Voters in Iowa and Oregon made their voices heard at the ballot box on election day with vastly different outcomes.

One state reaffirmed its support for the Second Amendment while the other imposed crippling gun control laws on law-abiding citizens.

Iowans Vote for Freedom 

Voters in the Hawkeye state approved a ballot measure to add state-level Second Amendment guarantees to the Iowa Constitution, protecting gun rights from possible future questionable gun restrictions. After garnering more than 65 percent of the vote, Iowans left little doubt that they believe in the Second Amendment.

The approved ballot measure means the state’s constitution will be amended to add: “The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. The sovereign state of Iowa affirms and recognizes this right to be a fundamental individual right. Any and all restrictions of this right shall be subject to strict scrutiny.”

The amendment also inscribed the right to keep and bear arms as, “a fundamental individual right,” and requires any restrictions on gun rights to survive “strict scrutiny,” the highest legal hurdle for state legislation to clear.

On election night, supporters of Ballot Measure 1, or “the Freedom Amendment” as it was called, praised the final outcome. “This is an historic day for freedom, civil rights and for the Hawkeye state,” remarked Iowa Firearms Coalition President David Funk. “The right to self defense is here to stay in Iowa and we are grateful for the thousands of Iowans who took the time out of their days to cast a vote in favor of liberty.”

Iowa had been one of only six remaining states that lacked specific state constitution Second Amendment protections. Now, only five are left: California, Maryland, Minnesota, New Jersey and New York.

Oregon Goes The Other Way

It took much longer for votes to be counted in the Pacific Northwest and in the end, voters in Oregon went in the opposite direction, approving a strict gun ballot measure that could “virtually eliminate” the firearm industry. Ballot Measure 114 was approved by a hair, 50.7 percent to 49.3 percent, a difference of less than 26,000 votes. It will become law on December 8, just three weeks from now.

Ballot Measure 114 expands background check requirements on all firearm transfers, including private transfers, instituting a statewide universal background check. The measure also requires gun owners to pay extra fees, enroll in hands-on firearm training and creates a system of finger printing and data collection. It also requires Oregonians to obtain a permit to purchase a gun, a costly and timely process even before they can pass an FBI National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) verification. Lastly, the measure limits ammunition magazine capacity to only holding 10 rounds.

The law will do little to address criminals who don’t follow the law anyways and misuse firearms to commit acts of violence. Law enforcement officials are already suggesting they won’t enforce it. Local media reported that multiple county sheriffs across Oregon have suggested the law will be overturned on constitutional grounds.

“If you believe that this measure is going to cut the school shootings down, or cut the gun violence down, you’re sadly mistaken,” Union County Sheriff Cody Bowen told Fox News. “But what has proven [to work] time and time again is… supporting your law enforcement, responsible gun ownership, teaching our children at a younger age respect for human life. That’s what we need to fall back on.”

Jefferson County Sheriff Jason Pollack put it bluntly, saying, “The Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office will not enforce Measure 114.” Some estimates say the measure will cost local governments $30 million per year in processing expenses.

The measure’s approval has led to a firearm sales boom proponents of gun control will not be happy about. Oregon State Police reported background checks for firearm purchases soared from averaging 850 a day before the election to more than 4,000 per day since. That trend aligns with NSSF data showing increased interest in firearm ownership in Oregon over the past few years. Since 2020, more than 1 million Oregonians have passed an FBI National Instant Criminal Background Check (NICS) verification to buy a firearm, according to NSSF data.

Ballot measures in Oregon typically take 30 days to be fully enacted into law. For the time being legal challenges are already moving with the hope that courts will agree the measure is unconstitutional.

 

Larry Keane is SVP for Government and Public Affairs, Assistant Secretary and General Counsel of the National Shooting Sports Foundation.

68 COMMENTS

    • Here’s a statistical tidbit nobody in the MSM will mention:

      In 2018, CA gubernatorial candidate John Cox (R) got an unexpectedly high 40% of the vote against Gavin Newsom. That proved to the naysayers (including our alleged pro-2A brethren who like to sit on their Midwestern porches and wish brimstone and hellfire on all Californians lumped together) that there are still more conservatives here than the populations of most entire States.

