When Portland high schooler Eliana Andrews helped organize the 2018 March For Our Lives in downtown Portland, she said many Oregon legislators approached her and her peers, eager to work with them to create new state gun laws.
That encouragement kick-started efforts that led to the creation of Senate Bill 501, a comprehensive gun control bill authored by Portland area group Students for Change.
But now that a concrete bill is in front of them, Andrews said, Oregon legislators aren’t as interested in passing wide-reaching gun control legislation. In fact, they’re keeping the bill from moving forward.
“Now that we brought something, they won’t support it,” she said, “and they won’t really talk to us about it, which is really disappointing.”
If passed, SB 501 would enact sweeping gun control reform in Oregon. Its stipulations include requiring people to have a permit before purchasing a gun, obliging gun owners to properly lock and store their weapons when not in use, and placing limits on how much ammunition someone can buy in a month, among others. Andrews said that each requirement in the bill was modeled after gun control legislation that passed elsewhere—Colorado was a particular source of inspiration—and designed to prevent mass shootings.
There’s just one problem: SB 501 isn’t going to get a hearing in the senate’s judiciary committee, meaning it likely won’t be voted on this session. That’s disappointing for the Portland area teens who researched and authored the bill with the straightforward goal of reducing gun violence in schools.
“I’m very distraught by that,” Finn Jacobson, one of the students who worked to craft and advocate for SB 501, told the Mercury. “It’s something I find very unfortunate, especially because this bill could save so many lives.”
Jacobson, a high school student in the North Clackamas School District, was also a student leader of last year’s March For Our Lives demonstration in Portland, in which about 10,000 people marched to show their support for increased gun control laws in the wake of a school shooting in Parkland, Florida that left 17 people dead.
SB 501 is one of over a dozen gun control bills proposed this legislative session, but it is the most comprehensive—and the most extreme, according to those who opposed it when it was introduced in January.
One of those opponents is Senator Floyd Prozanski, chair of Senate Judiciary Committee, who met with Students for Change in February.
“Last time we met with Prozanski, he called SB 501 ‘toxic’ in front of us and 40 other kids who were there to support the bill and speak about how gun violence affected them,” Andrews said. “That really hurt us—it didn’t feel good for us.”
As committee chair Prozanski, is the only person who can schedule a public hearing for a bill heard in the Senate Judiciary Committee. And he’s decided not to.
Prozanski told the Mercury that his choice to kill the bill stemmed from concerns he has with several of its requirements.
As a gun owner, he said, Prozanski takes issue with the limits on ammunition purchases, and the idea that someone should have to pass a background check to buy ammo. He also found it “unreasonable” to expect a gun owner to report their weapon lost or stolen within 24 hours, because they might be on a hunting trip in the wilderness and not have phone service. (Update, 3/19: Students For Change have pointed out that the bill requires gun owners to report their weapon missing within 24 hours of “means of reporting becoming available”—meaning they wouldn’t be held responsible for not reporting it if they didn’t have phone service.)
“Unfortunately, there wasn’t anyone who had oversight or knowledge of different firearms” when crafting the bill, Prozanski said.
Two Lake Oswego legislators, Senator Rob Wagner and Representative Andrea Salinas, are co-sponsors of SB 501, but have played a relatively hands-off role in its promotion. According to Wagner, Students for Change took the leading role in writing and advocating for the legislation.
“I respect that fact that [Prozanski] has been working on this issue for the past 20 years,” Wagner said when asked how he felt about SB 501 not receiving a hearing. “Sometimes you don’t get a bill passed the first year.”
Both Wagner and Prozanski said the Senate Judiciary Committee will schedule hearings on other gun control legislation in coming weeks—but that package of bills will not be as far-reaching as SB 501.
The teens who crafted SB 501 aren’t optimistic about what might be passed this legislative session. They also aren’t feeling taken seriously by elected representatives who once promised support.
“We are feeling almost disrespected in this political process,” Jacobson said.
Andrews said she feels let down by the same politicians who were quick to contact her after last year’s March For Our Lives. Prozanski didn’t offer much constructive criticism during their February meeting, she said, and Wagner hasn’t actively pushed for the bill since introducing it in the legislature.
Prozanski told the Mercury that he did ask students to come up with a new proposal, but hasn’t heard back from them yet.
Update, 3/19: Andrews from Students For Change has responded to Prozanski’s comments about SB 501:
“Our group just wanted to point out Prozanski… never asked [us] for a new proposal,” Andrews told the Mercury. “The reasons he objected were the international interest, that there would be too many people who wanted to testify. He is lying.”
Wagner said that regardless of what becomes of SB 501, he’s glad students had the opportunity to become involved with the legislative process.
“My hope,” Wagner said, “is that they will continue to stay engaged.”
Yet their experience in Salem didn’t do much to encourage future engagement.
“It’s almost like we’re kids, and we’re being shooed away by the legislature,” Jacobson said. “They want us to leave them alone, and that’s not something we’re willing to do, because we’re doing this for our safety.”
They’re not shooing you away because you’re kids. They do that to their grownup constituents too.
Our State Senate is a joke. Courtney, Burdick, Prozanski have all gotten way too comfortable. They need to go.
