Just hours before a federal court judge was to announce a ruling that may have temporarily halted implementation of Oregon’s new, onerous gun law, the state’s attorney general has cynically intervened.
Federal Judge Karin Immergut announced in court Friday that she’d likely decide whether to temporarily halt the implementation of the law on Monday. Plaintiffs in four lawsuits (and counting) argued that the law was clearly unconstitutional and unworkable. But on Sunday night, the Senior Deputy Assistant Attorney General Brian Simmonds Marshall sent Immergut a letter saying basically, hey, you know when I said the law was good to go for a Dec. 8 start? Oops.
Marshall wrote:
“After the Court’s December 2 hearing, the State learned from local law enforcement agencies that one element of the safety course—an “[i]n-person demonstration … before an instructor certified by a law enforcement agency,” Measure 114 … will not be available by December 8. Associations representing local law enforcement also informed the Court of this and other limitations that they perceive.”
Except that the AG always knew it was unworkable because the Sheriff’s organization and gun groups told them so.
There’s no website for the new permit requirements. There is no way for law enforcement to clear the approximately 34,000-person backlog in background checks before Dec. 8, which means that all of those people would have been required to start the process over under the new rules, likely making their purchases legally questionable.
Under the law, Oregon serfs must go through government gun school — which doesn’t exist yet — before being able to apply for a permit to buy a gun.
Just last week, of course, AG Ellen Rosenblum argued that “delaying Oregon’s voter-approved gun control Measure 114 would result in unnecessary deaths and ‘forestall Oregon’s effort to reduce the risk of a massacre within its borders,'” according to KATU. Now her office is asking for a pause because they’re not actually ready yet.
Truth from #Oregon. https://t.co/E39gW72lNJ
— WashingtonGunLaw (@GunWashington) December 5, 2022
Oregon Firearms Federation (OFF) Executive Director Kevin Starrett said in a statement that the letter was a “tacit admission that her chief lawyer (who assured the Judge on Friday that the permit system would be operational by Dec 8th) was, at very best, transparently and comically deceitful…” Indeed, Starrett called Measure 114 little more than an “overturned outhouse dumped in the laps of law enforcement by the bigots at ‘Lift Every Voice,'” the anti-gun group formed to push the measure.
Assistant AG Marshall tells the judge in his letter asking for a two-month pause on the onerous permitting process “that the Court should enter an order providing a limited window in which Oregonians will be able to purchase firearms even if they do not have a permit, while also allowing Oregonians to apply for and be issued permits.” But that’s a ruse, according to OFF.
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OFF’s lawyer, Leonard Williamson, said that the AG’s office move still asks for the magazine ban portion of the gun law to go into effect on Dec. 8. That part of the anti-gun law limits magazines to ten rounds. Williamson says that’s going to be a cluster, too.
“The AG is mistaken in that Plaintiffs challenging the magazine ban are not affected by their request to postpone implementation of the permit to purchase system. Presently OSP has 34,790 people waiting on the background check list waiting for a firearm, that they have already paid for, to clear the system. … Meaning if the ban on magazines takes effect on 12/8/22, and the permit system is suspended, the gun shop owners can not allow the customer to leave with their standard capacity magazines i.e., an unlawful government taking of property without due process. Second, what the government is saying is that gun dealers may only sell guns with magazines that only hold ten rounds. That is a very small group of firearms.”
Even the Oregon State Police (OSP), under the direct control of far Left Gov. Kate Brown, says it won’t have up a new “permit to purchase” website for at least a month.
And the permit process doesn’t only include questions about being a criminal or having mental issues. Wash. Gun Law attorney Bill Kirk says the state can ask you any questions and, if the powers that be decide they don’t like the answers, you may not be granted a permit. As he told me, in Oregon, a gun permit questionnaire could become a political litmus test.
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.
And, by the way, those permits sunset after five years, so one must get in line again, pay a fee, go through government gun school, and toe the line during those five years.
Where were you on January 6, 2021, by the way? Can you prove your whereabouts? Where do you go to church? Are there any Patriot Prayer/Proud Boys who go there? Do you hunt? With whom do you hunt?
Related: The Run on Guns and Legal Battle Begin After Oregon’s Gun Grab Passes
And things get dumber. Starrett says the bill is so wide-reaching that “even if the court complies with the AG’s request, most shotguns will still be illegal to transfer (or take out of your home assembled if you already own them).” So much for Joe Biden’s “buy a shotgun” advice.
Predictably, the Portland-centric anti-gun media has reported that there would be little problem enacting the Measure. They ignore the U.S. Constitution and the recent Bruen decision, the Oregon Constitution, the Oregon Sheriff’s Association, and pro-gun groups telling them another side of the story. But that was perfectly fine with them as they picked up their pom poms to cheerlead the gun grab.
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