Update: This morning (June 27), the Oregon Supreme Court announced that it is temporarily blocking IP 43, calling for the the initiative’s description to be revised. The decision comes nine days before the signature gathering deadline, meaning the initiative will likely be blocked from the November 2018 ballot.
Original story:
A movement to pass substantial gun control legislation in Oregon, accelerated by the February school shooting in Parkland, Florida, has been stymied by the biggest player in pro-gun politics: the National Rifle Association (NRA). Although 67 percent of Americans support an assault weapons ban, the NRA, along with the Oregon Firearms Federation (OFF) and the Oregon Hunters Association (OHA), has derailed two voter-led efforts to get gun control legislation on the state’s November ballot.
Gun control advocates are pushing two major initiatives this fall. The first, currently named Initiative Petition (IP) 43, would ban the sale of assault weapons and large-capacity magazines in Oregon. The second, IP 44, would hold Oregon gun owners liable if an unsupervised minor uses their firearm, would mandate that gun owners lock up their firearm when it’s not in use, and fine gun owners who fail to report a stolen or missing firearm.
Gun rights advocates dislike IP 43 and 44 for an unsurprising reason: They believe the initiatives violate the Second Amendment.
To derail the petitions, these lobbyists have challenged the wording of the eventual measure titles—a seemingly trivial matter that, nonetheless, has allowed the them to significantly delay advocates’ attempts to get petitions on the ballot.
IP 43 and IP 44 are particularly vulnerable to these delaying tactics due to their relative newness. Many petitions for the November 2018 ballot were filed last year, but because the impetus for both IP 43 and IP 44—the Parkland shooting—occurred in February, both face a particularly tight timeline for ballot title approval before the cutoff for acquiring signatures.
For initiative petitions, the attorney general writes a draft for the title of the ballot measure, summarizing the measure’s purpose and action; citizens are then given a period of 10 days to submit comments on the title. To delay IP 43, gun control opponents sent over 1,000 comments to the Oregon Secretary of State’s office. Though the comments are meant to address only the title of the ballot, many in this instance addressed problems critics had with the initiative itself.
Some gun control advocates believe the high number of comments were an attempt to slow the process down. But Debra Royal, a spokesperson for the Oregon Secretary of State’s office, says that while the process wasn’t slower than usual, it’s “highly unusual” to get that many comments.
The attorney general’s office also allows a final appeal before the initiative heads to the ballot. In the case of IP 43, the gun lobby waited to file an appeal with the Oregon Supreme Court until the very last day—another attempt to delay the initiative. It worked: The group behind IP 43 is still waiting for the Oregon Supreme Court to rule on an appeal to their initiative.
“The gun lobby is just trying to run us out of time,” says Penny Okamoto, who works on the IP 43 campaign.
The court is expected to rule on the case this week, but it’s unclear what that could mean for IP 43. If the court gives the initiative a ballot title and allows it to move forward, the Secretary of State’s office will have three days to draft a template for the signatures. That leaves the IP 43 organizers with, at most, six days to get over 88,000 signatures. “If we can start by Friday [June 29], we know we can get it done,” says Pastor Mark Knutson, one of the IP 43 petitioners. “We’ve built an infrastructure that’s pretty amazing.”
With IP 44, gun rights advocates used the same tactics: Filing appeals to the Oregon Supreme Court against the petition on the last possible day and submitting over 400 comments during the initial stages of the ballot title process.
Despite gun rights advocates’ attempts at slowing the process down, IP 44 has had much more luck than the other petition—the Oregon Supreme Court ruled quickly in its favor on June 18, giving petitioners about three weeks to gather signatures.
But, despite the rapid ruling, the campaign organizers decided not to try gathering signatures for fear of failing to hit the required number in time.
“We figured it would be better to set a realistic goal and move forward with trying to get the legislature to act in 2019—or if that fails, go to the ballot in 2020,” says Jake Weigler, spokesman for IP 44. He says gun rights groups’ legal interventions are disingenuous. “There’s a clear pattern of [the gun lobby] not expecting to prevail in the arguments, but forcing the process to drag out the clock,” Weigler says.
IP 44 could be re-filed well ahead of the 2020 election—giving it much more time to go through the ballot title process. And despite their setbacks, Oregon’s gun control advocates think the tide is turning. Weigler notes that the NRA used to push for new freedoms for gun owners, like expanding concealed carry rights—but “now they’re on the defense.”
