By Dave Workman | Senior Editor
Hardball-playing Republican state senators in Oregon used a parliamentary maneuver to compel majority Democrats to discard a major piece of gun control legislation in exchange for returning to the Senate chambers, where a subsequent party-line vote allowed Democrats to adopt a major tax package for education.
In Oregon, there must be at least 20 senators in the chamber to take a vote on anything. The Republican walkout left Democrats with only 18 occupied seats so they could not pass any legislation. Once Republicans returned, following a four-day walkout, the majority took their vote, split along party lines. The multi-billion-dollar education package passed while Senate Bill 978, which spanned 26 pages and added all sorts of new gun control, died.
Penny Okamoto, executive director of Oregon Ceasefire, was furious. During an interview with KATU News, she demanded to know, “Where is the leadership on this issue?”
She expressed hopes that the Senate “takes up SB 978 once again,” which is a signal to Beaver State gun owners that this gun rights war is far from over. This development simply gave gun rights activists a breather.
The Oregon Firearms Federation (OFF) congratulated its members for putting on the pressure. But that group also acknowledged that “it’s not over until the last Prius leaves the building.”
Senate Bill 978 had raised alarms among Beaver State gun owners. The Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms had been monitoring the legislation.
Oregon gun rights activists, according to CCRKBA sources, flooded the capitol with messages asking that lawmakers put a stop to the sweeping gun control measure.
An examination by CCRKBA of the legislation showed that it would have allowed firearms retailers to set their own minimum age for the purchase of firearms. There was a safe storage requirement with penalties. Gun owners would have been required to report a theft or loss of a firearm within 72 hours.
There was much more in the legislation that gun owners didn’t like.
In neighboring Washington, wealthy gun prohibition lobbying groups have passed two extremist gun control initiatives over the past five years, thanks to multi-million-dollar campaigns mounted by Seattle-based anti-gun lobbying groups bankrolled by wealthy elitists.
Oregon and Washington activists are currently preparing for the 2020 election cycle, and the outcome of that may help moderate the atmosphere in the Pacific Northwest if more gun-friendly Republicans are elected, and equally-gun-friendly Democrats retain their rural district seats.
