State officials opposed to a judicial decision that overturned a voter-approved firearms law took their case to court on Tuesday in hopes of a ruling favoring its safety provisions.
The case before a Salem-based three-judge appeals panel drew dozens of people, including a mass shooting survivor. It is centered on Measure 114, which voters passed in 2022. The law was put on hold last November by a Harney County judge, who said it violated the state’s constitutional guarantee of the right to own weapons for personal protection. Measure 114 would require permits, a gun safety course and ban high-capacity magazines that can hold more than 10 rounds.
Oregon Senior Assistant Attorney General Robert Koch, representing the state, told the panel that Measure 114 is reasonable and would foster public safety but not infringe upon people’s rights. He argued that firearms weaponry, including large capacity magazines, has advanced since the 1850s when the state constitution took effect.
“There’s nothing about a large capacity magazine that is necessary for any firearm to function,” Koch said, adding that a Las Vegas shooter sprayed hundreds of bullets into a crowded concert in a short time during a 2017 attack.
In Oregon’s pioneer era, Koch said, Colt revolvers that could fire four to eight rounds and single-shot flintlock rifles were common.
Tony Aiello Jr., an attorney with Tyler Smith & Associates in Canby who’s representing the plaintiffs, told the court that Measure 114 creates unconstitutional barriers for people who want to own guns.
Oregonians already undergo background checks to purchase firearms, Aiello said, adding that the permit requirement in the measure would make it onerous for purchasers, forcing them to wait for background checks to clear.
With the existing system, federally licensed firearms dealers are allowed to release firearms to purchasers after three days if the background check is delayed.
Measure 114, backed by Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum, who brought the appeal, is intended to bolster safety for firearms users and prevent massacres like the Las Vegas mass gunman who killed 60 people and injured more than 850 in a 10-minute span.
But gun rights advocates, including the Gun Owners Foundation and Gun Owners of America, Inc., argue it would curtail constitutional guarantees. The Virginia-based organizations were plaintiffs in the original complaint filed in Harney County, but they voluntarily dropped out in May 2023. Harney County residents Joseph Arnold and Cliff Asmussen remain the plaintiffs in the case. Besides Rosenblum, the defendants include Gov. Tina Kotek and Oregon State Police Superintendent Casey Codding.
The Alliance for a Safe Oregon, which advocates for changes in laws to curb gun violence, supports Measure 114, as do other national groups like the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence and Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence.
The judges did not signal when they will rule on the matter – it could take several months or longer. They have hundreds of pages of transcripts and exhibits from a six-day trial in Harney County. If they support the Harney County decision, Measure 114 would not be implemented. It’s been on hold since the first case was filed.
A separate federal appeal is pending that also challenges the measure. In the federal lawsuit, the U.S. District Court ruled that Measure 114 is constitutional, upholding the law. Gun rights groups have appealed the federal ruling to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.
A survivor’s story
The hearing attracted people from across Oregon, including Joshua Friedlein, a survivor of the Umpqua Community College shooting. In that 2015 attack near Roseburg, the shooter killed nine people.
At the time, Friedlein was a 19-year-old sophomore in college, taking a class. He had to shelter with others in a gym for about three hours on lockdown during the shooting. Now 28 years old and living in Portland, he said he still cannot go to a gym or workout center without rekindling his past feelings of trauma.
“Growing up in Roseburg, guns were a very present thing,” he said in an interview with the Capital Chronicle. “It really reframed the way in which I thought about them from something that the plaintiffs described as a recreational use to really reemphasizing the violence that they’re capable of.”
He was scheduled to testify in the Harney County case, but the judge excluded him as a witness. Friedlein said Oregonians need to look beyond the legal arguments and remember the humanity of shattered lives.
“This is not an easy thing to do, to be here, to listen to legal arguments, listen to human experiences and pain and suffering be distilled down to these very dry legal terminologies and fact finding,” he said after the hearing. “But the reason I’m here is because this is a really important thing, and I make meaning out of what happened to me through speaking out and trying to prevent it from happening to other people.”
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