It’s unfortunate, even outrageous, but completely predictable. The chair of the Judiciary Committee is from a very conservative rural area. In 2015 he supported the background check bill which passed. The gun lobby organized and came to within 2% of gathering enough signatures to recall him. Bravo for the students taking the first step, but it is going to take a lot of effort to get gun legislation through.
This draconian bill would turn virtually every firearms owner in the state into a criminal. Most hand guns as well as many rifles and shotguns are “capable” of holding more than 5 rounds. At least half of all revolvers hold six rounds. Many of the provisions in this misguided bill are unconstitutional and will do nothing to make Oregonians safer. It deserves to die in committee.
“and they won’t really talk to us about it, which is really disappointing.”
Um, welcome to being a gun owner concerned about onerous new laws that affect them, but won’t affect criminals. Instead of confining your research to gun-control websites, did you even attempt to talk with the people it would actually affect? Probably a big reason why you lost. Never mind that there are literally thousands of other people wanting to have equal time with them.
And Prozanski is right. Last time there was a big hearing (SB941), he cut the public hearing short once the pro-side had exhausted speakers. The against side? There were a room full of people wanting to speak, some of whom drove over 6 hours to speak for 2 minutes. They were told to go home. When the House took up the bill, they let everyone speak at their hearing. But it took about 10 hours to do so (at 2 minutes each). Your bill was going to be even larger.
The bill was out of touch with most of Oregon, The legislatures from Portland dont represent the rest of the 80% of us who dont live in Portland. Oregon has always prided itself on working together. Though it has been dominated by corrupt liberals like Kitzhaber. What is happening is Portland politics is trying to destroy what we have as a state. Most us hate California politics and laws but here we are trying to outrun them in implementing more state regulation of our every day lives. Our youth shooting teams would not even be able to practice with the 20 round limit per month and even century old revolvers would be outlawed. This was not gun sense it was over reach. If you dont like it here move back to California.
Aircooled – ya might want to read the bill, including the exemptions. It exempts revolvers. NEXT!
And mirgc – so hearings shouldn’t be held because they take too long? Brilliant. I should tell my boss my 9 hr workday is too long? Isn’t it legislators’ JOBS to get input from these things called VOTERS?
The students DID consult “experts” and talked to avid hunters and law enforcement. ALL they want is to feel safe in school. They don’t want to walk into a classroom and determine which walls are concrete and which are drywall so they know where to crouch in case there’s a shooter. They don’t want to text “I love you, Mom” the next time there’s an active shooter drill because they don’t know IF it’s a drill. They don’t want to pick which student will be the one to tackle the shooter – and they actually DO have to do that in some schools.
You object to the bill, come up with solutions. Don’t ignore the reality WE’VE created for these kids.
Meaning no disrespect to the authors of the bill, Most of the provisions of SB 501 are already covered in other legislation waiting in committee, i.e. storage requirements, magazine restrictions, definitions of weapons classes. The limit of 20 rounds of ammo/ month and background checks to purchase it were prima facie reason to doom that bill. I use 5x that on an afternoon of target shooting and I’m using bolt-action relics. If I were a competitive shooter in a traditional 3 gun match the amount of ammo used goes up from that. The bill also does not address the root causes of violence. For more info on root cause mitigation, see here: https://theliberalgunclub.com/about-us/root-cause-mitigation-2/
This bill was a joke and it is obvious that people who wrote it and zero experience with guns. This would have been terrible policy and I would laugh in anyone’s face who tried to defend it. Maybe try something not so radical and wouldn’t turn a million Oregonians into criminals.
J. Colvill- the bill provides an exemption for shooting ranges and would allow for more ammunition to be used within the building. The goal of the ammunition limit is to protect us against shooters like the one in Aurora, CO who had bought 4000 rounds within just a few months. Also, the students have begun to make amendments to the bill so that magazine limits are changed from 5 to 10 to accommodate for six shooters.
The bill’s not perfect right now but it will not make regular Oregonians who want their firearms for self-defense into criminals. If you can pass a background check and keep your weapons out of reach of children, you’ve got nothing to worry about.
California gun owner here. None of these laws which California already has on the books have prevented mass shootings, which California still has
How is turning law abiding taxpaying cirizens into criminals going to keep you safer? Its not and never has been honest hardworking gun owning us citizens who aer the cause of mass shootings…all this misguided and inept childrens bill written by people who have zero real world experience will do is make it easier for criminals to rib shoot and kill honest people…it does nothing to keep a gun from the hand of a lunatic..they could careless about gun laws and sure as hell wont be buying a gun from a dealer or having a background check done..if there is no threat of citizens having guns for self-defense then the crime rate will sky rocket
..why do you think these lowlife cowards who go to schools and kill children??? Because there is no threat of defence from anyone at a school..if there was then they migjt think twice…if these cowards were not they would go to a police station …but no ..they go to defenseless schools and have no chance of dying..and no death penalty either so what’s worst that happens? They get a warm bed and 3 meals a day …go after stricter and harsher penalties for murder and this will stop….but taking law abiding citizens 2nd amendment rights away does only make it worse