      In 2022 – less than two weeks ago – candidate Brian Dahle (R) also garnered 40%+ against Newsom. Despite the outflow of pro-2A, pro-life, pro-traditional marriage/family people leaving CA, there are still enough to hold the line.

      https://www.foxnews.com/elections/2022/midterm-results/governors

      • There are enough conservative Californians to completely change national politics. It would only take a handful leaving for a few select states. Sorry, but I think you guys will always lose on a statewide basis in Cali no matter what now.

        • Rather Eastern California and Western California. The socialist band extends from the Mexico border to the Oregon border along the coast. The inland counties are where the conservative Califonians live. The coastal county where I live used to be conservative when we actually had industry in the county. Now it is a “tourist destination” with a plethora of minimum wage service jobs and government employees and government contractors. Several major companies have moved out of state taking their executive staffs with them. It is becoming a third world county with an affluent segment and the worker bees

      • Obviously oregon voters consists of those who adore Gun Control. Those like murderers, thieves, rapists, kidnappers, bullies, child molesters and perverts who rely on Gun Control to keep the defenseless victim pool filled.

        • the reality is 29 counties voted against the measure, some as high as 80% against, however the population in 7 counties from Portland to the coast out number the rest of the state with liberal Marxist passing with less than 26 thousand votes out of 1.6 million cast. Conservatives could have stopped it but 187,000 registered republicans couldn’t be bothered to lick a stamp and mail in their ballots. The Marxist are smart enough to put it in the ballot in an midterm election, had this been a general election it most likely would not have passed. None the less, people
          that play stupid games get stupid prizes !

      • That’s heartening in a sense. The problem is that the number of brain dead zombies out vote the smart people. That, coupled with the proven fraudulent vote production will defeat us every time.

      • As a mid-western porch sitter, I’d like to clarify that we’d prefer a conversion over damnation, but the latter seems more likely.

        As a side point, for all the CA bitching about Wyoming’s half million citizens having just as many senators and an outsized say in the electoral college, I believe the answer is not in forcing the Dakotas to merge, etc., but to break up the big states. After all, how is it fair that in Wyoming you have ~ a 1/500,000 say in who’s governor, but in California you have ~ 1/40,000,000 say? Problem is the Dems will never agree because you’ll get 3 blue states, one purple state and one red state out of CA, 4 red states out of TX, 3 red states out of FL, 2 blue and one red state out of NY, 1 blue state and 1 red state out of IL, etc…

      • “That proved to the naysayers that there are still more conservatives here than the populations of most entire States.”

        OK, I’ll naysay. Because facts.

        So fucking what? You’re not getting rid of Newsom. You’ve tried repeatedly and failed. You’re not winning state-wide elections. What matters is the ratio of Conservatives:Liberals in your state because them’s the rules of the motherflippin’ game.

        If you had less Liberals you’d be winning and if my aunt had balls she’s be my uncle.

        My aunt doesn’t have balls so she’s my aunt and you don’t have less liberals nor are you magically Wisconsin, so you’re still losing.

        Trying to put lipstick on a pig that’s dead and rotting isn’t going to help your cause. This is the political equivalent of getting your ass handed to you and deciding to *change genders* so you can take 1st in the girl’s league. It’s bullshit.

        What you really need is some deep analytics on where and how you’re losing so you can develop a serious GOP ground game that’s competitive.

        This is possible but requires actual thought, planning and money. The GOP nationwide is incapable of it because it’s run by dumbfucks, so until you step up locally and light the path, they’ll simply ignore you.

      • Well the CCP had the green light to buy the Port of Long Beach during the Clinton regime but actual public outcry nixed the deal so they bought some ports in Baja California — no, actually in Mexico, not south Los Angeles and San Diego.

  1. How does Measure 114 survive in light of recent SCOTUS rulings?

    It seems to be an arbitrary and capricious law, not to mention that it requires citizens to pay a recurring fee to the government for a permit to exercise an enumerated individual right.

    God save us from all these well meaning idiots infected with toxic altruism.

    • If we could only figure out a way to piss off the Left Coasters, and I mean REALLY piss them off so profoundly, hopping mad, that they all started stomping up and down all at once that it would trigger ” TheBigOne ” and most of the left coast would slide into the Pacific. The resulting pollution would kill off all marine life for the next fifty years or so, but it would still be a net gain for the country, if not the whole world.

