Oregon passes gun control bill aimed at domestic abusers

Published 7:48 am Tuesday, April 3, 2018

A gun law that attempts to close the “boyfriend loophole” was approved by the Oregon Legislature at the behest of Gov. Kate Brown during its recent session. She signed the bill March 5.

In effect, the bill forbids convicted domestic abusers and stalkers of legally buying or owning firearms, even if they are not married to or living with the victim and they do not have children together. Those under a current restraining order are also under the same prohibition as are those convicted of stalking.

While both Oregon and federal law has general statutes limiting gun rights to those convicted of domestic violence, those laws had only covered relationships of those living in the same household as their victim.

In addition, the bill requires more enforcement of Oregon’s existing background checks on gun sales. Oregon State Police are now required to report those who fail a background check to local law enforcement for potential follow-up.

Deputy district attorney Rebecca Frolander, who prosecutes nearly all of the county’s domestic assault cases, said she is not opposed to the bill.

“We already had the qualifying misdemeanor domestic violence conviction that makes it a crime to possess weapons,” she said. “They added stalking, which I think is appropriate, because they’re of the same nature.”

She said that while she sees stalking cases, she gets a lot more information about similar behavior that doesn’t rise to the level of being able to prosecute.

“Stalking behavior is very, very dangerous,” she said, noting how it can be a marker of crimes of violence.

Frolander said that strong correlation is what makes her support the new bill.

“I believe that people who commit domestic violence crimes shouldn’t have guns, because it’s been proven that the lethality rate, once a gun his been introduced into a relationship where domestic violence has occurred, is about 500 times higher,” she said. “So I agree that if you have been convicted of domestic violence you shouldn’t have guns.”

Both Ore. Rep. Greg Barreto and Ore. Sen Bill Hansell voted against the bill. Hansell said that the day before the bill was to be heard on the senate floor, a group of his Republican colleagues worked with the National Rifle Association to craft a bill they could support.

“We said, ‘Look, guys. You’ve got to work with us on this.’ They worked into the evening for a compromise that would have had bipartisan support like we had last year on a gun bill,” Hansell said.

The Republican caucus knew the legislature was in short session, but asked Democrats to send the bill back to committee for more work. The Democrats did not agree. Hansell voted twice to send the bill back to committee — once to the judiciary committee and once to ways and means.

“I don’t know if they felt they didn’t have the time, but we were very much committed as a caucus to make it into a bipartisan bill,” Hansell said. “There were just a couple of things, and the NRA would have been neutral on it. Maybe they (Democrats) wanted it to be a political and a campaign issue, and that unfortunately happens.”

Although Hansell didn’t specify what Republicans and the NRA wanted to change about the bill, the senator called the bill as approved an infringement on Second Amendment rights.

“For me to vote to further restrict Second Amendment rights, it’s going to have to be a bipartisan bill, and when that happens, I’ll be happy to vote on it,” he said.

Rep. Barreto did not respond to repeated requests for comment.