Still, every time gun rights advocates succeed in delaying votes and legislation, Weigler says, there’s a clear cost. “I know this policy could save lives,” he says, “and every day this policy is pushed back is more lives lost.”
Why is there so little information about gun violence? It’s simple. Because the National Rifle Association and its friends in Congress don’t want us to know that guns are the key to gun violence. Beginning in the early 1990s, researchers examined whether having a gun in the home was more likely to protect occupants from crime (e.g., self-defense) or more likely to increase their risk of violent crime. Several studies showed that individuals with guns in the home were nearly three times more likely to die from homicide or suicide than those who did not.
This research was so damning that the NRA sent its lobbyists to strong-arm politicians in Congress to stop it. Since several of those early studies had been funded by the National Institutes of Health, the NRA demanded that Congress eliminate all funding for gun violence research from the NIH budget. They succeeded, but only in curtailing NIH research.
CDC continued to fund studies despite pressure from pro-gun groups. Again, the gun lobbyists descended on lawmakers and convinced them to put the industry’s profits first. In 1996, Congress passed the Dickey Amendment, which effectively banned the CDC from funding any research on gun violence as a public health issue. In the 22 years since, more than 600,000 Americans have died from gun violence.
Finally some help from the NRA here. I’ve been a member for years. They haven’t done much for the state until recently.
https://www.politico.com/agenda/story/2015/12/why-we-cant-trust-the-cdc-with-gun-research-000340
I notice that the journalist provided quotes from three different proponents of the initiative petitions, but none from spokespersons for the opponents. This is what passes for journalism these days. Not to mention proofreading: “To delay IP 43, gun control advocates sent over 1,000 comments to the Oregon Secretary of State’s office.” Wrong! Those were OPPONENTS, who actively voiced their objections by sending the 1000 comments.
I was going to be upset that another journalist was misrepresenting the actual truth, but then I saw this was the Mercury and remembered that it’s not a collection of journalists but a collection of former Tumblr posters that share things they find regardless of their inaccuracies.
I’m so thankful to the NRA for helping take down these dishonest attacks on our civil rights. Now, if only we could get honest reporting on the issue rather than the trash I read here.
I’m glad the NRA is around to advocate for those of us who actually believe in personal responsibility and know that the state cannot save us from an imminent threat.
I think the fact that gun nuts (as above) come out of the woodwork en masse any time these measures get mentioned – whether it’s here, wweek, or the misanthropic ammosexual circle jerk of underbaked white males that is /r/portland – means we are on the right track! Whether these measures win or lose, I’m genuinely excited for this to be put to the test of direct democracy. Even from a pure research standpoint it would be fascinating to see what such a large swath of people think on this contentious issue. Just another way in which we ballot measure states can be leading the nation.
@EverydayPeople,
Your hate-speech is just one reason measures get opposed. Did you even consider that maybe a lot of people have a good understanding, and valid reasons to oppose ballots like IP43?
To vilify a group of people and paint them as dangerous, with no proof whatsoever, is just plain wrong. Calling them ‘ammosexuals’ just reveals your maturity about the subject. Although it is a good example that shows how gun-control logic isn’t that much different from the thought process of the homophobs from the 1980’s. I hope you are able to educate yourself and evolve past your lack of understanding about the subject.
@ochwill
The research you refer to that was so ‘damning’ was a great example of politics over science. The report by a Mr. Kellerman (funded by the CDC) was sold to politicians and the public as proof that owning a gun in the home was very dangerous. He released the report to great fanfare PRIOR to peer review.
What happened during peer review? His peers found that he didn’t perform a study that covered the USA, and average households. Rather, his data was restricted to 4 very urban areas with above average crime rates. There was a very high percentage of households with drug dealers, gang members, domestic violence, ex-felons in illegal possession, criminal activity, etc. Heck, one of the examples he used the resident was killed by a gun brought IN by the non-resident criminal!
There is actually quite a bit more that was covered during the hearings that lead up to the CDC having their funds restricted from research performed solely to promote a gun control agenda (vs real science). Oh, and it only covered the CDC. The Justice Department (FBI) has released plenty of research, along with many other universities and groups. People seem to skip that rather important step in order to jump right to the twitter-length meme “The NRA banned government research” for some reason. The public deserves to know the truth.