    • There are: educated idiots, well meaning idiots and don’t give a damn idiots; yet, all 3 are still idiots!

    • It won’t unless:
      1. Biden & Schumer pack the Supreme Court (not likely since the Republican’ts have the House for two years).
      2. Justice Clarence Thomas dies in his sleep on a hunting trip.
      3. The Court denies certiorari (the wheel of justice turn very slowly).

      • Another possibility for Supreme Court change might be impeachment, there are a couple options.

        Justice Alito:

        “Former Anti-Abortion Leader Alleges Another Supreme Court Breach
        Years before the leaked draft opinion overturning Roe v. Wade, a landmark contraception ruling was disclosed, according to a minister who led a secretive effort to influence justices.

        By Jodi Kantor and Jo Becker
        Nov. 19, 2022
        Updated 9:23 a.m. ET
        As the Supreme Court investigates the extraordinary leak this spring of a draft opinion of the decision overturning Roe v. Wade, a former anti-abortion leader has come forward claiming that another breach occurred in a 2014 landmark case involving contraception and religious rights.

        In a letter to Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and in interviews with The New York Times, the Rev. Rob Schenck said he was told the outcome of the 2014 case weeks before it was announced. He used that information to prepare a public relations push, records show, and he said that at the last minute he tipped off the president of Hobby Lobby, the craft store chain owned by Christian evangelicals that was the winning party in the case.“

        https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/19/us/supreme-court-leak-abortion-roe-wade.html

        Justice Thomas:

        28 U.S. Code § 455 (a) ‘Any justice, judge, or magistrate judge of the United States shall disqualify himself in any proceeding in which his impartiality might reasonably be questioned.’

        • But of course, this tempest in a teapot is coming from the NY Times, no longer a reliable source of anything except the crossword puzzle.

    • “How does Measure 114 survive in light of recent SCOTUS rulings?”

      It likely won’t, but that’s kinda irrelevant. It’s here *now* and must be dealt with, and that costs us money.

      It cost them little politically, and us a lot financially to deal with.

      And they can just turn around and do it again and again, while laughing in your face.

      That’s what we are dealing with here… 🙁

    • In a fair world it wouldn’t have a chance, but unfortunately the only lawsuit filed against it at this time is by Oregon Firearms Foundation. OFF is of course generally underfunded and their director seems to go out of his way to rile the public… again, this wouldn’t matter in a fair world but here we are.

      Sadly the measure is passing by less than 2% so a bigger push by the big organizations to fight it pre-election may very well have made the difference even with Oregon’s democrat-controlled vote counters. As it is the good guys have to deal with extreme uncertainty until it’s ruled on.

        • No, but many sheriffs have publicly denounced it and even more have announced that they won’t enforce their portion, which is the capacity restriction. The purchase permit requirement, arguably the more egregious part of the bill, is enforced by state police so of course will be immediately enacted.

  2. Oregon has legalized drugs. They have legalized State sanctioned killing. They call it euthanasia. And for some weird strange reason they have, or want to have, outlawed government sanctioned executions of convicted murderers. Property rights and the respect for private property are disappearing in Western Oregon. The police department in the city of Portland Oregon exists only on paper. But the city residents are still taxed to pay for that same Police Department.

    You could say they are “slouching towards Gomorrah”. Or you could say they are “skipping towards Gomorrah”. But the residents of the state of Oregon have certainly spoken out loud and quite clearly. They like the current circumstances in the state. They want to continue in the direction they’re headed.

    Conservatives have been saying for a long time the country is moving in the wrong direction. And now we have proof of that from an individual state. The state of Oregon has voted to curtail civil rights. As expressed in the Bill of Rights. The last time this was done was when the former Confederate States of America made their declarations.

    But this time around there will be no military formations moving into Oregon to save the people from themselves. And impose an outside order that the voters clearly do not want.

    They wanted their society to commit “cultural mass suicide”. They can certainly do so. Because no one will stop them. But that doesn’t mean they get to drag the rest of us over the cliff with them.

