The joke these days is that if you put the Bill of Rights to a vote, it would lose. The latest example of this decline in intelligence is Oregon, where voters narrowly passed an anti-gun measure so ghastly that the Second Amendment has been “rendered superfluous.” Now, there’s a run on gun stores, and civil liberties advocates have begun the fight to once again “secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity” and reclaim the rights the Declaration of Independence stated were “self-evident” and “endowed by our Creator.”
Don’t kid yourself: It’ll be a tough sell in Oregon, where wokeness doesn’t recognize “self-evidence,” and “our Creator” has been replaced by godless communist dogma. It’s a place where young adults believe free rent, cheap weed, and college loan forgiveness are civil rights. I’m an idiot and shouldn’t be trusted with sharp objects and things that could hurt others, they think, so you shouldn’t be, either.
The passage of Measure 114 was a giant middle finger to real civil rights and to the Supreme Court’s recent decision in New York State Rifle and Pistol Association v. Bruen, which reaffirmed that Americans have the right to bear arms in public and to possess arms that are “typically possessed by law-abiding citizens for lawful purposes.”
As a result of this new measure’s unconstitutionally crushing regulatory scheme, Oregonians are making a run on gun stores, with sales reportedly up by 382%. Northwest Armory owner Karl Durkheimer told The Oregonian that “the Wednesday after this Election Day passed our biggest day. The Thursday after the Election passed that Wednesday. It’s record business.”
And Oregon State Police, which is already slow in clearing most background checks, now has a shocking backlog.
Oregon’s Measure 114, narrowly passed by urban Oregonians, outlawed ammo magazines of more than ten rounds, essentially outlawing the use of most long guns, including some shotguns and, of course, reducing the number of rounds allowed in normal pistol magazine sizes. Indeed, under Measure 114, merely possessing a magazine of more than ten rounds makes one subject to imprisonment.
The measure requires the subjects of Oregon to seek a permit to buy a gun, but to do that, an individual must somehow get hold of a gun (though Oregon’s gun transfer laws are quite strict) and get to a non-existent law enforcement-run training center to get qualified before a permit will be granted.
Kevin Starrett, the leader of the Oregon Firearms Federation (OFF), which filed a petition to get the measure tossed out, told me on my Adult in the Room podcast that the measure sets up the system for failure. That’s a feature, not a bug.
Currently, you need a concealed handgun permit to carry a gun. And the law says after you apply for it, the Sheriff has 45 days to issue it or deny you. But the law doesn’t say how long he can take to allow you to apply. […] So a Sheriff could say, “OK, this is November and you can come apply next August. That’s perfectly legal.
Lawyer Bill Kirk of Washington Gun Law told me that Measure 114 disembowels the Second Amendment. Well, he said it much nicer, stating that it makes the Second Amendment “superfluous.”
What I have said to the folks in Oregon is if you have to go demonstrate your proficiency, knowledge, and your good character before you can go exercise your Second Amendment right, then what prevents the state of Oregon from, for example, requiring you to do a political litmus test before you’re allowed to exercise your right to vote? […]Anyone who wrote Measure 114 and read the Bruen opinion – you cannot reconcile what the court requires of government and what is written here. It’s irreconcilable.
The federal court petition argues that Measure 114 is not only facially unconstitutional via the Bruen decision but also violates the Fifth Amendment takings clause by banning the possession and sale of magazines that were legal when they were bought without compensation. The petition also argues that the measure violates the Due Process clause.
“Banning magazines over 10 rounds is no more likely to reduce criminal abuse of guns then banning high horsepower engines is likely to reduce criminal abuse of automobiles. To the contrary, the only thing the ban contained in 114 ensures is that a criminal unlawfully carrying a firearm with a magazine over 10 rounds will have a potentially devastating advantage over his law-abiding victim.”
OFF also says that state law requires backers to specify funding for initiative measures, and Measure 114 has no such scheme. It just hopes that money magically appears someday — and until that happens, gun supporters, tough luck for you.
The petitioners are asking a federal court in Pendleton, in eastern Oregon, either to make a “declaratory judgment that … 114 is unconstitutional on its face” or issue an injunction.
After Election Day, Oregon’s gun grabbers in state government announced that instead of the new law being enforced 30 days after the election results had been declared, the Leftists decided that it would go into effect 30 days after Election Day. Since 2021, Oregon has allowed mail-in ballots to count if they are postmarked by Election Day. It takes days or weeks to tally the vote.
That means people who want to buy weapons before the regulatory iron curtain comes down on gun purchases will have an even shorter period to buy them.
The decision took the measure’s supporters by surprise, according to The Oregonian. It certainly surprised gun rights advocates in Oregon.
Measure 114’s chief cheerleader, Pastor Mark Knutson, a longtime Leftist activist in Portland, helped create a group called “Lift Every Voice” to push the measure. He cloaked the campaign in a thin veneer of religiosity and hoped no one would notice his long-time naked partisanship. “Never underestimate what can come from a church basement, a synagogue, a mosque or a temple,” he said, alluding to the support of rights rather than removing them.
The group’s website cites no other organizations pushing for the banishment of guns, which are prolific in Oregon, and is funded by Michael Bloomberg’s coffers. Knutson, wearing a clerical collar and vestments, was the public face of the movement and vowed that its anti-gun measure “would reduce suicides — which account for 82% of gun deaths in the state — mass shootings and other gun violence,” according to the AP.
The video below shows Knutson clapping and nodding behind Tai Carpenter, the leader of the local BLM-related group Don’t Shoot Portland, as she declares there’s no such thing as “peaceful protests” and calls for violence. Carpenter’s profane rant came in 2020, during Portland’s BLM and Antifa riots. “There’s no f*cking such thing as peaceful protest. That is an exercise in All Lives Matter bullsh*t, and it’s not gonna stand. There is no peaceful protest!” proclaimed Carpenter. “Black lives matter, f*ck the peaceful protests.”
The upshot: Oregon Leftist Antifa and BLM-types have made a cottage industry of going after free speech rights. Having made that mainstream, they’re now going for the guns. And these people aren’t on your side. And they don’t care about the Constitution.
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