Note: Some clickbait websites are reporting that this a bill to ban pepper spray and stun guns. This is incorrect. These items are mentioned in the bill, but only in relation to the inside of courthouses.
A group of eight Oregon State Senators, all of them Democrats, filed Senate Bill 554. The bill authorizes any city, county, metropolitan service district, port, airport, school district, college, or university to limit or preclude “affirmative defense” for possession of a firearm by a concealed carry permit holder.
In other words, they can ban permit holders from taking their lawfully concealed guns inside certain buildings. Of course, government buildings routinely have signs stating that concealed handguns are banned anyway. What this bill actually does is expand the legal definition of a building, passenger terminal, or airport to include the “adjacent grounds.” The definition of schools, colleges, and universities would include “all real property.”
It also makes it a class C felony to have a lawfully concealed handgun in the wrong place. Violators would face up to five years in prison and up to a $125k fine.
So imagine you are walking through Portland from point A to point B. You have a lawfully concealed handgun. You never enter a building of any kind, but you repeatedly commit a class C felony just by walking past the wrong places. Imagine the kind of minefield this would create for the public.
This bill’s true aim seems to be an attempt to intimidate people from getting a concealed carry permit in the first place.
The bill would also make it more challenging to obtain a concealed carry permit and increase the fees involved. It would raise the initial fee from $50 to $100, plus a new $75 fee every four years to renew.
Currently, Oregon is experiencing daily Antifa violence and has fast-rising homicide rates. Antifa routinely carries many of the weapons described and often uses them to commit violent assaults, which already constitutes a felony. Yet, only a tiny fraction of the Antifa who are arrested in Oregon are ever prosecuted.
Yet, these State Senators want to disarm law-abiding citizens as violent crime is rising.
