Editor's note: This is the seventh of a multipart series on Tina Kotek – her past and her future – as well as where her political ambitions might take her.

Gun reform is not a new subject for Speaker Tina Kotek. In 2015 she made news when in her town hall she expressed support for a “pro-rape” gun measure that she called “closing a loophole.” That measure would have effectively ban you from loaning or selling a gun to a sister (or other female relative or friend) who was in imminent danger of a sexual assault.

Numerous violent incidents took 528 lives in Oregon in 2017, which started a series of reform attempts. The 2017 session witnessed Kotek’s democrats pull every shady trick in the book to ram through SB 719 which is referred to as the “Gun Confiscation Bill.” Dubbed as an “extreme risk protection order”, it allows a family member or household member to arbitrarily report that someone is a risk to themselves or others, and grants police the authority storm one’s home and confiscate deadly weapons. This confiscation does not require substantive proof that the person in question ever did anything wrong. The accused would then have to spend thousands of dollars of their own money on attorney and court fees to prove they are worthy of their 2nd Amendment rights.

The reforms proposed in 2019 in SB 978, would have required gun owners to secure their guns, and impose regulations on “ghost” or 3-D printed guns and require gun owners to report lost and stolen guns. When the gun bill failed in 2019 by an outpouring of citizens that caused Republican Senators to walked out, it stop the passage. After the session, KOIN reported that Speaker Tina Kotek vowed to make a safe gun-storage law a top priority in the next legislative short-session in 2020.

Speaker Kotek’s comments on the 2021 session praised police reforms but said they did not go far enough, but still included serious changes to the way law enforcement officers can respond to protests and how they face discipline. As we witnessed, police were told to stand down if no one is seriously hurt while Antifa destroyed property and scared children at a religious gathering on the Waterfront in Portland. That is the face of her policy reform.

The height of the 2021 session came when Kotek’s caucus rammed through SB 554, as she had promised in 2019. The bill sets new requirements for how gun owners must securely store their weapons when not in use, bans guns in the Capitol and Portland International Airport, and paved the way for public schools and universities to pass their own gun bans. The penalty section makes gun owners liable for crimes committed if the gun is stolen. It virtually makes the gun non-accessible putting at-risk families in harm’s way.

Referendum 301 is currently collecting signatures to repeal SB 554. Deadline is September 24.


--Donna Bleiler

Post Date: 2021-09-17 17:51:46

Last Update: 2021-09-17 18:39:34