This op-ed was written by Linn-Benton Community College’s Civil Discourse Program. To learn more about the program, you can visit its website here and its guidebook here.
Does Oregon need another gun law? Some state politicians think so.
March 2025’s Senate Bill 243, if passed, would require a 72-hour waiting period between the time a gun is purchased and picked up, ban “rapid fire activator” devices such as bump stocks that make semi-automatic guns fire faster, and give local (city or county) governments the ability to ban the concealed carry of firearms in certain public areas under their jurisdiction.
The bill comes on the heels of Oregon’s Measure 114, a controversial piece of legislation that passed in 2022 but is currently held up in the courts. Measure 114 aimed to implement a permit-to-purchase system for buying firearms in Oregon, also banning magazines that hold over 10 rounds. SB-243 is one of several bills also in the Oregon legislative system that have to do with gun rights.
While state Republicans have voiced their disapproval of the bill, it has been supported by Oregon’s Democrats, who hold the majority in both the state’s house and senate. Is Senate Bill 243 the right move for making Oregon safer?
YES
By Carter McAleer, Alleyah Forrister, and the LBCC Civil Discourse Program.
While the tradition and importance of gun ownership is fundamental to Oregon and the U.S, the human cost of gun violence simply cannot be ignored. Between 2013 and 2022, the total Oregon gun death rate climbed roughly 30% – a statistic that represents not just numbers, but real people: neighbors, classmates, parents, and friends. While gun-related suicides still are far more frequent, of that 30% increase, homicides contributed just over 22%. This places Oregon just over the national average of gun deaths per 100,000 people and shows a grim trend in the increase of gun-related homicides.
But we don’t have to choose between safety and rights. Oregon can have both a high gun ownership rate and a safe community from the threat of gun violence. Senate Bill 243 works to protect our state by banning access to rapid-fire activators, restricting open and concealed carry in public, and creating a waiting period before you can purchase a firearm. This effectively establishes a framework that respects the right to bear arms while prioritizing the safety of our community.
Ever since the 2017 Las Vegas shooting that left 60 dead and over 400 wounded, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives has federally banned the sale and transfer of bump stocks to prevent further violence of this scale. In June of 2024, the U.S Supreme Court ruled that bump stocks do not fit the established definition of machine gun and thus were returned to the states as a commercial good.
In light of this Supreme Court ruling, Senate Bill 243 seeks to eliminate bump stocks and other rapid-fire accelerators from the Oregon market that could modify select semi-automatic firearms into weapons capable of firing nearly 800 rounds per minute. Oregon would not be the first to make this decision; 17 other states have chosen to outlaw the sale of rapid-fire accelerators. Adding Oregon to this growing list will facilitate a safer nation through Senate Bill 243 and ensure that fewer lives are so tragically lost.
Beyond the goal of preventing gun violence towards others, Senate Bill 243 also works to halt gun-related suicides. Historically, suicides have made up the bulk of gun deaths in Oregon and continue to. Implementing a waiting period before a consumer can receive their firearm is believed to help reduce suicide rates between 20 and 38%. While the estimated percent decrease Oregon may experience is hard to pinpoint, by reviewing gun-related suicide rates state by state, a clear pattern emerges showing roughly 51% fewer firearm suicides in states with waiting laws than without. Within these states, studies also suggest that the use of waiting periods for background checks contributed to reduced homicide rates by nearly 17%.
Establishing a 72-hour waiting period in Oregon for background checks would not only help further reduce acts of gun violence, but could be the difference between getting someone the help they need instead of a gun.
Lastly, Senate Bill 243 seeks to create new boundaries to prevent concealed and open carry of firearms in public and capital buildings. These public restrictions encapsulate most public service buildings, such as schools, libraries, or court facilities. Regarding these infrastructures, concerns of violence from extremism and domestic terrorism have grown, and rightfully so, as Oregon accounted for 10% of all domestic incidents in 2020. This new legislation would help mitigate possible extremist acts from gun violence in what are considered high-risk targets.
Whether it was the 2015 Umpqua Community College shooting or the 2022 Normandale Park shooting, unregulated public spaces will always pose some form of risk to our families. With that said, Senate Bill 243 will not outright ban open and concealed carry in these locations, but instead give local governing bodies the right to choose policies that best fit their community’s safety needs. After all, it was an armed bystander who was able to stop the Normandale Park shooter.
