Texas massacre boosts push for Oregon gun-safety ballot initiative
SALEM, ORE. » When Raevahnna Richardson spotted a woman standing outside a library in Salem, Oregon, gathering signatures for a gun-safety initiative, she made a beeline to her and added her name.
“I signed it to keep our kids safe, because something needs to change. I have a kid that’s going to be in first grade this upcoming season, and I don’t want her to have to be scared at school,” Richardson said.
“To keep our kids safe.” It’s something that so many parents across the United States are worried about after the horrific massacre of 19 children and two teachers in Uvalde, Texas. That mass shooting has given the Oregon ballot initiative huge momentum, with the number of volunteers doubling to 1,200 and signatures increasing exponentially, organizers said.
With the U.S. Senate unlikely to pass a “red flag” bill and the majority of state legislatures having taken no action on gun safety in recent years, or moving in the opposite direction, activists see voter-driven initiatives as a viable alternative.
“To get really strong action at this moment in time, it’s going to take people in a democracy to exercise that democratic right to get on the ballot and get it voted for,” said the Rev. Mark Knutson, a chief petitioner of the Oregon initiative.
If the initiative gets on the ballot and it passes, anyone wanting to acquire a firearm would first have to get a permit, valid for five years, from local law enforcement after completing safety training, passing a criminal background check and meeting other requirements. The measure would ban ammunition magazines over 10 rounds, except for current owners, law enforcement and the military, and the state police would create a firearms database.
The age range of those gathering signatures from registered voters runs from middle-schoolers to a 94-year-old, Knutson said. Volunteers are ensconced in a room at Augustana Lutheran Church in Portland, sorting through baskets of envelopes containing mailed-in signatures.
The National Rifle Association’s Institute for Legislative Action has already come out strongly against the initiative, saying on its website that “these antigun citizens are coming after YOU, the law-abiding firearm owners of Oregon, and YOUR guns. They don’t care about the Constitution, your right to keep and bear arms, or your God-given right of self-defense.”
Oregon appears to be the only state in America with a gun safety initiative underway for the 2022 election, according to Sean Holihan, state legislative director for Giffords, an organization dedicated to saving lives from gun violence.
Knutson, though, says the effort in Oregon “can start to build hope across the nation for others to do the same.”
Voters in two predominantly Democratic neighboring states have already passed gun safety ballot measures.
In 2018, Washington state voters approved restrictions on the purchase and ownership of firearms, including raising the minimum purchasing age to 21, adding background checks and increasing waiting periods. In 2016, voters there overwhelmingly approved a measure authorizing courts to issue extreme risk protection orders to remove an individual’s access to firearms.
California voters in 2016 passed a measure prohibiting the possession of largecapacity ammunition magazines and requiring certain individuals to pass a background check to buy ammunition.