HB 4145A Adds to List of Persons Prohibited to Possess Firearms

This bill expands the number of people who are prohibited from possessing firearms or ammunition, adds reporting requirements on OR Dept of State Police (OSP), adds reporting requirements on the attorneys’ offices and other law enforcement agencies receiving the additional reporting from OSP.

Personal Choice and Responsibility
Expands the list of prohibited persons under ORS 166.255 from ‘intimate partner’ which is essentially spouses or former spouses, and their children, to ‘household member’ which is listed in ORS 135.230 and includes ‘Adult persons related by blood or marriage, Persons cohabiting with each other, Persons who have cohabited with each other or who have been involved in a sexually intimate relationship, Unmarried parents of a minor child.’ This bill also adds those who have been convicted of stalking under ORS 163.732 to the listed of prohibited persons under 166.255. The Amendment (A) to this bill which led to its House passage basically requires that a hearing must have been held where the respondent could answer the charges, before their right to possess is removed. The ‘Introduced’ version of this bill only required that they had been served notice of being the respondent to a restraining order, in order to have their right to possess removed.

Fiscal Responsibility
The reporting requirements on OR Dept of State Police including notifying attorneys’ offices and other law enforcement agencies and publishing written reports, will require increased expenditure. If these measures were effective in making it impossible for prohibited persons to be armed, the expense might be justified. But law enforcement cautions against overconfidence that making something illegal makes it impossible: felons are found to be illegally in possession of weapons all the time. So while well-intentioned, the additional expenditure here is unlikely to be justified.

Limited Government
The reporting requirements on OR Dept of State Police including notifying attorneys’ offices and other law enforcement agencies and publishing written reports, will require increase in staff to perform. This bill contains a 24-hour deadline to perform the additional reporting.