The National Rifle Association (NRA) has successfully kept an initiative to ban assault weapons in Oregon off of the November ballot.
While Initiative Petition (IP) 43 had major support from Oregon progressives (and would have likely passed if it landed on the ballot), the NRA and Oregon gun rights lobbyists used onerous legal delays and interventions to keep IP 43 organizers from being able to meet necessary deadlines to get the issue on the Nov. 6 ballot.
Earlier this month, the NRA issued a last-minute appeal with the Oregon Supreme Court against the initiative’s ballot title. In accordance to state law, IP 43 organizers have to wait for a court ruling before being able to legally collect the 88,000 signatures it needs to gather before July 6 to qualify for the Nov. ballot. On Wednesday, the court upheld the NRA appeal, and asked IP 43 organizers to revise the ballot text before gathering signatures.
But, since the state deadline for collecting those thousands of signatures was just over a week away, initiative organizers threw up their hands.
“We are not gathering signatures in the 2018 cycle,” says Penny Okamoto with Ceasefire Oregon, who worked on the IP 43 campaign. Instead, Okamoto said, Ceasefire Oregon is “moving forward with a bill that would ban high capacity magazines” on the state’s 2019 legislative session. The group will also refile the assault weapon ban as an initiative for the the state’s 2020 ballot—and hope the NRA won’t get in the way again.
Secretary of State Dennis Richardson—a Republican—cautiously criticized the campaign’s suspension on Thursday, noting that similar issues had stopped two other initiatives from making it to the ballot this year. Richardson, a conservative,
“Whether I agree or not with a particular cause, I strongly believe Oregonians should have the right to petition their government without the deck stacked against them,” said Richardson in a press release. “I urge the Legislature to adopt the grassroots petition protections that I have consistently advocated.”
Richardson had previously called on the legislature to change the current rules, allowing petitioners to gather signatures after receiving a certified ballot title regardless of legal challenges to the title pending with the Supreme Court. Such a change would have allowed IP 43 to begin gathering signatures weeks ago.
SO. Another mass shooting in Maryland while the NRA blocks more gun safety legislation in Oregon. 95 more americans dead from gun violence, 2/3 of them successful suicides(most suicide attempts with a gun succeed as guns are designed to be lethal and are). Another 45 children shot. And the NRA scams away another attempt to stop semi automatic infantry style rifles from inundating america society. Just another day? Write your senator. Write your congressman. The NRAs death grip on our schools, children , newspapers and government has to stop.#NoRANow, #MarchForOUrLives
@ochwill
2/3rds nation wide are suicide. But here in Oregon it is closer to 85%. We have one of hte lowest gun homicide rates in the country, as well. more than half that of the gun-control state of California.
Not a single one of the deaths you listed would have been prevented by this ballot measure. If anything, it would have made hundreds of thousands of Oregonians into felons as it went far beyond what the typical person has come to associate as an ‘assault weapon’, as seen in action movies and the news. But would not have stopped a mass shooting, or any other death. The ballot measure was based on fear and prejudiced views about firearms and their owners.
I even attended one of the training secession, as I was curious who these people were who wouldn’t mind seeing me (a veteran, engineer, never more than a parking ticket) in jail, and that is what they focused on. It is a good thing that it failed, and so many Oregonians opposed it.