As some of you may be aware, there is a battle going on in Oregon (where I live) related to gun ownership. The article I’ve referenced below pretty much spells out what’s happening.
Firearms Sales Explode in Oregon
I know that some of my readers are totally anti-gun, but for those of you who may own and/or use one (or many), what are your thoughts related to the recent measure that was voted on and approved by over 50% of Oregonians? (This Wikipedia article provides more detail on what the measure includes.)
Is it reasonable? Does it, as some claim, violate the Second Amendment? Supporters of the measure say it will reduce violent crimes, accidental deaths, and/or suicide. Do you agree? If such a measure were passed in your community, would it make you feel more or less safe?
Since I live with someone who is a (multi) gun-owner and is STRONGLY against this measure, any conversation on the matter is verboten. Thus, I’m turning to my readers for input since I think most of you live elsewhere and therefore are not directly affected by the measure.
I look forward to some non-emotional and well-reasoned opinions and feedback.
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Image by Ivorytowers from Pixabay
Nan's Notebook 
Hello Nan. I read the article and wit the exception of the fingerprinting that stuff was done back in the 1970’s when I was a kid. When you bought a gun you had to go to a class put on by the NRA, yes that same NRA that later turned evil. On small ammo magazine, when I was on the range doing our yearly qualifying we only used 10 round clips. We were taught to control the weapon, not let it control us. We were taught to place the shot where it would do the most good, not just fling rounds down range. When I carried a gun for a living we carried Glocks with only 15 rounds in the clips. There simply is no reason or need for the huge ammo clips. So as you might guess I support the law. I was catching up on JoeMyGod a few minutes ago and two young police officers living together were playing videos games when one picked up a gun and pointed it at the other and said if this gun was loaded you would be dead and pulled the trigger. And yes the gun was load. Trained police who can not handle guns safely, how do we expect the general public? Hugs
https://www.joemygod.com/2022/12/florida-sheriff-cop-accidentally-killed-cop-roommate/
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For the most part, all that training you received when you were young has disappeared. I think there are a few states that still require it, but emphasize FEW. Certainly not Oregon!!
In this state, pretty much anyone who wants a gun can buy one. There are some regulations related to age:, but even those have loopholes. NO training is required. Concealed carry is permitted (with license), but NO license is required to open carry. IOW, the state is a mini-Wild West.
This new measure will put in place SOME restrictions and the gun owners are going NUTS!! ANY measure/law/ordinance is seen as a direct attack on “their rights.” And, speaking from direct experience, they can get VERY emotional!
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Hello Nan. Any restrictions are seen as an attack on their rights no matter how slight or for what reason, but what about the rights of the rest of us to live without the fear of being shot every time we leave our homes? Don’t we have rights also? Don’t we have the right to “life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness”? Or is it only gun owners that have rights, just as Christians seem to think only they have rights to say what is acceptable in society / the public square. Hugs
OT. I have been hit or miss on the comments for two days. Lot happening and I have been spending too much of the day and night in bed. I see I need to pull myself together to handle things. Hugs
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For the most part, average citizens are SOL when it comes to “rights.” Special interest groups almost always have the upper hand … and unfortunately, the current SC members provide many of them with leverage.
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I’m not a gun owner, and I have no interest in owning a gun.
I don’t object to others wanting guns. But I do see a need for reasonable limitations. And the new Oregon law looks pretty reasonable to me.
I do not see that new law as violating the constitution. However, the current right-wing ideologican supreme court might see it differently.
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Scottie summed it up pretty good, lol, from about as far away from it as can be.
I’ve never thought it was a good idea to amass weaponry and declare yourself intent upon overthrowing the government. Far better to just make yourself comfortable, settle back on your sack of seeds, and let them get their asses shot off. Keep your powder dry.
Of course, the sound you don’t hear is me jackin’ a round into my well-oiled AR.
Most of what you’re hearing about it is manufactured hysteria, customized, choreographed herd the herdable into manufactured outrage. There really isn’t anything in there that would prevent just about anyone from buying handgun (for snakes) or even a good heavy caliber huntin’ rifle.
I told you, don’t call me a liberal. I just don’t think civilians need to be packing weapons of War. You don’t have to be a peace-freak to be against War …
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Yep! What you said about manufactured hysteria is spot-on!
