2 gun bills voted out of committee

By Taxpayers Association of Oregon
OregonWatchdog.com

SB 348 is a measure to replicate and replace the gun control Measure 114 which is tied up in courts after a narrow passage last November.   The bill contains 64 pages of amendments.   This means there is a lot of confusion on what this bill fully does even though it is being voted upon.   More details to come later when we know more.  After debate, the Senate Judiciary Committee passed SB 348 with amendments and referred it to the Ways and Means Committee.

HB 2005 – In the Senate Judiciary Committee, HB 2005 was passed with amendments and sent to the Ways and Means Committee.  HB 2005 requires firearms to have a serial number as a way to outlaw self-manufactured weapons.  HB 2005 raises the age to 21 to purchase or posses certain hunting rifles.  HB 2005 creates a new local power for cities or county governments to have the ability to pass laws outlawing people from carrying guns in public buildings or nearby public buildings.

Here are some media quotes from lawmakers that came from the debate

“But Sen. David Brock Smith, R-Port Orford, said he worried that HB 2005 would create a “hodgepodge” of different rules and “gun-free zones” across the state and could make criminals out of law-abiding citizens.Sen. Elizabeth Steiner, D-Portland, countered with an example of what happens to people who inadvertently bring guns into the Oregon Capitol, where they’re banned. They’re asked to secure them elsewhere, she said. “There’s not an intent to make criminals out of people who want to be law-abiding citizens,” she said.Some lawmakers suspect either bill will get bogged down in future legal challenges if ultimately approved, as has Measure 114, narrowly passed by Oregonians in November.State Rep. Jeffrey Helfrich, R-Hood River, a former Portland police officer, said the state already has spent about a half a million dollars defending Measure 114 in state and federal court. He said he’s concerned more public dollars will be diverted to defend the additional gun bills.”

State Senator Dennis Linthicum made these warnings below about the bill before the committee met over these bills.  Because there were so many amendments to the bill and that it was rushed at the last minute, means it is unknown how many of these concerns were addressed or part of the bill of the bill in its final amended form.

“SB 348 was originally a gun-control measure that was designed as a method for implementing Measure 114. A ballot measure  which was unconstitutional from the beginning. Now SB 348-3 has morphed into a backdoor for defunding the police still camouflaged with concern for community health and gun violence (apparently from millions of law-abiding citizens.) It would drain millions of dollars from state and local law enforcement budgets and hurl those dollars toward an ineffectual wasteland of bureaucratic rules and regulations. SB 348-3 is constructed from an endless faith in bureaucracy. It is girded with misguided compassion overlayed with simplistic but ineffectual policy approaches. This bill will harm the public and weaken crime prevention efforts while allowing criminal minds to continue unabated. The Oregon State Sheriffs’ Association estimated that complying with Measure 114, before all of the additional burdens were stuffed into SB 348-3, would have cost $40,000,000 ($40M) in the first year alone. Ongoing annual costs were estimated at $36,250,000 ($36.25M) annually. Plus, there is the ongoing hiring, training, and officer replacement costs, including PERS benefits, vacations and Family Leave costs. Fees coming into our local county sheriff’s offices could never cover the associated costs. This would produce gigantic black holes in most county budgets unless there were increases in local taxes or bond measures for public safety.SB 348-3 will misdirect millions of law enforcement dollars toward the purposeful persecution of law-abiding citizens. This echoes the sentiment in the Declaration of Independence which opposed the authority’s need to “erect a multitude of new offices, and send hither swarms of officers to harass our people, and eat out their subsistence.” The point is, this will bankrupt our local county sheriff’s offices, do nothing to stop gun violence, allow crime to explode in our neighborhoods and misdirect millions of law enforcement dollars toward no good end. The statists in the legislature with their progressive hand-maidens, NGOs, activists, and non-profits, have long known that Ballot Measure 114 was unconstitutional.”

Oregon Firearms Federation issued this  statement, “In Senate Judiciary SB 348, as amended, passed on party lines. However, Prozanski also pulled another switcheroo and added another gut and stuff to another “placeholder” bill, SB 393.It is unknown what the purpose of SB393 is. While it has a different implementation date than SB348, it does not appear to include any new provisions.One thing that was clear at the hearing was that none of the members of the committee had any idea what this added bill does.Prozanski’s attempts to explain it demonstrated he had no idea what his own amended bill does or why.In his garbled explanation he could not even keep the different bills straight.In defending it, Prozanski took the bizarre position that it would save lives by adding a 72 hour waiting period before a person could take possession of a gun they bought. He appeared to be completely unaware that this language was already in his other anti-gun bill, SB 348.”  More here.

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