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Sen. Ginny Burdick, D-Portland, has been the Oregon Legislature's most vocal advocate for stricter gun laws. Her positions have made her a target of gun rights advocates for years.

(Benjamin Brink/The Oregonian)

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Sen. Ginny Burdick, the Legislature's most vocal advocate for stricter gun laws, said Thursday that the parents of Reynolds High School shooter Jared Michael Padgett should be held criminally responsible for the death of Emilio Hoffman.

"Obviously, this family lost a child, too, but that doesn't change the fact that another child lost his life and another family is having to go through the worst possible thing a person can go through because a gun owner somewhere else didn't adequately secure his guns," Burdick said. "If those guns hadn't been in those child's hands, Emilio Hoffman would still be alive."

Burdick, D-Portland, introduced bills in previous legislative sessions that would have made it a crime to endanger a minor by allowing access to a firearm.

Under a similar bill introduced in the 2013 legislative session by Rep. Alissa Keny-Guyer, D-Portland, a person found guilty of that crime would have faced up to a year in jail, a $6,250 fine, or both. The person would also be banned from owning a gun for five years.

The bills went nowhere.

"I think it would help to have that there so people know, 'Oops, I'd better be extra careful or I will perhaps lose my gun rights,'" Burdick said.

Padgett, 15, killed Hoffman, 14, with an AR-15 type of rifle owned by his family that he obtained after removing it from its secured storage place, Troutdale police said.

"If a kid gets a hold of guns and takes them to school, those guns weren't secured," Burdick said. "Maybe they were thought to be secured or hoped to be secured, but they were not secured. These are weapons of war."

After Burdick was quoted making similar comments Wednesday in an NBC News story, her office received dozens of comments as well as a death threat that was referred to the Oregon State Police, she said. Many supporters of stricter gun laws also contacted her office, she said.

Burdick said she's confident that a bill to require background checks on nearly all private gun sales will resurface in the 2015 Legislature. Burdick also plans to speak with Keny-Guyer about reintroducing a bill to create the crime of endangering a minor by allowing access to a firearm.

-- Yuxing Zheng