Oregon Senate Approves Concealed Carry Restrictions, Bump Stock Ban

Once upon a time, I thought about moving to the Pacific Northwest. While many people lament the weather, I’m someone who loves a lot of rain. That with the massive forests and it just looked like the kind of place that’s made just for me.

Unfortunately, the anti-gunners go there first and screwed it up for everyone else.

Oregon, for example, has floated some of the most vile ideas imaginable. My “favorite” was limiting handguns to just five rounds, which would have made most revolvers illegal, though that one never went anywhere, thankfully.

However, they haven’t exactly been shy about pushing gun control up there, and the state Senate just approved new restrictions.

The Oregon Senate on Thursday passed its first major gun control bill this session after a contentious debate and the rejection of an alternative Republican proposal.

Senate Bill 243 will ban rapid-fire devices including switches and bump stocks that turn guns from semi-automatic to fully automatic weapons and allows city, counties and other governing bodies to bar people, including those with concealed gun licenses, from carrying guns in certain public buildings.

The Senate voted 17 to 12 to pass the measure along party lines, with one Democrat excused. It now heads to the House.

“Today, where the threat of gun violence is ever present, where firearms are the leading cause of death in children 1 to 17, where the venues of democracy, community learning remain shrouded in the threat and the fear of violence, we don’t need to wait for another tragedy,” said Sen. Anthony Broadman, D-Bend. “Local communities know best how to keep our communities safe.”

First, bump stocks don’t turn anything into full-automatic weapons. The definition of full-auto is a weapon that can fire more than one round with a single pull of the trigger. Bump stocks don’t change that. They just make it possible to pull that trigger much faster. Further, you don’t need a bump stock to bump fire, so a ban doesn’t actually stop anything.

Second, Broadman is full of it.

He doesn’t believe that local communities know best about how to keep their communities safe. If he did, he wouldn’t be pushing gun control down their throat.

See, anti-gunners say this crap all the time, but they don’t mean it. What they mean is that they’re down with local communities restricting guns more. That’s it. 

If a local government feels that restoring gun rights is the way to keep their community safe, people like Broadman lose their minds. They can’t be permitted to do that because…well, because. If they want more gun control, sure.

It’s pathetic, but normal for anti-gunners.

However, it’s also good to hear they didn’t get everything they wanted in Oregon.

Earlier this month, the Senate Rules Committee removed other provisions from the bill that would have required a 72-hour wait to buy a gun and would have raised the age from 18 to 21 to legally possess most guns except for certain hunting rifles and shotguns. Also removed was permission for governments to ban guns on grounds next to public buildings.

Those are significant wins, really, though any move forward on restrictions is still a loss overall. It’s just not as big of a loss as it could have been.

The kicker is that many Republicans were willing to talk about bump stocks. They were willing to go along with a plan to restrict them, but the Democrats pushed through a far more problematic effort, figuring they didn’t need GOP approval.

And, they probably don’t.

But that doesn’t make what they’re doing any less moronic.

It’s no wonder I don’t want to relocate to the Pacific Northwest any longer. It’s just a shame that such a beautiful place has such terrible people running it.