Oregon HB 3223 Assault Weapon Ban

[jbett98]

Never I hope.

 

[BSG 75]

Man, it must be tiring to that pessimistic realistic all the time, but hey I like your spirt. No wonder we're getting our rights taken away from us, if you think you've lost before you ever attempt stand up for your rights you will surely loose them.

Fixed your post. I have watched this all play out before seeing what has happened in our neighbor to the south. We are just about 10 years behind them, but on the same path. For about the past 10 years the gun owners on Calguns.net were saying the same thing, stand and fight, don't run away with your tail between your legs, there is nowhere safe to run, let's arrest them for passing unconstitutional laws, blah blah. California gun owners really really tried to "fight" and "take a stand", but they lost over and over and over again. You just can't win political battles when you are so heavily outnumbered.

There are few "stand and fight" types left on Calguns.net, but now they are outnumbered by ex-California gun owners posting about how great it is to be in a free state, and California gun owners posting about how they can't wait to get out of there.

Losing our gun rights has nothing to do with our attitude or positive thinking. It has everything to do with the cold hard reality of Oregon being a very blue (Democratic) state that elects Democrats, and Democrats like gun control. Period.

I'm not saying give up and do nothing. I gave detailed instructions on what people can do to "fight" and "take a stand" in this post Where's our organized-resistance effort?

But you should be realistic and not in denial. The chance of success is very low, so plan accordingly:

• Buy any firearms and magazines that will be banned that you might want to own now, while you still can. I'm even buying "large capacity" magazines for guns that I don't own but will probably want to own in the future.
• Contribute money to organizations that will challenge these laws in court, like the NRA and Second Amendment Foundation (SAF). I'm a Benefactor Life Member of the NRA (see my avatar) and a Life Member of the SAF (they sent me a framed certificate I can hang on the wall). Give them money when you can.
• Try to avoid accidentally violating any of the new laws. Don't give them a reason to charge you with a victimless non-violent "felony" that could cause you to lose your gun rights in every state for life.
• Put up with supporting these regimes with your hard-earned tax dollars unless it becomes intolerable (like in CA, NJ, NY, MA, etc.) and then consider relocating to a free state.

 

[DivCurlGrad72]

Fixed your post. I have watched this all play out before seeing what has happened in our neighbor to the south ...

Lots of truth in this post, unfortunately, but still ...

Hope dies last.

 

[Pete F]

I don't see any regulation of magazine size except those that are permanent. Did I miss something?

 

[BSG 75]

I don't see any regulation of magazine size except those that are permanent. Did I miss something?

It only deals with "assault weapons". There are one or more other bills that deal with "large capacity" magazines.

 

[FordPrefect]

The only way I can see to stop this is to get ALL, I mean ALL of the Republican's in both the house and the senate to deny a quorum when these types of bills come up for a vote. As of now, there are enough Republicans in both the house and senate to do this. However, if only one senator or representative shows up for the vote, they will have a quorum.

Unfortunately for me, I'm stuck. I have Peter Courtney for a senator and Teresa Leon for a rep. Both are not particularly gun friendly.

 

[WoodsPlinker]

Boy that tree of liberty certainly does look dry....

 

[Jabba]

Legislative immunity, also known as parliamentary immunity or parliamentary privilege, protects legislators from prosecution for doing their jobs, which is creating legislation.



If legislators pass an "unconstitutional" (in your opinion) law, you challenge it in court.

If you don't like the laws certain legislators are passing, you get a chance every couple of years to vote for better legislators.

If a majority of your fellow citizens like the laws the legislature is passing and keep on re-electing those politicians, you can always move to a state where most citizens have views more similar to yours. That's the federalism system the Founders created.

Throwing someone out of their job because they are doing it poorly is not a criminal prosecution. Legislators should only be passing constitutional legislation(it's their job). If a court agrees they failed their job, why not toss them out?

 

[brenty]

You are so right, we have to stand and fight this. It's easy to push a person around until they stand up for themselves, at that point things have a tendency to change.

I totally agree. I have gotten a lot of flak around here in the past for taking this stance though, surprisingly.

Obviously moving to a free state is something i would never put down someone for doing, as I understand it. And maybe I would do it if I could, I honestly don't know what
I would do. But I dont need to worry about that.

But since I am stuck here for the forseeable future, Ill prob keep wanting people stick around to help fight for those of us stranded or less fortunate. But eitherway, Best of luck and God Bless you and yours to all that decide it is best for them to leave. We all have to do what we feel is right for us if we are able.

 

[arakboss]

The only way I can see to stop this is to get ALL, I mean ALL of the Republican's in both the house and the senate to deny a quorum when these types of bills come up for a vote. As of now, there are enough Republicans in both the house and senate to do this. However, if only one senator or representative shows up for the vote, they will have a quorum.

