Reasonable people can disagree about the value of charter
schools, the benefits of energy deregulation or whether the
weight-mile tax is the best way to charge trucking companies
for their use of public roads.
Reasonable people can disagree about the role of local
option taxes for schools, or the need to designate a state
mushroom, or even whether Pope & Talbot deserves a $1
million tax loophole.
Reasonable people can even disagree about the value of
parental notification for abortion or how much money the
state should spend on K-12 education.
No matter how hard we try, we cannot comprehend how any
reasonable person could object to requiring background checks
for gun sales at gun shows.
Yet 15 members of the Oregon Senate did just that last
Friday when they defeated House Bill 2535, thus vaporizing
all but the thinnest of hopes that a sizeable loophole in
Oregon's gun laws would be closed.
Convicted felons and certain mentally ill people may not
possess a gun. That's state law. State law also requires
that gun dealers run instant background checks, using an
Oregon State Police database, so that they do not sell a
firearm to those people.
But a good percentage of guns are sold at gun shows, where
non-licensed "collectors" sell all kinds of firearms. Currently,
they are not required to perform background checks.
It's as if brain surgery had to be performed by licensed
physicians at two-thirds of the hospitals in the state,
but at the other third, any garage mechanic could open up
your skull and poke around.
HB 2535 would have required that anyone who sells guns
where 25 or more guns are on display or anyone who sells
more than 25 guns in a year perform background checks. As
a compromise to make the bill palatable to the gun lobby,
HB 2535 even offered gun sellers legal immunity from civil
liability if it turned out that a firearm they sold was
used in a crime.
What could possibly be more acceptable than this bill?
There really is no need to utter the emotionally charged
names of communities that have been forever transformed
by shootings.
There is also no need to argue that HB 2535 was anything
more ambitious than a small step to bring gun shows into
compliance with existing law.
Yet somehow, some way, 15 members of the Oregon Senate,
packing themselves into the Teflon-coated shell of the Second
Amendment, disgraced themselves and the rest of Oregon by
defeating this bill.
Republican Sens. Gene Derfler, Ted Ferrioli, Bill Fisher,
Gary George, Lenn Hannon, John Lim, Randy Miller, David
Nelson, Eileen Qutub, Marylin Shannon, Charles Starr, Veral
Tarno and Eugene Timms and Democrats Mae Yih and Thomas
Wilde soiled the honor of the state they claim to serve
and made it clear that even on matters that should be transparently
non-partisan, small-mindedness comes before statesmanship.
It's hard not to see this vote as a reflection of deep
flaws in each of their characters.
It will also be interesting to see how these men and women
will explain this vote to their constituents.
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Willamette Week | originally
published July 21, 1999 |
