Gun control measure blocked by Oregon Supreme Court

Mail Tribune (Medford, OR — Wayback)

2018-06-28

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SALEM — The Oregon Supreme Court has temporarily blocked a high-profile gun control initiative just over a week before a key deadline, likely stopping it from making the November ballot and handing a second win to opponents including the National Rifle Association. Earlier court arguments over the measure had been expedited, but the ruling Wednesday triggered an ironclad timeline leaving at most one day for supporters to gather more than 88,000 signatures, and setting it up to become the second prominent gun control proposal to fail after court delays in the state this year. The measure, IP 43, proposes significantly restricting the sale and ownership of assault rifles and some types of pistols. The court found problems with its official description, however, and ruled that it must be revised before its supporters can begin gathering the signatures, which must be delivered no later than July 6 to qualify for the November ballot. But even if a revised version were returned immediately, state law requires a five-business-day reply period before the court can approve the new language. "The earliest the court could act is the morning of the sixth," said Phil Lemman, a spokesman for the Oregon Judicial Department. While courts were able to expedite earlier arguments over the measure using judicial rules, the five-business-day reply period is explicitly required by statute, Lemman added, meaning that it can't be changed. Supporters would have to gather and deliver 88,184 signatures to the secretary of state by 5:30 PM the same day, July 6, to get the measure on the ballot. Penny Okamoto, director of Ceasefire Oregon, a group that supports the measure, said she wasn't ready to admit defeat, but acknowledged meeting the deadline was unlikely. "We are planning to move forward, if not through IP43 then through another way," Okamoto said, listing legislative action in 2019 or a 2020 ballot measure as other possibilities. If it fails, the initiative will be the second high-profile gun control measure to have been blocked via court delays this year. Supporters last week halted efforts on another measure, IP 44, saying that even though they were able to overcome challenges to the proposal's language, doing so took up so much time that they wouldn't be able to gather the signatures to get it onto the ballot before the deadline. The measure would have required guns to be locked up in storage, and made owners liable if they were misused by someone who found them unlocked. Opponents including the NRA had joined legal challenges to both proposals. Neither the NRA nor the Oregon Firearms Federation, another group that opposed both measures, immediately returned calls seeking comment Wednesday.