|
 Lane County's commissioners in a 4-1 vote on Tuesday decreed that
local government could not afford to investigate violations of the
new law, and affirmed the “right of the people to keep and bear
arms” under the U.S. Constitution’s Second Amendment.
Proponents of the stricter gun-sale rules, which go into effect in
August, questioned whether the Lane County resolution would have any
practical effect.
“This is just a way for Republicans to curry favor with Oregon
firearms advocates," Penny Okamoto, executive director of Ceasefire
Oregon, a non-profit organization that aims to reduce gun violence,
said on Wednesday.
“Do they mean to tell me the sheriff won’t prosecute the person who
provided a murderer, illegally, with a gun?” Okamoto said.
 Commissioner Jay Bozievich, who lobbied against the background check
legislation before it passed in May, told Reuters on Wednesday that
the commission’s vote reflected both ideological concerns and
financial realities.
"We've had to make major cuts in our law enforcement and prosecution
budgets. We currently don't prosecute 1,800 felonies per year,” said
Bozievich, a Republican. “We don't have the resources to enforce
this law.”
The new law expands Oregon’s existing gun-sale background check
requirements to cover nearly all private firearm buyers, closing
loopholes that had allowed unvetted sales online or between
individuals, and imposing new limits on sales to people with severe
mental illness.
[to top of second column] |
The regulations also allow the state to maintain a database of gun
owners, raising the specter of greater government oversight in the
future, Bozievich said.
“We have real Second Amendment concerns about the bill,” he added.
Democratic state Senator Floyd Prozanski, who sponsored the
background check legislation and lives in Lane County, acknowledged
the financial constraints the local governing body faces. But he
said the law does not impose significant new costs upon the county
and does not infringe upon the constitutional rights of law-abiding
citizens.
(Reporting by Courtney Sherwood in Portland, Oregon; Editing by
Barbara Goldberg and Leslie Adler)
[© 2015 Thomson Reuters. All rights
reserved.]
Copyright 2015 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
 |