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As I say, I think it best the less said the better, it’s how I was raised. I was raised different. You know I grew up just a stone’s throw to the east of you, just over the mountains, the fourth of now eight generations there. Real Ma and Pa Kettle stuff. M’ g’da taught me, not quite sixty years ago, “all you’ll ever need is a good huntin’ rifle and handgun.” Everything else is just for show. Hear a lot about penis compensation these days, I say it’s so. The manufactured hysteria feeds it, but at heart they’re cowards; cucks, candy-asses, and they know it. Just don’t have what they think it takes down there, and they compensate with guns and jacked-up trucks.
All that said, the less said the better …
A number of years ago I posted where I actually stand on guns, it’s on my blogroll:
“Guns don’t kill people. People kill people.” Well no shit Sherlock.
We want mandatory safety classes for people, not guns.
We want more background checks of people, not guns.
We want stricter negligence penalties imposed on people, not guns.
If you’re stupid enough to think activists are pissed off at guns, you’re too stupid to own one.
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All seems reasonable to me…background check…What the hell is wrong with that! Permit simply proves there’s been a
check and are a reliable gun owner and a safety class. Well who wouldn’t want to do that for themselves and their family’s safety. I don’t see the big deal.
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The “big deal” is some gun-owners think we should live like people did a few hundred years back. You know … the “Old West” mentality. And they take all of these “regulations” VERY personally … and I mean that in the fullest definition of the word.
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I just can’t figure out what is the objection to common sense that would help everyone. A responsible gun owner could still have all the guns they want
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To those who see gun ownership as their “constitutional” right, ANY restriction that might alter even a small iota of their ability to own any and all the guns they want is a justifiable cause for an uprising. Common sense has left the stage.
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They do not go far enough and how seriously will they be implemented by those that are against them? What will stop people going to another state to buy their weapons or get someone who lives in another state to buy them? There has to be rules that cannot be circumnavigated or abused. It appears that before the laws come in people are loading up with all the guns they will ever need. Registration of every gun owner and every gun they possess will be the only way for authorities to know who owns them especially after a crime is committed. The safe storage of guns needs to be strongly regulated, no good keeping them in a locker, a safe made of quality steel protects them from thieves and from children’s hands.
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I am a gun owner and hunter and I wouldn’t have a problem with any of that. Most of it seems to be common sense. I’ve already gone through firearms training of various types and I wouldn’t want to own or use a firearm without proper training. Background checks and all of that? I’ve had to go through background checks many times as a condition of employment for various jobs and even for volunteer positions I’ve held, including being finger printed. Again, not a problem.
Look, you need to go through extensive training, testing and have to hold a special license to just drive a car or other motor vehicle because cars are dangerous and you need to have certain skills in order to drive one relatively safely. But firearms, which are designed from the ground up to do one thing, kill, those you can buy without any training, without proving you aren’t a danger to yourself and others, those you can buy and even carry around without training and licensing? How does that make any sense at all?
Will this law survive a court challenge? No way in hell. Modern interpretations of the 2nd amendment will shut this down fast.
And there are some valid concerns here. As someone else pointed out, there is nothing here to prevent people from simply buying guns outside of the state and bringing them into Oregon. The state can’t set up checkpoints at every road, bus terminal, airport and train station and search everyone coming into the state. They can’t prevent someone from just buying a gun outside the state and shipping it to themselves.
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Keywords in your comment: Most of it seems to be common sense. . Of course it does! But a very large contingent of folks in this state (mostly in the more rural areas) take it VERY personally. And NO amount of reasoning is going to change their minds.
What continues to baffle me is how these folk think it has anything to do with the Second Amendment. The measure is NOT taking away their right to “bear arms.” It’s merely putting some common sense restrictions on WHO gets to “bear arms.”
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Yes, if a person wants something bad enough, they can find devious ways to get it. But if these laws saved one life in say 1000 or 10000, I believe the families members would be grateful, even though they’d never know it, as the act would not have happened.
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maryplumbago – I agree completely. The leading cause of death among children in this country is firearms. More kids are killed by guns than by car accidents, disease, etc. All told, in 2020, the last year I could find statistics for, more than 45,ooo people were killed by firearms. If that many people, that many children, were killed by any other commercially available product the entire population of the country would rise up to condemn the manufacturers and demand Congress do something about it.
