Sheriff, group sue to block strict Oregon gun control law
The National Rifle Association announced Wednesday that it had filed a lawsuit in federal court, challenging the most restrictive firearms law in the country.
A group of Oregon sheriffs also filed suit in federal court Wednesday, challenging the state’s new gun control law, which would ban high-capacity magazines and gun purchases at gun shows. The sheriffs, representing all but a single county in Oregon, are asking the judge to block the law outright, or at least delay a decision pending a legal challenge.
Two of the counties with the most gun control laws in the state are already suing to keep them in place.
The sheriffs from the two counties — Grant and Malheur — say that the law will hurt their ability to keep criminals from having guns. They also say that the law’s exemptions for those who are in danger of losing or being unable to get their guns doesn’t make sense and are based on “voodoo” assumptions about criminals’ fear of the law.
Those in state government, however, say the laws are sound and are simply keeping criminals from getting guns.
“Oregon is at the forefront of gun safety,” Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum said in an interview Wednesday. “We have some of the strongest laws in the nation.”
The lawsuit was filed Wednesday morning in U.S. District Court in Eugene.
Oregon voters approved an initiative a year early in November that limited how much ammunition gun buyers could buy, banned high-capacity magazines, made it nearly impossible to get guns at gun shows and limited how many guns a law-abiding gun owner could keep.
The law also has been challenged in court, but those challenges are being heard later this year. A preliminary injunction is unlikely to come quickly, and so far, has remained elusive.
But the suit filed by Oregon sheriffs says the state isn’t following the ballot initiative and needs to.
Sheriffs from Grant County filed suit, saying the law would violate their rights, including the First Amendment right to free association, the Second Amendment right to bear arms and the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment. They