I want to share with you an opportunity to reduce gun violence and make Oregon schools and community spaces safer.
Lift Every Voice Oregon has drafted two Initiative Petitions that present common sense gun safety measures.
Initiative Petition (IP) 17: Safe Owners and Less Lethal Ammunition
– Requires a permit to purchase all firearms
– Requires a purchaser to pass a background check, and no sale of a gun can be completed before the background check is completed
– Requires a purchaser to complete a safety training program
– Requires improvement in the database to track guns that are lost, stolen or used to commit crimes
– Bans the future sale of large capacity magazines
– Prohibits manufacture, sale, transfer, and possession of magazines over 10 rounds
– Previously owned magazines may be retained with limited use
– Exception for duty-only use by military and law enforcement
As you can see from the above components of IP 17, passing this initiative will increase responsible gun ownership.
Requiring permits to purchase firearms reduces homicides, suicides, gun trafficking and shootings of police.
Requiring passing a background check is well supported by a majority of Oregonians.
In mass shooting situations, it is well known that large-capacity magazines (meaning large number of bullets) result in higher death tolls. Reducing the number of rounds (bullets) that a shooter can fire before pausing to reload allows more children and adults to escape and survive an attack. Reducing the number of rounds that a shooter can fire before reloading also allows more opportunity for intervention by law enforcement.
IP 17 is worthy of our support!
Initiative Petition (IP) 18: Stops Proliferation of Assault Weapons
– Prohibits future manufacture, import, purchase, transfer, possession or use of semiautomatic assault firearms with limited exceptions.
– The exceptions are for those weapons that are owned at the time of passage of this measure, IF the weapons are then registered with
the State, and IF the use of the weapons is limited to owner’s property, shooting ranges and hunting (if allowed by OR regulations).
– IP18 covers homemade and 3-D printed “Ghost guns”
– Exception to this IP: duty-only use by military and law enforcement
States without laws limiting assault weapons have significantly more high-fatality mass shootings and significantly higher death rates from such incidents.
Gun policy experts have rated a ban on assault weapons (and large capacity magazines) as one of the most effective measures to reduce deaths.
IP 18 is well worthy of our support!
I hope everyone can agree that the above 2 initiatives are well worth signing and having on the November 2022 Ballot. In order for IP 17 and IP 18 to be on Oregon’s November Ballot, there needs to be 140,000 active registered voters signing the petitions.
There is a very simple way to sign these petitions: go to the website of Lift Every Voice Oregon at lifteveryvoiceoregon.com and sign the petitions on line!
For those who are passionate about supporting common sense gun safety laws and want to become petition circulators; you can take the training online at the Lift Every Voice Oregon website and then you can head out to obtain signatures!
And, lastly, if you support these initiatives, please consider sending this message on to at least 10 of your Oregon registered voter friends!
Let’s get these initiatives onto the November 2022 ballot and passed into law!
Our children deserve nothing less. Thank you for your consideration.
~ Joan Stembridge