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BUT … we have the Second Amendment and THAT is all that’s important. Right? And all the gun owners shouted … RIGHT! (Well, maybe not all of them … 😉)
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BACKGROUND CHECKS!!!!??? I mean, COME ON!!!! Look, just because I’m a criminally insane lunatic who’s threatened repeatedly to kill as many people as I can with as many weapons as I can, I should NOT have to submit myself to the degradation of a friggin’ background check just to buy weapons! This is cruel and it’s against my rights! How dare Oregon’s citizens vote to do something like this. I have RIGHTS, damn it all to Hades! And if the voices in my head tell me to buy guns to protect myself from the lizard-skinned aliens out there who want to eat me, I need to able to buy the guns easily. This country stinks! Background checks my backside! Thank Jeebus I can still go to Texas or Florida and purchase guns easily to keep myself safe from those who want me to submit to background checks. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to fight the good fight and free ‘Murica from the tyranny of Hunter Biden’s laptop by hunting it down and shooting it smack dab between its evil, woke, libtard eyes!!! $Amen$
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Oh Jeff! I so appreciate your humor on this!! The tension here is palpable so it definitely helps to be reminded of the idiocy behind the whole gun issue in this country.
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Oh, and FYI, I’d rather be a werewolf than a vampire cause werewolves are way cooler. Ok?!
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Werewolves suck. Vampires are the way to go. Better wardrobe and they don’t slobber all over the furniture the way you werewolves do.
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Good points, but werewolves are better suited for important jobs like…..you know, US senator cause they can come out in the daylight and they do as their handlers tell them to do.
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Very sensible of the Oregonians! And it doesn’t violate the Second Amendment. That amendment addresses the right to bear “arms,” with the kinds of arms not specified. There are myriad laws banning particular arms from public use. Nuclear weapons? Not allowed. RPGs? No allowed. Tanks with cannons? No allowed. Automatic weapons, including Vulcanesque cannons? Not allowed. Fully automatic AR-15s? Not allowed.
It is all about where we draw the line and who should be drawing that line? We the people, that is who, and in Oregon, the people did.
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Yes, SOME of the people in Oregon drew the line, but only by a slim majority. And the fight being waged by the “other” people may, in the end, win out. Regrettably.
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it is time to beat all ALL ALL OF THEM guns and ammo and bombs and bazookas into plowshares. how mmuch death is enough?
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I think your new law is minimal in comparrison to Finland, where I live, and yet we are not ruled by tyranny. For example, this law of yours does not dictate, that one has to have a presentable reason to own a gun – such as hunting, or a membership in “well regulated militia”, as the 2nd amendment your costitution clearly demands as an acceptable reason to own a gun. In that sense it is “unconstitutional”, but I guess that is not an exeption, when the Supreme Court judges have proven to be illiterate concerning the constitution for generations.
The hi-cap magazine restriction in semi-automatics appears a bit funny, but if it is based on some study, that the average school shooter, or similar individual attempting a suicide by proxy, is likely to seriously stumble with their magazine changes, it may be reasonable. However, to anyone with military training (wich includes almost the entire adult male population here) that should not be much of a hindrance.
I am sorry to hear you can not discuss this with your partner. Whose input could perhaps open up what seems to be the problem on why so many see such laws as bad. Your partner, nor most gun owners, are in any danger of losing their guns, or the right to purchase any more of them due to having criminal backround, or being unable to pass a safety courses? So, what exactly are they against? Why would any sane person stand against any restrictions of selling guns to mentally unstable individuals, or known criminals? I cannot understand this.
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In this country, there is a segment of gun owners who take their “gun rights” VERY seriously! ANY law that is designed to restrict ANY part of owning one is adamantly opposed.
To them, it’s all VERY personal.
IMO, many gun owners remind me of some Republicans (not all). Very self-centered and interested only in what makes them happy. To hell with everyone else.
You are fortunate to live in a country where the citizens use common sense.
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Well, in this case the common sense was used before my time, when they simply had to. Finland had suffered a bloody civil war and nobody wanted it to happen again. Then we had two ferocious wars with the Soviets, wich resulted in plenty of traumatized veterans, who could not treat themselves by other means than overconsumption of alcohol – a problem, that remains after generations. There were also a lot of military grade weapons, pistols, rifles, machine pistols and machine guns (with hi-cap magazines all) and even hand grenades unaccounted for. Some of those were purposefully hidden by officers, because the Finns did not trust Stalin. This combination proved deadly, especially for a number of police officers called to settle domestic disturbances, where the blind drunk veteran had driven their family out in winter time (a murderous act in itself in our climate) and started to shoot at everything that moved with the ease and precision of a trained and experienced killer. (The kill ratio between Finns and Soviets was very high, despite that the Soviets had air dominance, more artillery and the Finns were under strict ammo conservation rules, ie. Many men had looked into eyes of a number of enemies they had killed.)
