Oregon citizens to vote on strictest gun law in the country

By Maddie Snyder ‘26

On September 23, 2022, 26-year-old Austin, Texas native Erika Evans was shot and killed just after 11:10 PM in Wallace Park in northwest Portland. The neighbors living around the park were shocked and confused by the murder. For as long as the residents could remember, the park has been a safe place to live around. To them, the shooting is a sign that Portland is changing for the worse.

“We are on track to have more homicides in Portland than ever. The record was made last year and we’re already on track to beat that record,” said Rabbi Michael Cahana.

Cahana is a member of Lift Every Voice Oregon, a group that is pushing Oregon citizens to vote for Measure 114, a gun reform bill.

The measure will require gun permits to be issued by local law enforcement. In order to apply for a permit, someone would need to submit a photo ID and fingerprints. They would also need to go through safety training, a criminal background check, and pay a fee.

The bill will also make the manufacturing, purchasing, selling, possessing or use of ammunition magazines holding 10 or more rounds illegal. The Department of State Police would also be able to deny a permit to an applicant believed to be a danger to themselves or others.

The bill has been almost 4 years in the making. Cahana along with other religious leaders around Portland started the group Lift Every Voice Oregon shortly after the Parkland High School shooting in 2018. The group would conduct interfaith services after mass shootings would occur around the country. After the shootings kept happening Cahana expressed that he was fed up. “Thoughts and prayers were really nice but it’s not enough.”

The group along with a legal team wrote up the measure back in 2019. Due to the pandemic, which stopped the process of the bill entirely, it will finally be on the ballot through the Oregon Initiative Process this November. The process makes it so that citizens can introduce bills to be voted on in an election instead of just the elected officials making the laws. Twenty-Two other states also have an initiative process similar to Oregon’s.

The contents of the bill make it the strictest on the table in the nation right now. If passed, Oregon would have the most gun reform out of any state in the United States. Although, the nature of the Oregon Initiative process means that the Oregonians will decide on whether they want to be that state.

But the people who can’t vote in November were the people who had the largest impact on the bill’s creation, Cahana claims. “We were inspired by the Parkland kids really.” Although teenagers across the country were the inspiration for the bill it was local kids who made the largest difference. To get the bill on the ballot it needed signatures from people, and Cahana stated that teenagers were the main volunteers who went out and collected signatures from citizens.

Although the bill got the support it needed to be on the ballot this November, not everyone is for it. Critics of the bill say that it infringes on the second amendment.

The National Rifle Association (NRA) has been outspoken in disagreement with the measure. “Under the guise of the Reduction of Gun Violence Act, Ballot Measure 114 is an unconstitutional, anti-gun initiative package that includes a state-run government registry of gun owners’ personal information and firearms,” they state on their website about the bill.

Many have critiqued the inclusion of state law enforcement in the bill. To possess a firearm in the state of Oregon, the permit application would have to pass through the local state police.

Groups on social media, especially Twitter, have called out the bill for putting power and funding into the hands of the police. Many have called the bill racist, ableist, and transphobic, saying that the police could deny someone a permit to own a gun based on a personal prejudice.

Although the measure and the state is under national attention, and has received both supporters and detractors, Cahana is hopeful. He believes that the bill will help to stop the rising gun violence in Oregon and serve as an example for the rest of the country.

According to Johns Hopkins professor, Daniel Webster, who was recently interviewed by KOIN 6, gun legislation, like Ballot Measure 114, will support a drop in homicides. Daniel Webster, a professor at John Hopkins was recently interviewed by Koin 6. In the interview he said, “We have other studies where we looked at urban counties throughout the states, we estimated an 11% lower rate of firearm homicides associated with these types of laws.”

When asked about why Cahana himself felt so passionately about the bill, he said “We don't have to just sit around and say nobody is doing anything. We are a part of nobody if we're not doing something.” Cahana expressed that he is hopeful of the bill's chances in November.