SB 719A Extreme risk protection prohibiting a person from possessing firearms

SB 719A VOTE:NO – Governor signed

Status (overview) of bill:https://olis.leg.state.or.us/liz/2017R1/Measures/Overview/SB719

Note: This bill’s contents were previosuly SB 868. That bill died but has been resurrected as a gut-and-stuff of SB719, creating SB 719A.

This bill creates a process for obtaining an extreme risk protection order prohibiting a person from possessing firearms, a process for removing all deadly weapons from the person and a process for the person to seek relief from the order

Personal Choice and Responsibility
Spells out a very detailed process for a petitioner to obtain such an order, including the myriad of evidence they must provide that the person is a danger to themselves or others, method and timing of serving the order and the methods and timing by which the respondent can request a hearing to contest. A lot of time involved – judges, court clerks, law enforcement officers. This relies on the respondent to surrender all firearms and ammunition and certify that they have done so. Removing weapons from someone who is in mental crisis or is threatening violence is not a bad idea, but it cannot be done constitutionally or effectively by government: First, it is removes property without due process (there is a process for the accused, but AFTER property is taken). Second,how would law enforcement know whether the person had complied completely? In other words, how would law enforcement know that any weapon(s) surrendered were in fact all of the weapons available to the person? There is no way they can know, and they therefore cannot be effective at this. Like with prohibition, the lesson is that something cannot be stopped by attempting to remove the SUPPLY of something – in this case, weapons. The issue can only be resolved by removing the DEMAND. In this case, getting help for the person in mental crisis, which this bill makes no attempt to do, or properly addressing the actions of a violent offender. Attempting to remove all of their implements will fail.

Limited Government
After this measure fails for a time as it has everywhere it has been tried, the argument will be made that the government cannot make sure it has removed all firearms from the person’s ability to access unless it knows where all firearms are which the person could access. That is of course, registration, and not one step down that slippery slope must ever be allowed by a free people.