05.22.17

The legislature’s three leading gun grabbers have introduced yet another omnibus anti-gun bill. This one, SB 1065 includes language from several previous anti-gun bills that died due to a procedural error made by Floyd Prozanski, a sponsor of this bill.

The bill is a 26 page monstrosity, but here are the lowlights.

Among many other things this bill does, it nearly quintuples the length of time the State Police can deny you a firearms transfer with no cause.

It also drastically complicates the process for getting a concealed handgun license . Online classes will be prohibited unless the class is provided by the NRA or an “Oregon law enforcement agency or association. “

There are currently many other online class options for CHL courses. This bill would prohibit them all and give an almost exclusive online monopoly to NRA and the Oregon State Sheriffs Association.

(It’s interesting to note that several years ago, NRA informed its instructors that if instructors offered their own online classes they risked having their certification revoked. More recently NRA changed their rules so that NRA classes could only be completed by students who took the NRA’s online class. Even more recently, NRA reversed course again and agreed to allow certified NRA instructors to give complete NRA classes.)

The bill also requires live fire, something many NRA instructors are not in a position to offer, and it requires “training in the safe loading, unloading, storing and carrying of handguns and information on Oregon and relevant federal laws governing the lawful use of a firearm, including self-defense, the use of force, including deadly force, and the transportation and concealment of handguns.”

While NRA instructors should certainly be qualified to train in loading, unloading and carrying of handguns, (and we hope this would be a normal part of any class), very few are qualified to teach Oregon laws and, in fact, NRA discourages instructors from getting into a discussion of statutes. Nowhere in this bill is there any discussion of what would make a person qualified to teach Oregon and Federal laws on self defense, or the use of force or deadly force. Not only would this bill prevent most instructors from teaching a CHL class to begin with, since most don’t have ranges, but the potential liability to instructors is staggering.

We have no doubts that, should this bill pass, we will soon be faced with a requirement that CHL classes must be taught by lawyers. Think about the restrictions that will place on class availability and the added expense.

Of course, there is nothing that has happened in the almost 30 years that Oregon has offered CHL’s that indicates any of this is necessary.

This bill does many other bad things and has serious technical flaws, but its clear intent is to create more obstacles and impediments to lawful firearms ownership.

Please take action now and tell the Oregon Senate to vote no on SB 1065.