Members of Oregon’s LGBTQ community are worried they may not be able to acquire guns, and will therefore be vulnerable, if the gun controls in Ballot Measure 114 (BM 114) are allowed to take effect.
The controls in BM 114 are currently on hold via a temporary restraining order, but further hearings on the specific distinct controls in the measure could result in a partial or complete enactment.
NPR reports that “some of Oregon’s trans and queer gun supporters are worried that a new state law will prevent them from buying firearms.”
Their concerns center on BM 114’s provision requiring law enforcement to issue permits to purchase guns. Some members of the LGBTQ community fear there is not enough guidance on the issuance process, leaving the door open for law enforcement to deny permits based on unclear criteria.
NPR notes, “That’s a problem for activists who have critiqued law enforcement, particularly in the racial justice protests that took place over the past two years.”
LGBTQ community member Mia Rose observed, “I just feel like if I was to go online and say like the police are terrorists or something … [the police] would be like, ‘Well, you seem like you might not be fit for this community to be armed.’ If they were to get that information that you got snatched up off the street [arrested during the Portland protests prompted by the killing of George Floyd in 2020], I would assume that the law would say they could deny your purchase, or deny your right to have a permit.”
The tension between gun control proponents and some members of the LGBTQ community has been percolating for years.
On June 14, 2016–just two days after the heinous attack on Orlando’s Pulse nightclub–KVAL reported that a pro-LGBTQ group called the Pink Pistols was citing the attack as an example of the importance of being armed to defend one’s life.
The Pulse attacker was armed with a rifle and a handgun during his attack, but Pink Pistols’ Gwen Patton suggested the real problem is the hate that led the attacker to use the guns against others.
Patton said, “He might have walked in wearing a suicide vest. He might have walked in with a pressure cooker bomb. The problem was that a human being had so much hate and rage in him that he decided to commit a heinous act.”
Penny Okamoto, executive director of the gun control group Ceasefire Oregon, countered Patton by pushing red flag laws and other gun control measures.
Okamoto said, “If the gun is just a tool, let’s make that tool safer. Let’s make sure we’ve got chamber loaded indicators on that. Let’s make sure we’ve got magazine disconnect mechanisms and let’s get rid of the assault weapons because those are not safe weapons.”
Okamoto did not explain how a chamber loaded indicator would have impacted the Pulse nightclub attacker nor how magazine disconnect mechanisms would have prevented his attack.
AWR Hawkins is an award-winning Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and the writer/curator of Down Range with AWR Hawkins, a weekly newsletter focused on all things Second Amendment, also for Breitbart News. He is the political analyst for Armed American Radio and a Turning Point USA Ambassador. AWR Hawkins holds a PhD in Military History, with a focus on the Vietnam War (brown water navy), U.S. Navy since Inception, the Civil War, and Early Modern Europe. Follow him on Instagram: @awr_hawkins. You can sign up to get Down Range at breitbart.com/downrange. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com.
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