Oregon's Attorney General has drafted the ballot title for an initiative to ban the sale of high capacity magazines and many semiautomatic rifles, pistols and shotguns.

Initiative Petition 43 "criminalizes possession or transfer of 'assault weapons' (defined) or 'large capacity magazines' (defined), with exceptions," according to the draft ballot title written by Ellen Rosenblum's office.

The public now has until May 8 to comment on the draft.

The Portland area clergy leading the effort face a timeline that's challenging at best: they must collect more than 88,000 signatures by July 6 to get it on the ballot for the November election. They also can't begin gathering signatures until the ballot title appeal process is complete, which could take awhile since opponents can appeal all the way to the Oregon Supreme Court, the Statesman Journal has reported. A proposal by Secretary of State Dennis Richardson would have ditched the hold on gathering signatures, but Richardson scrapped the plan earlier this year.

The ballot initiative would ban the manufacture and sale of magazines that can hold more than 10 rounds of ammunition and firearms classified as assault weapons in Oregon starting in 2019. Military and law enforcement employees who are required to carry firearms would be exempt, as would retailers and manufacturers who sell the weapons to those agencies. For everyone else, possession of the weapons would be a Class B felony.

It would define assault weapons as certain semiautomatic rifles and pistols that can accommodate detachable magazines and have other military style features such as a collapsible stock or grenade launcher. Semiautomatic shotguns would also fall under the definition if they have fixed magazines that hold more than 10 rounds of ammunition or have other features such as the option for a detachable magazine.

People who already own these weapons would be allowed to keep them, if they register them and pass a criminal background check.

Organizers of the initiative effort have launched a website, lifteveryvoiceoregon.com. They want to rely on volunteers rather than paid signature gatherers, plan to start training those volunteers on Monday evening.

The entire draft ballot title is available online through the Secretary of State's website.

Anyone who wants to comment on the draft ballot title can do so the following ways:

Email:

Fax: 503.373.7414

Mail: 255 Capitol St NE Ste 501, Salem OR 97310

-- Hillary Borrud

503-294-4034; @hborrud