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Oregon Premption Law?

Bear 45/70

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I found this and the last paragraph is what appears to me to be a premption law or is it?

http://www.nraila.org/statelawpdfs/ORSL.pdf



"No county, city or other municipal corporation or district may enact civil or criminal ordinances, including but not limited to zoning ordinances, to regulate, restrict or prohibit the sale, acquisition, transfer, ownership, possession, storage, transportation or use of firearms or any element relating to firearms and components thereof, including ammunition.

Sources: Ore. Rev. Stat. §§ 166.170 - 166.630"
 

unrequited

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Bear 45/70 wrote:
But if Oregon has a premption law, how the hell are these cities passing stricter gun laws than the state has?

They can pass whatever they want, it'll just have to get repealed or at the least, it's unenforceable:

ORS 166.170 State preemption.

(1) Except as expressly authorized by state statute, the authority to regulate in any matter whatsoever the sale, acquisition, transfer, ownership, possession, storage, transportation or use of firearms or any element relating to firearms and components thereof, including ammunition, is vested solely in the Legislative Assembly.

(2) Except as expressly authorized by state statute, no county, city or other municipal corporation or district may enact civil or criminal ordinances, including but not limited to zoning ordinances, to regulate, restrict or prohibit the sale, acquisition, transfer, ownership, possession, storage, transportation or use of firearms or any element relating to firearms and components thereof, including ammunition. Ordinances that are contrary to this subsection are void. [1995 s.s. c.1 §1]
 

Gray Peterson

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The carry bans (which are loaded firearm carry bans) is sourced in ORS 166.173, not 170. Read the entirety of ORS 166.170:

166.170 State preemption. (1) Except as expressly authorized by state statute, the authority to regulate in any matter whatsoever the sale, acquisition, transfer, ownership, possession, storage, transportation or use of firearms or any element relating to firearms and components thereof, including ammunition, is vested solely in the Legislative Assembly. (2) Except as expressly authorized by state statute, no county, city or other municipal corporation or district may enact civil or criminal ordinances, including but not limited to zoning ordinances, to regulate, restrict or prohibit the sale, acquisition, transfer, ownership, possession, storage, transportation or use of firearms or any element relating to firearms and components thereof, including ammunition. Ordinances that are contrary to this subsection are void. [1995 s.s. c.1 §1]

ORS 166.173: 166.173 Authority of city or county to regulate possession of loaded firearms in public places. (1) A city or county may adopt ordinances to regulate, restrict or prohibit the possession of loaded firearms in public places as defined in ORS 161.015.

ORS 166.173 is an example of a specific grant of state statute. subsection (2) of the above contains the state statutory exemptions to the local laws, including CHL holders.

http://www.leg.state.or.us/ors/166.html

Some light reading, start on ORS 166.170, end at around 450 or so.
 

Bear 45/70

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Then what's the point of having a premption law, then write another statute that negates it? It just stupid and leaves a lot of laws on the books that look like they mean something but don't. Wouldn't it make more sense to just repeal the state premption statute? I mean the statute says one thing but is invalid because of the other statutes. No wonder you have to be a lawyer and spend your life reading this crap to figure out what is going on.
 

Gray Peterson

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Oregon has probably the strongest preemption statute outside of Utah.

In 1994, Portland was starting to smart off and starting to make noises about banning handguns. They already had an AWB sale ban in effect. The Legislature had enough and decided to start the process of passing the bill for preemption. A negotiation process was started, and as a result, Oregon got state preemption EXCEPT that cities and counties can pass their own "loaded firearms in public places" bans, which statutorily exempted CHL holders. It's not a total negate, because Portland can't pass handgun bans under any stretech of the imagination.

The "expressly granted" language strengthens it. We don't need to repeal the preemption statute. We need to repeal ORS 166.173 to make Oregon a gold star open carry state.
 

Bear 45/70

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Lonnie Wilson wrote:
Oregon has probably the strongest preemption statute outside of Utah.

In 1994, Portland was starting to smart off and starting to make noises about banning handguns. They already had an AWB sale ban in effect. The Legislature had enough and decided to start the process of passing the bill for preemption. A negotiation process was started, and as a result, Oregon got state preemption EXCEPT that cities and counties can pass their own "loaded firearms in public places" bans, which statutorily exempted CHL holders. It's not a total negate, because Portland can't pass handgun bans under any stretech of the imagination.

The "expressly granted" language strengthens it. We don't need to repeal the preemption statute. We need to repeal ORS 166.173 to make Oregon a gold star open carry state.
Will that would make more sense than the situation they have now.
 

Bear 45/70

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Lonnie Wilson wrote:
Bear 45/70 wrote:
Will that would make more sense than the situation they have now.

What do you mean?
What I mean is that you have a statute that says none of the other governingbodies in the state can write gun laws that are stricter than the state's and then the morons come along and write one the says that they can write some laws as they see fit. It's contradictory and stupid. A citizen ends up with having to know every cities laws instead of just the state's. We end up with the the law talking out of both sides ofit's mouth. One says they can't and another says they can. It defies logicand shows what is wrong with polititians writing laws.
 

Gray Peterson

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Bear 45/70 wrote:
What I mean is that you have a statute that says none of the other governingbodies in the state can write gun laws that are stricter than the state's and then the morons come along and write one the says that they can write some laws as they see fit. It's contradictory and stupid. A citizen ends up with having to know every cities laws instead of just the state's. We end up with the the law talking out of both sides ofit's mouth. One says they can't and another says they can. It defies logicand shows what is wrong with polititians writing laws.
Politicians have always written laws. That's what they do.

ORS 166.170 and ORS 166.173 were passed as part of the same bill.

Give you another example of something in Oregon.

Oregon passed shall-issue CHL in 1989. As part of the same bill, a 15 day waiting period on handgun purchases from dealers was included in the bill. I do not know whether CHL holders were exempt because this was before my time.

So from 1989 to 1996, there was a 15 day waiting period. Eventually, the 15 day waiting period was repealed by the Legislature, and they didn't mess with the shall-issue CHL law.

Yes, the Oregon Legislature horse traded not being able to buy a handgun immediately for shall-issue. However, given the choice between putting in shall-issue and now putting 100,000 CHL holders into Oregon rather than the under 5,000 or so there was before and not passing a 15 day waiting period, I think the answer is obvious.

Was it unconstitutional? Yes. Did it eventually get repealed? Yes.

That being said, we need to repeat history and take out ORS 166.173.
 

Bear 45/70

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I agree on the repeal of ORS 166.173, but why do it in the first place? As part of the same statute they say they can't and can, maybe I'm being stubborn but to me this kind of thinking is what got this country as screwed up as it is now.
 

Gray Peterson

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My job isn't to worry about why something happened in the past. That was entirely political gamesmanship, and it's something to be learned from. My job at least insofar as things go is to push forward and get ORS 166.173 repealed.
 

Bear 45/70

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Mike wrote:
Bear 45/70 wrote:
As part of the same statute they say they can't and can
This is a standard way to write statutes - set forth a general rule, then list exceptions.
In most cases this would make sense, but a preemption law is to stop exceptions and pretty much makes the preemption pointless. A preemption law by definition should have no exceptions.
 
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