Multnomah County, with 74% of the vote as of Thursday evening. It was much closer in Deschutes County, a mostly rural region anchored by Bend. Voters there were nearly 50-50 for and against. With just over 100,000 votes cast, the measure was defeated by about 1,000 votes.
In rural, mountainous Wallowa County, the numbers were almost exactly reversed from Multnomah, with 73% of voters saying no thank you to tighter gun laws. More people there voted against stricter gun laws than voted for Republican candidate for governor Christine Drazan. At the same time, the new rules were more popular to Wallowans than Democratic Gov.-elect Tina Kotek, who pulled about 100 fewer votes than Measure 114 did in the Eastern Oregon county.
(emphasis is mine)
Overall, the measure would have lost in 29 of Oregon’s 36 counties. But the places where it won hold the bulk of the state’s population.
Regardless of how individual Oregonians voted, the rules laid out in Measure 114 will soon be law for all residents. But exactly what happens next is slightly unclear. A spokesperson for the Oregon State Police, the agency tasked with creating the permit to purchase system and overseeing the new background checks, said they would not be able to provide specific information about the timeline for the “rulemaking” process they will go through to work out the kinks until the election is certified by the Secretary of State.
Lack of guidance from the state law enforcement agency hasn’t prevented some county sheriffs, like
Michelle Duncan in Linn County and
Brad Lohrey in Sherman County, from saying they won’t enforce the ban on high capacity magazines. It’s unclear exactly what that means, since sheriffs aren’t legally allowed to contravene state law.
Some in the leftist community are less worried about sheriffs not enforcing the law than about them having too much power over who gets a permit. And that’s just one detail of the law that has gun owners worried.
For example, anyone who currently owns larger capacity magazines or guns that carry more bullets are allowed to keep them under the new rules, but many worry they will have a hard time proving a purchase date.
“It is impossible to prove when you actually acquired [a magazine],” said Kevin Starrett, the leader of the No on Measure 114 campaign in an August interview. “The burden of proof is on you, the defendant. It’s impossible to prove when you bought a magazine, because they have no identifying marks on them.”
More dribble at the link:
For many on both sides, the passage of Measure 114 feels deeply personal and will change day-to-day life.
www.opb.org
Related: Linn County sheriff says part of Oregon gun measure won’t be enforced