There has always been plenty of hunting weapons here and unlike in Western Europe there traditionally were no restrictions to weapons based on social status.
It was just, that at some point something had to be done.
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Just my take on some of the aspects of this law:
1. Training – I think it’s absolutely insane that virtually anyone can purchase a firearm in the United States, and have no training at all on it’s use, safety, or storage. Training on the safe ownership, usage, and storage, of firearms ought to be mandatory for gun ownership.
2. High capacity magazine ban – Is practically useless. I really don’t see much difference between somebody carrying a mag with 100 rounds, or 10 mags of 10 rounds. Reloading a modern weapon is quick and easy, and if you know what you’re doing it’s a minimal amount of down time.
3. A state level law doesn’t do much when state borders are so porous. If somebody wants a gun they’ll go to a neighboring state and buy one, and then bring it home.
Given that being involved in domestic violence seems to be one of the best predictors of gun violence, the US should be doing more to target people with any history of DV from purchasing or owning firearms. Violence, or even threatening violence, against your coworkers, your domestic partner, your children, neighbors, etc, should immediately red-flag your ability to purchase firearms and ammunition. At this point, with the flood of guns the US has, trying to keep them out of the hands of these people may be about the best you’re going to get unless people wake up and finally throw away the 2nd amendment.
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I agree, however, about the 2nd amendment, it really does not read, or even imply any sort of limitless right to bear arms, other than in case the citizen is joining a “well regulated militia”. That actually means the very opposite of how it has been interpreted by generations and even the US Supreme Court. It demands the citizens to be controlled by the states not to carry guns other than for purposes of defence of the country and only when they are organized and regulated by the state. The text itself (all versions of it) leave little room for other interpretations, but I guess this is just a nother example of how easily people decieve others and especially themselves. What I find curious, is how this is not even discussed in a society, where nobody seems to have actually read the text – a bit like Christians and the Bible. They all have heard bits and pieces quoted, perhaps read some later work trying to explain inconvenient content away, but have not read the damn thing, they present as authorative.
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I sooo wish people in this country were as clear-sighted as you about the Second Amendment. But years of “interpretation” by the gun industry has completely rewritten it in the minds of the general populace.
It’s really a shame that your words can’t reach a wider audience! But then again, the folks here have been so brainwashed, they would probably say that since you’re from another country, you simply don’t/can’t understand.
GREAT comment!!
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Training is an absolutely must. I don’t live in a country where guns are prevalent and I don’t want to be anywhere near guns, but if I had to, I’d be horrified that mandatory training and robust background checks weren’t a thing. I’d be terrified that people were running around with powerful semi-automatic weapons, without any respect for what such weapons are capable of. I wouldn’t be thrilled to be around people with handguns, who also failed to appreciate their firepower. The high-capacity mag ban is a must too. Untrained civilians running around with near-military grade firepower is insane.
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I don’t even live in America, but I am anti-gun. The facts speak for themselves.
*More guns than people in the US.
*Most gun deaths per head of population than anywhere else.
*More mass shootings than in any other country.
Take away the guns, and you significantly reduce the problem overnight. It really is as simple as that.
Best wishes from England, Pete.
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If you’ve read some of the comments, Pete, you’ll see there are others who feel the same.
Since I live with a gun person who enjoys target shooting (but also has somewhat of an arsenal that he really doesn’t need!), to express any kind of anti-gun sentiment might get me killed! (JUST KIDDING!!)
In any case, I do agree there are MUCH better ways to handle the issue than our “Second Amendment.”
BTW, Welcome! Nice to have you aboard.
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Thanks, Nan. I do not comment on religious posts, as I am an atheist. But I will drop in occasionally to read others without a religious theme.
Best wishes, and Happy Christmas. (Don’t gift him another gun though… 🙂 )
Pete.
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Not to worry on that last comment!!!
Most of my regular readers/visitors are also atheists … and I myself am a non-believer … so you might actually enjoy some my “religious” posts. 🙂 Always your choice.
Happy Holidays to you and yours as well.
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