Unfortunately for me, I'm stuck. I have Peter Courtney for a senator and Teresa Leon for a rep. Both are not particularly gun friendly.

My guess is Rep. Helt would spoil any chance of denying a quorum in the House but I sure would like them to put that on the table.

 

[BSG 75]

Throwing someone out of their job because they are doing it poorly is not a criminal prosecution. Legislators should only be passing constitutional legislation(it's their job). If a court agrees they failed their job, why not toss them out?

In order to "throw them out" you would have to create a law that allows that. Even if you could get such a law passed a court would throw it out.

The legislature's job is to pass laws. It isn't their job to decide if a law is constitutional. That is the role of the judiciary. The legislature can't be blamed for not knowing ahead of time which laws are going to be challenged, and not knowing ahead of time which way the court is going to decide. Sometimes the courts can't even decide. A district court will say a law is constitutional (or unconstitutional). Then it is appealed to a three judge panel of the Court of Appeals who reverse the district court and say the law is unconstitutional (or constitutional). Then it is heard by the full (en banc) Court of Appeals and they reverse their own panel and say it is constitutional (or unconstitutional).

Meanwhile, the reverse is happening in a different circuit of the Court of Appeals with a different but related case. So now you have one circuit of the Court of Appeals saying a law is constitutional (or unconstitutional) while another circuit of the Court of Appeals rules in a similar case the opposite, that the law is unconstitutional (or constitutional). That is known as a "circuit split". Sometimes the SCOTUS will settle it, and sometimes they decline.

Anyway, with such uncertainty as to whether a law is going to be found constitutional or unconstitutional, the legislature can't be held responsible for not being able to see into the future. I'm not talking about blatantly unconstitutional laws like trying to re-institute slavery or segregation, those laws never get passed. I'm talking about laws like gun control laws that can and have gone either way.

In the DC v Heller case the plaintiffs challenged the DC handgun ban at the district level and lost. Then they appealed to the Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit, who reversed the district court. So then the government appealed that ruling to the SCOTUS, and lost on a 5-4 vote that could have gone either way. 4 of the justices thought the DC law was constitutional and 5 thought it was unconstitutional. When there is such a difference of opinion even in the SCOTUS how can legislators know in advance if a law is constitutional or not, again excluding blatantly unconstitutional laws like re-instituting slavery or execution by being drawn and quartered or trial by ordeal.

There is a already mechanism for throwing out bad legislators. It's called an election. And that includes a recall election. When Colorado passed some gun control laws two legislators were removed by recall 2013 Colorado recall election - Wikipedia
I'm proud to say I contributed money to that recall effort, even though I have never lived in Colorado.

 

[Hawaiian]

Times are a changing. Ginny Burdick submitted AW and Mag bans every year in the past and they went nowhere. The powers to be felt they were too bold and did not want to lose votes from Dem gun owners. Other issues were more important.
Today, things are different. Look at the national Dem agenda. They are all for very radical political changes and gun control is high up on their list. I fear the OR Dem super majority may be energized by this and we just might finally get screwed.

On the other hand, my optimistic side hopes that the OR Dem's will see the backlash from the LEO community in WA against their gun grab. That has to be embarrassing.

 

[dancinghippos]

Contact all Oregon reps using the OFF auto mailer here Votility

The problem is that they recognize the mass-mailed emails and disregard them. Use the names and emails and mailing addresses and send individual correspondence. I heard this from two Democrat-voting gun owners who usually lobby their Dem legislators for other things. Write your own email/letter. You can use material you learned from others, but it should be in your own words.

 

[arakboss]

In order to "throw them out" you would have to create a law that allows that. Even if you could get such a law passed a court would throw it out.

The legislature's job is to pass laws. It isn't their job to decide if a law is constitutional. That is the role of the judiciary. The legislature can't be blamed for not knowing ahead of time which laws are going to be challenged, and not knowing ahead of time which way the court is going to decide. Sometimes the courts can't even decide. A district court will say a law is constitutional (or unconstitutional). Then it is appealed to a three judge panel of the Court of Appeals who reverse the district court and say the law is unconstitutional (or constitutional). Then it is heard by the full (en banc) Court of Appeals and they reverse their own panel and say it is constitutional (or unconstitutional).

Meanwhile, the reverse is happening in a different circuit of the Court of Appeals with a different but related case. So now you have one circuit of the Court of Appeals saying a law is constitutional (or unconstitutional) while another circuit of the Court of Appeals rules in a similar case the opposite, that the law is unconstitutional (or constitutional). That is known as a "circuit split". Sometimes the SCOTUS will settle it, and sometimes they decline.

