Oregon Firearm Storage and Transfer Initiative (2020)

Oregon Firearm Storage and Transfer Initiative
Election date November 3, 2020
Topic Firearms
Status Not on the ballot
Type State statute	Origin Citizens
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The Oregon Firearm Storage and Transfer Initiative was not on the ballot in Oregon as an initiated state statute on November 3, 2020.

Measure design

This measure would have provided regulations regarding firearms and assigned classes of violations to each potential infraction. The measure would have done the following:

• required firearms to be secured in a container with tamper-resistant locks and a trigger or cable lock engaged unless being carried by the owner;
• required firearms to remain with a trigger or cable lock engaged or in a container with tamper-resistant locks when being transferred; and
• required firearm owners to report lost or stolen firearms to a law enforcement agency in the jurisdiction in which the loss or theft occurred within 24 hours of discovering the loss or theft.

The measure specified that by January 1, 2021, the Oregon Health Authority would have needed to adopt temporary rules establishing specifications for trigger locks, cable locks, and containers with tamper-resistant locks. According to the measure, by July 1, 2021, the attorney general would have needed to adopt permanent rules establishing specifications for trigger locks, cable locks, and containers with tamper-resistant locks.

The text of the measure stated, "This measure has no effect on what guns you can own or purchase and does not make any changes to who can own guns. Nothing in this measure allows police to come into your home to inspect how your guns are stored."

Text of measure

Ballot title

The certified ballot title would have been as follows:

“

Requires locking firearm/using locked storage (exceptions), reporting loss, supervising minors' use. Penalties/strict liability

”

Full text

The full text can be read here.

Support

State of Safety Action was the sponsor of the measure.

Opposition

• National Rifle Association

Arguments

• Keely Hopkins, state director for National Rifle Association-Institute for Legislative Action, State and Local Affairs, said, "This intrusive initiative invades people's homes and forces them to render their firearms useless in an emergency self-defense situation. Furthermore, the imposition of strict liability for injuries resulting as long as four years after a violation—without regard for mental state or the intervening criminal and negligent acts of another—raises significant due process concerns."

Background

2018 initiative

The sponsors of this initiative filed a similar initiative targeting the 2018 ballot, though it failed to qualify. Oregonians for Safe Gun Storage led the campaign in support of the 2018 initiative. The group described itself as "galvanized by the continuing epidemic of gun violence." According to a statement from the group, the two chief petitioners, Jenna Yuille and Paul Kemp, both lost family members in the shooting at Clackamas Town Center in 2012. The group said that the individual responsible for the shooting gained unauthorized access to a gun that the owner had failed to safely store.

Path to the ballot

See also: Laws governing the initiative process in Oregon

The state process

In Oregon, the number of signatures required to qualify an initiated state statute for the ballot is equal to 6 percent of the votes cast for governor in the most recent gubernatorial election. Signatures for Oregon initiatives must be submitted four months prior to the next regular general election. State law also requires paid signature gatherers to submit any signatures they gather every month.

Moreover, Oregon is one of several states that require a certain number of signatures to accompany an initiative petition application. The signatures of at least 1,000 electors are required to trigger a review by state officials, a period of public commentary, and the drafting of a ballot title. Prior to gathering these initial 1,000 signatures, petitioners must submit the text of the measure, a form disclosing their planned use of paid circulators, and a form designating up to three chief petitioners. The 1,000 preliminary signatures count toward the final total required.

The requirements to get an initiated state statute certified for the 2020 ballot:

• Signatures: 112,020 valid signatures were required.
• Deadline: The deadline to submit signatures was July 2, 2020.

In Oregon, signatures are verified using a random sample method. If a first round of signatures is submitted at least 165 days before an election and contains raw, unverified signatures at least equal to the minimum requirement, but verification shows that not enough of the submitted signatures are valid, additional signatures can be submitted prior to the final deadline.

Details about this initiative

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• Henry Wessinger, Vincenza Passalacqua (also known as Jenna Yuille), and Paul Kemp filed the initiative petition with the Oregon Secretary of State on July 18, 2019.
• The sponsors of the measure, State of Safety Action, submitted 2,000 sponsorship signatures on September 18, 2019, triggering the ballot language drafting process.
• The sponsors of the initiative filed an appeal to the Oregon Supreme Court regarding the drafted ballot title on November 25, 2019. On March 5, the Oregon Supreme Court ruled that the draft ballot title did not comply with statutory requirements and must be redrafted by the Oregon Attorney General.
• Henry Wessinger, who filed the petition on behalf of State of Safety Action, announced that the campaign would not begin circulating the initiative petition after receiving a ballot title on March 20. Wessinger said, "We’ve made what is a disappointing, but I think correct, decision to not proceed with signature gathering on IP 40."
• The initiative was not cleared for circulation.

See also

2020 measures

• 2020 ballot measures
• Firearms on the ballot

Oregon

• Oregon ballot measures
• Oregon ballot measure laws

News and analysis

• Ballot measure lawsuits
• Ballot measure readability
• Ballot measure polls

External links

• Initiative 40 full text