Oregon lawmakers face threats and backlash over gun bills
PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — Ahead of the Oregon Legislature’s final vote on two controversial gun bills, lawmakers from both parties are receiving threats, letters of intimidation and recall petitions.
The measures would enact among the strictest gun storage laws in the country and ban firearms from the state Capitol building.
While lawmakers say it is not uncommon for Democrats to receive threats for supporting and sponsoring gun bills, this session some Republicans are seeing a backlash for just showing up to work.
In March, six Republican Oregon senators did not participate in a walkout with fellow GOP lawmakers that would have denied quorum the day a gun bill was being voted on. As a result, senators that attended the floor session have received threats.
In March, the state Senate voted in favor of Senate Bill 554, which would ban guns from the Capitol and other state buildings and allow local jurisdictions to decide whether people with a concealed handgun license can bring guns into public buildings.
During the floor session, the seats of five Republican senators were empty. Walkouts have become an increasingly common tactic by the minority party to prevent a vote from taking place, by denying quorum. But unlike past walkouts, a majority of the Republicans — six — attended the floor session, all of whom voted against the bill and filed multiple motions on the floor for more than six hours.
One email to the lawmakers wished that they would “become victims of criminals who use violence” and in another message the senators were called “traitors” and the “enemy.”
“We’ve gotten some very nasty emails,” Athena Republican Sen. Bill Hansell, who attended the vote, told the East Oregonian. “Even to the extent that we’ve had to turn some of the emails to the state police because we were threatened to be shot.”
The harassment didn’t stop there.
Hansell said his constituents had been contacted to gather signatures to recall him and a Molalla resident filed a prospective petition to recall Oregon state Senate Minority Leader Fred Girod. The petition said Girod “refused to use the single tool available to defend the people who elected him.”
Democrats also faced threats and intimidation over the gun measures.
Rep. Rachel Prusak, a West Linn Democrat, was recently targeted in a series of flyers with anti-Semitic and holocaust imagery found in Clackamas County. At the bottom of the flyers is a website for a gun rights advocacy group.
“The hate symbols displayed were used to attack my identity while also attacking my commitment to pass gun safety legislation that will save the lives of Oregonians throughout the state,” Prusak said.
Prusak, a victim of gun violence, is cosponsoring a proposed House Bill 2510 — a storage law that would be among the toughest in the U.S.
The legislation would require the storage of firearms with trigger or cable locks, in a locked container or in a gun room. An offense is a Class C violation, which carries a maximum fine of $500, unless someone under age 18 obtains access, in which case it is a Class A violation with a maximum fine of $2,000.
