Petition seeks vote to ban assault weapons in Oregon

Initiative Petition 42, to ban assault rifles in Oregon, has been filed by several churches in the Portland area as they aim to secure enough signatures to put the proposal on the November ballot.

The group behind the petition says they want to be a voice for the children who have been victims of mass shootings.

And the interfaith group that filed the five-page petition hopes to not only start a conversation about gun control, but make a change here in the state of Oregon.

Rabbi Michael Cahana of Portland is one of the backers of the petition that aims to ban assault riffles, and would require legal gun owners to surrender or register their weapons or face a felony charge.

“We also believe that gun safety is something that everyone should care about, including gun owners,” Cahana said Wednesday. “This is a long-term responsibility that people should keep and maintain guns in a very safe way.”

Mark Sue, the pastor of Foundry Church in Bend, is a gun owner and teaches gun safety classes.

Sue said he feels this particular petition is too restrictive, but he is in favor of having stricter gun laws in place.

“It’s not going to accomplish what they want it to accomplish,” Sue said. “And what it will end up doing is penalizing the thousands and thousands of legitimate gun owners that are in the state. And putting them into a place of dilemma, where either they comply, or you turn them into felons.”

Sue, like those sponsoring the initiative petition, believes that gun laws could be tighter.

“If you put (in) a responsible background check and raise requirements for proficiency, for training for gun ownership, I’d vote for that in a heartbeat,” Sue said.

Cahana said he believes there is no place for assault weapons in everyday society.

“These are weapons beyond what anyone needs for legitimate self defense or for hunting,” Cahana said. “So I would hope that gun owners would see this also as a moral issue and help to support this.”

The petition needs 88,000 signatures before July 6 in order for it to make it onto the November ballot.

Pastor Mark Knutson of the Augustana Lutheran Church in Portland said many doubt the signature-gathering effort will succeed, but that he’s counting on young people to get them.

Knutson told The Associated Press in a phone interview last week that “this is going to be a youth campaign.”

The other chief petitioners are Cahana and an Episcopal pastor emeritus who’s also a former high school principal.