On April 6, 2022, Oregon Attorney General, Ellen Rosenblum, wrote a Guest Opinion for The Oregonian on ‘ghost guns.’ She implored legislators to close the ‘ghost gun’ loophole in gun-safety laws. Her opinion piece was prompted when the agents from the U.S. Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, working with Salem police, raided a home with 63 ‘ghost guns’ and 200 counterfeit M30 oxycontin pills, believed to be made with fentanyl.

Rosenblum blames the legislature for not acting on bills she proposed in 2019, 2021 and SB 1577 in 2022 that would ban manufacturing of any firearm that cannot be detected by a metal detector. She is committed to bring the bill back in 2023. In the meantime, Rosenblum has joined Oregon in a lawsuit seeking federal actions to restrict ghost gun manufacturing.

There is no doubt that ghost guns may be an attractive choice for criminal elements. Here is the rub. It was federal agents that discovered the suspect had enlisted drug addicts to buy guns for him paying them with counterfeit pills.

Governor Brown has made every attempt to keep federal agents out of Oregon, away from courthouses and access to information. In 2018 Rosenblum joined Governor Brown in a successful lawsuit to void two federal laws requiring states to aid immigration authorities – meaning local police don’t help ICE agents when suspects are released from jail or hold them for ICE.

Governor Brown has released around 1,000 prisoners, not to the liking of some District Attorneys. Lane County District Attorney Patricia Perlow, Linn County District Attorney Doug Marteeny and four family members of homicide victims filed suit to stop early release of more than 70 people who committed crimes as juveniles, including murder.

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Recent news reported Brown granted clemency to a convict serving life without parole in the 1994 cold-blooded murder of a teenager.

When SB 819 passed in 2021, to allow reconsideration of a conviction, there were many questions on flooding the courts with criminal cases and not just cases due to a change in the law.

The U.S. Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives have been looking for “Buy Build Shoot” kits, which have been classified as firearms by the Biden Administration. They are being blamed for a violent interstate crime wave. Last year they traced 15 murders to these kits in California. In California, ghost guns made up about 41% of guns recovered in the Los Angeles area in 2020. Rosenblum says, in Oregon, police have reported cases in which students have been found with ghost guns or ghost gun components.

How many ghost guns are being sold on the black market that any law would not touch? It all leads back to who is buying them and why.


--Donna Bleiler

Post Date: 2022-05-08 10:35:22

Last Update: 2022-05-08 18:08:33