Each of the three bills address specific issues related to gun ownership. Senate Bill 868 would permit family members to obtain a court order to prevent another family member showing signs of wanting to hurt others or commit suicide from getting a gun for a year.
Senate Bill 797 is designed to close an existing loophole in a gun law that allows a gun sale to go through if the mandatory background check in not completed in three days. It also contains a provision that bans stalkers from obtaining firearms, as well as those subject to a restraining order.
The third bill, Senate Bill 764, will require those applying for a handgun permit to demonstrate the ability to handle and fire the gun safely.
As might be expected, emotions ran high on both sides of the debate. Gov. Brown said the proposed laws could help prevent public shootings like the one at Umpqua Community College in 2015, in which 10 people died. She also cited domestic violence incidents like the recent Gresham shooting in which a father killed his two daughters before turning the gun on himself.
In response to SB 797, NRA lobbyist Keely Hopkins claims it gives up on the state’s ability to efficiently process background checks.
Firearm ownership and self-defense is an important right, and Oregonians rely on the state to conduct and complete background checks in a timely manner. An indefinite delay in a background check makes it impossible for a person to legally purchase a firearm.”
Republican Senator Brian Boquist said he’s worked with colleagues from both sides of the aisle and the gun control debate to get bills that will satisfy a majority while upholding the Second Amendment. A sponsor of SB 868, he expressed particular concern about veteran suicides, having lost his stepson in that manner last year.
Jenna Passalacqua Yuille testified on behalf of Boquist’s bill as a representative of Americans for Responsible Solutions, a group founded by former U.S. Rep. Gabby Giffords. Yuille had lost both parents to gun violence, her mother in a mall shooting and her father to suicide.
Hopkins voiced serious concerns regarding the suicide prevention bill and due process.
This bill allows for a protective order to remove your Second Amendment rights, not because of a criminal conviction, but based on third-party allegations using an evidentiary standard that falls far below what’s normally required for the removing of fundamental rights.”
Bozeb Beckwith, chair of the Democratic Party of Oregon’s Gun Owners Caucus, appeared as a private citizen to express his concern regarding SB 868.
I’m a guy who took a shift off work to come down to Salem to try and break through this space between us in two minutes. To help members of this committee see this bill for what it is – a bill that takes our guns away.”
No doubt emotions will continue to run high as the bills move along in the Oregon Senate.
SOURCE: Oregon Live
Don’t tell me you tried to, Pump Your Own Gas…
That’s a No No… 🙂