Amendments Seek to Make Oregon Gun Control Bill Suck Less

Oregon isn’t likely to become a pro-gun mecca anytime soon. They like gun control, and they’re fully engulfed in creating the toughest regulatory scheme they can manage, much like their neighbors to the north and south.

Currently, a number of bills are working their way through the legislature, and all of them will suck to some degree or another.

Yet, there’s a bit of hope. It seems there are some amendments under consideration that will make at least one of these bills suck less.

Lawmakers heard from the public on Monday about proposed amendments to Senate Bill 243, one of three major gun control bills advancing through the Oregon Legislature this session.

As currently written, the bill would impose a 72-hour mandatory waiting period between the initiation of a background check and the transfer of a firearm to the gun buyer. A proposed amendment to remove that provision from the bill is under consideration and will likely be adopted.

The proposed amendment would also narrow language around allowing local governments to ban concealed gun carriers from carrying their weapons.

As currently written, the bill allows cities, counties, and governing bodies of a metropolitan service district to prohibit possession of concealed guns in buildings and on grounds adjacent to buildings owned or controlled by the governing body.

This amendment would only allow a city, county, or other district government entity to implement a policy or ordinance banning concealed gun carriers from possessing firearms in buildings used by the governing body for official meetings. Language around adjacent buildings would be removed.

“There is no reason for someone to bring in a concealed carry weapon to these spaces, and the safety of constituents meeting with their elected officials should be protected,” said Amie Wexler with Alliance for a Safe Oregon.

And the amendment wouldn’t prevent making these buildings gun-free. It would just mean that you can’t prohibit guns on any property owned by the city or county that just happens to be next to public buildings, which could include things like parks, parking lots, etc.

Not that these being gun-free would actually protect anyone.

It seems that the amendment on the waiting period is likely to pass, and an amendment squashing an age limit has already passed. If the amendment narrowing the off-limits thing also passes, the bill won’t be nearly as bad as it could have been.

Unfortunately, the bill will still ban things like bump stocks. Strangely, the article linked above claims that bump stocks have been used in several mass shootings around the country, which is odd because I only know of one, which was Las Vegas. Since there’s no citation given, no link to other stories illustrating these incidents, or anything else that will allow me to see where they got their data, I have to assume it was pulled out of the writer’s posterior.

The bill still sucks, and no amount of amending can be done to make it not suck at all. 

However, if all three of these amendments pass, it’s actually a positive sign of life out of Oregon, for a change. It also suggests that maybe there’s a chance of killing this bill and two others that are currently working through the legislative process.

I just wouldn’t get too excited because, well, it’s Oregon.