By protecting our state infrastructure and the freedom of our communities, we can work against needless violence in ways that best fit both urban and rural counties. Unless you strip away the integral role of firearms in Oregon culture and tradition, gun violence will never reach zero. But that’s not what this bill is trying to do. Senate Bill 243 aims to save lives, whether it’s by prohibiting bump stocks, creating a waiting period to purchase a firearm, or allowing local governments greater authority over carrying restrictions. In a state where 73% of homicides and 54% of suicides are committed with a gun, we must do better to protect every part of our community. “Yes” to Senate Bill 243 does not equate to “No” for Oregon gun ownership. Public safety and individual freedom are not mutually exclusive, but the opportunity cost of killing this bill could be a real life.
NO
By Mark Nusom, Tanner Kesecker, Norah Steed, and the LBCC Civil Discourse Program.
On the heels of the controversial Measure 114, Oregon Senate Bill 243 has been proposed to further crack down on gun purchasing and ownership in the state. Oregon continues to be one of the strictest states on gun control while still having an above-average rate of death by firearms compared to the entire United States. This shows that increasing restrictions have been ineffective at preventing firearm deaths.
There are two general problems with this proposed amendment. The first is that there are too many changes being made at one time for it to be reasonable. There are some good arguments in the amendment, like the 72-hour waiting period or the banning of fire rate increasers. However, other arguments piggyback on reasonable restrictions, discrediting the entire amendment. Separating the amendment into three separate pieces of legislation would help weed out the realistic proposals from those that infringe on Oregonians’ rights.
This proposal disproportionately affects Oregonians who live in rural areas. Firearm usage is an important cultural aspect of rural Oregon, where these restrictions will hinder responsible gun owners. In rural parts of Oregon, firearms are used as a way for fathers to bond with their children and for families to spend time together. Along with the cultural aspect, firearm violence is much less common in the rural areas of Oregon compared to more urban areas, specifically the Portland area. However, this amendment will affect both areas equally despite the lack of necessity in those rural areas.
Along with these arguments, we believe there are reasons not to enact each specific part of this amendment:
The first regards the 72-hour waiting period after getting a background check and before receiving a gun. This would be put into effect to deter someone from committing suicide or any other crime of passion with a firearm. This is a noble effort, but an issue arises when implementing this. The issue relates to the gun buyer’s safety. If a person who does not have a firearm is in fear for their life, they should be able to buy one within a day to keep themselves safe.
In an ideal world, a person who is fearing for their life would be able to turn to the police. However, with police response times to high-priority crimes in the Portland area being, on average, over 20 minutes, this is not possible. When the police cannot be trusted to aid in a life or death situation, it becomes the responsibility of the individual to defend themselves. This amendment would stop someone who has an immediate concern for safety from getting what they need to protect themselves.
Another reason not to implement this change is because of all of the other parts of the amendment that are piggybacked onto it. If the goal is to prevent suicides, then why does the same amendment restrict things like concealed carry abilities?
There’s also the ban on items known as rapid-fire activators. To paraphrase, a rapid-fire activator is anything that allows a semi-automatic gun to fire faster than it was initially intended to.
This is the most reasonable change in the amendment. However, along with the issue of too many changes being stuffed into SB-243, there is another major concern: Legalization of bump stocks, which fall under this category of rapid-fire activators, has recently been enacted by the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court ruled that “a bump stock is not an illegal machine gun because it doesn’t make the weapon fire more than one shot with a single pull of the trigger.” While this ruling was specifically on bump stocks and not other rapid-fire indicators, it clearly illustrates that the Supreme Court believes that the purchasing and use of bump stocks should not be illegal under the current ATF regulations.
The final part of the amendment is the restriction on carrying a firearm in public areas. There are many issues with this proposed change. The first is the fact that gun-free zones have historically not worked. Since 1950, over 90% of public mass shootings have occurred in “gun-free zones.” This statistic clearly shows how ineffective areas where guns are not allowed are when it comes to actually deterring gun violence.
The second concern is that people who are prepared to kill another person are obviously not concerned about following the law. All that banning guns in public areas does is remove guns from the hands of the people who are concerned about following the laws. Therefore, it decreases the safety of the general population in those areas.
There are several reasons why the proposed amendment to Senate Bill 243 should not be implemented. The amendment has too many changes being proposed, will disproportionately affect rural Oregonians, and there are individual arguments against each of the proposed changes. Due to these issues, we believe that Senate Bill 243 should not be enacted.
