Oregon Has Some of America’s Toughest Gun Laws. Gun Control Groups Still Want More.
The Oregon Capital Chronicle last Friday essentially—and almost certainly unintentionally—cracked the code on gun control, not just in the Beaver State, but pretty much across the board, especially for blue state politicians who just can’t acknowledge they’re on the wrong track.
Writing at the Chronicle, legislative reporter Mia Maldonado observed, “Oregon ranks as 12th in the nation for its gun safety laws, according to gun control advocacy group Everytown for Gun Safety.” Everytown’s ratings are based solely on the strictness of the laws, not necessarily whether they actually work to reduce violent crime.
Three paragraphs later, she notes, “And yet, Oregon has experienced four mass shootings this year, with the latest taking place on Oct. 15 when a 16-year-old gunman climbed over a school fence, fired a shotgun through the glass panels of locked doors at Silver Rail Elementary School in Bend and killed three children and a teacher before being tackled by another teacher and fatally shot by a local parent who followed him into the school.”
Her narrative goes on to explain—again probably unintentionally—that, “Despite having some of the strictest gun control laws in the country, some groups say Oregon needs to do more to protect Oregonians from gun violence.”
Albert Einstein is celebrated for having observed, “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.”
While contending that Einstein was wrong, Will Meek, PhD posted a report on Psych Central which inadvertently explained why Einstein was probably right, at least when it involves liberal gun prohibitionists now in charge in Oregon, and in neighboring Washington and California. He explains why some people keep doing the same thing, with the same outcome.
“Freud called this ‘repetition compulsion,’” Meek says.
Boiled down to plain English, the gun control crowd in Salem, as well as Olympia and Sacramento, and state capitals in New Jersey, New York, New Mexico, Maryland, Massachusetts, Connecticut and Illinois, doubles and even triples down on failed policies, insisting that if they just keep pushing restrictions on the Second Amendment, they will somehow prevent violent criminals from committing violent crimes. They are too stubborn to admit error, and too tied to a failed dogma.
Comedian Jay Leno perhaps said it best when he would ask, “How stupid is that?”
People who commit acts of violence, including a 16-year-olds armed with pump-action shotgun purchased by his mom, are not the least bit deterred by gun control laws, regardless how strict they happen to be. There it is, plain, simple, and brutally honest.
The Capital Chronicle report quotes Amie Wexler, executive director of the Portland-based Alliance for a Safe Oregon, attempting to defend the state’s failed gun control laws.
“Had the mom in this case known she had to undergo a safety course to get her weapon, maybe she would have known to secure her weapon,” Wexler argued. “She would have understood Oregon law better and not allowed unfettered access to a 16-year-old who had these nihilistic online tendencies.”
Wexler avoided the obvious: “And maybe not.”
The Oregon Supreme Court has yet to rule on the constitutionality of Measure 114, the extremist gun control measure passed four years ago, but which has not been implemented because it has been tied up in court. People in Bend, Umatilla, Pendleton, La Grande, Baker City, Redmond, Hood River, Klamath Falls, Burns and all places in between are wondering what’s taking so long?
Regardless the outcome of the midterm elections, the fundamental truth of Oregon’s problem—and Washington’s, California’s, New York’s, etc.—is that the gun control crusade has failed, and the facts, including the tragic shooting at Silver Rail Elementary, prove it.
Gun control may not be on any ballot outside of Massachusetts this year, but it definitely is in the background, so while some election results may not be revealed for several days, especially in states with mail-in voting, the outcome of elections in several states will most assuredly have a resulting impact on gun laws.
The nation will have to wait another month to get a hint about how the U.S. Supreme Court will rule on the consolidated cases of Viramontes v. Cook County (Illinois) and Grant v. Higgins (Connecticut), which are scheduled for oral argument on Wednesday, Dec. 2. An affirmative decision by the high court which nullifies bans on modern semiautomatic rifles will have a dramatic effect on even the most ardent gun prohibitionists. They won’t care what the Court decides, they want the public to get used to the notion that government can ban whole classes of firearms, regardless what the Second Amendment and more than 40 state constitutions say.
Still, Ms. Maldonado’s 959-word essay in the Oregon Capital Chronicle defined the real problem with gun control in Oregon and everywhere else. It has not prevented mass shootings anywhere, nor has it stopped criminals and crazy people from harming others, and it never will.
About Dave Workman
Dave Workman is a senior editor at TheGunMag.com and Liberty Park Press, author of multiple books on the Right to Keep & Bear Arms, and formerly an NRA-certified firearms instructor.