Anyway, with such uncertainty as to whether a law is going to be found constitutional or unconstitutional, the legislature can't be held responsible for not being able to see into the future. I'm not talking about blatantly unconstitutional laws like trying to re-institute slavery or segregation, those laws never get passed. I'm talking about laws like gun control laws that can and have gone either way.

In the DC v Heller case the plaintiffs challenged the DC handgun ban at the district level and lost. Then they appealed to the Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit, who reversed the district court. So then the government appealed that ruling to the SCOTUS, and lost on a 5-4 vote that could have gone either way.

There is a already mechanism for throwing out bad legislators. It's called an election.

I agree with all this except that legislators can make a personal decision on whether they believe a law is going to be constitutional or not. And if they don't believe a law is constitutional they can and should vote no on that law (imho).

 

[dancinghippos]

That Gresham ex-cop may pretend guns are the problem, but most street cops support the Second Amendment and they fear the loss of gun owners rights MORE than the few criminals with guns. It is not even close.

Police officers overwhelmingly say it is more important to protect the rights of Americans to own guns than it is to control gun ownership (74% of officers vs. 53% of the public). (Pew Social Trends, January 2017)

The National Association of Chiefs of Police polled 20,000 sheriffs and police officers. 76% say that armed citizens help law enforcement reduce violent crime. They are more pro-gun than the general public. This links to their survey results:

https://crimeresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/NACOP-surveyresults-2016.pdf

PoliceOne, an organization of about 380,000 active and 70,000 retired officers, surveyed 16,000 members on the gun control in 2013.
71% say a ban on so-called "assault weapons" would have no effect on violent crime.
20% say it would make crime worse. This is a link to their results
http://ddq74coujkv1i.cloudfront.net/p1_gunsurveysummary_2013.pdf

These are the experts. These are the guys I believe. Not ex-chiefs. And when companies like Gallup survey Americans, they poll 1000-2000 people and extrapolate. These two polls were 20,000 and 16,000 cops respectively. So the confidence level is huge.

 

[partsed]

 

[dancinghippos]

Deaths from mass shootings get all the headlines, but they are extremely rare compared to other violent crime, even now. There have been 1135 mass shooting deaths since 1966 (Washington Post, Oct 2018). That represents less than 2 years in Chicago. Same for many other big cities where guns are almost banned. That doesn't support the gun control narrative, so it is ignored.

The ice.gov website enumerates 2038 homicides committed by illegal immigrants they deported in 2018 and a similar number in 2017. So border control would stop more deaths every year than the total number of mass shooting victims. But that doesn't support the gun control agenda, so it is ignored.

The Parkland shooting was a textbook case of failure of "the authorities" we are supposed to depend on for protection. The authorities tell us: "See Something, Say Something". Local residents and school officials called the authorities on Cruz 45 times. No arrests, because the Broward County Sheriff chose to take money from the PROMISE program to divert teen offenders to counseling instead of arrests. Residents called the FBI twice. No arrest, even after Cruz posted a video saying he wants to be a school shooter. With no arrests, Cruz passed the background check to buy the murder weapon. So the "reasonable" response? Punish gun owners, of course.

The authorities say the police will protect us. Yet the four Broward County deputies who were on the scene when Cruz started shooting kids stayed outside. The Sheriff ran to a CNN "Town Hall" event to blame the NRA for the murders his deputies let happen. This sequence of real events would fail the smell test for a TV drama.

 

[arakboss]

These parts of Section 3 don't appear to distinguish between centerfire or rimfire rifles.

Section 3: (2) (a) Means the following semiautomatic rifles:
Long list of firearm platforms

Section 3 (2) (d) Includes any type, series or model of a firearm that is a variation, with minor differences,
of a firearm model described in paragraphs (a) to (c) of this subsection, regardless
of the manufacturer.

If it resembles any of the specific platforms in their list it's banned (eg. rimfire ARs) . The rimfire exemption would apply to rifles not resembling the banned rifles. I am open to a different translation?

If I am wrong, 1% chance of that then stock up on 22lr conversion kits for all of your ARs and avoid the registration. You can transfer them that way too. But I am very confident that 22lr version of the rifles that resemble those on the list are going to be banned as well

 

[aksu747]

This onslaught will not end until our collective bark gets much louder and with more of a growl. They are emboldened by our meekness.

If they keep it up they will get more than a bark and a growl.

 

[BSG 75]

I agree with all this except that legislators can make a personal decision on whether they believe a law is going to be constitutional or not. And if they don't believe a law is constitutional they can and should vote no on that law (imho).

And many do exactly that. Especially Republicans when it comes to gun control laws, and Democrats when it comes to laws restricting abortion. It happens all the time. Still, majority rules in the legislature, and no law is unconstitutional until a court says it is, no matter what people on a gun forum say about the law. As far as I know none of us are federal judges.