    They have legalized drugs. They have legalized all types of sex acts. And yet there still is no freedom in the state of Oregon. This is how you lose your Liberty. When the government gives you your “bread and circuses”. But you can still have a good time as your chains continue to rattle.

      • I fail to see how everyone else is “just fucked”.

        I’m really unsure how it came to be that this is a novel concept but… ignore the law. In cases like this, it’s not just a right, it’s a duty.

        Super weird to me how conformist Conservatives are about this sort of thing. A new law is passed and it’s bullshit. OK, grow a pair, conserve the good and don’t comply.

        When this happens with a large enough group enforcement attempts simply stop. Here in Colorado we have a mag ban that virtually everyone openly flouts. It’s such utter nonsense that the only way you’ll get hit with the charge is if you get caught doing something else like robbing a bank while using a mag that has a date stamped on it.

        It’s a joke and everyone knows it. The legislature just can’t be bothered to take it off the books. OK, well, most people can’t be bothered to follow it and the cops can’t be bothered to enforce it… so who gives a fuck about it?

        Sure, it undermines the Rule of Law, but .gov’s been doing that to themselves for half a century and the only people arguing otherwise are stupid or just woke up from a 50+ year coma.

        “Irish Democracy” is a term Conservatives need to learn. Steal a libby term and say you’re “just living your Best Life”.

        • In TN SB2628:
          Firearms and Ammunition – As enacted, removes a short-barrel rifle or shotgun from the list of weapons the possession, manufacture, transport, repair, or sale of which is prohibited under state law. – Amends TCA Title 39, Chapter 17, Part 13.

          It’s important to control states. A well run state can act as a buffer against a tyrannical federal government.

      • Eugene, thanx, that’s the name of the town my cousin moved to and for the like of me I could not remember the name of that city.

    • “They have legalized all types of sex acts“

      Oh, the horror!

      Father-rapers and mother-stabbers, oh my!

    • You’re looking at this in the wrong light, Chris.

      Here’s the thing, if this law were allowed to stand, it won’t be but if it were, what you should advocate for is non-compliance.

      Let the cities collapse. If you don’t live in them, you don’t care. And as things degrade further in the next year or two those people living there, who are utterly incapable of fending for themselves, will literally start to die off.

      It’s Darwin in action. Don’t try to stop it because you can’t. Evolution is a process that will steamroll you if you get on the wrong side of it. Let them be on the wrong side of it, kick back, relax and watch them die screaming for the help you’re not going to give them and might, in fact, be inclined to actively work at denying them.

      They kill themselves off in the hellholes they create, destroy their own ideology for generations and provide you entertainment. That’s a hattrick. Why complain? Not only do your enemies get what they have coming, they do it in a highly amusing way.

      • “If you don’t live in them, you don’t care.”

        I understand the sentiment, but it’s wrong to let people destroy themselves.

        • At a certain point you discover that you have to let people hurt themselves until they get sick of it.

          As I said to rant7 (in a comment stuck in moderation), an intervention for an alcoholic requires a bit of a soft touch. You have to let them go far enough that they realize they’re harming themselves but not so far that they’re beyond help.

          Sometimes you have to just walk away and observe from a distance until the time is right to strike.

          Based on the current goings-on, that’s not right now. People haven’t hurt themselves enough yet. But that time is rapidly approaching.

          Dancing on the edge of a knife, as it were, but I’ve been using that metaphor since before the 2020 election so maybe it’s a bit worn.

    • “they have, or want to have, outlawed government sanctioned executions of convicted murderers”

      Tell me you’re ignorant of Oregon politics without etc. etc… Oregon voters resoundingly affirmed the death penalty but the democrat masters unilaterally decided not to apply it even if it had already been sentenced.

      But go ahead and keep regurgitating media nonsense, I guess we’re used to it after Portlandia.

  3. The text of Ballot Measure 114 specifically states that the new restrictions shall not go into effect until 30 days after the results of the election have been certified. The election has not been certified, but the Democrat Secretary of State has announced that the new restrictions will go into effect 30 days after the election. So much for the rule of law.

    Interestingly; the list of imbeciles who endorsed Ballot Measure 114 includes many people who provided political and rhetorical support for the Antifa BLM rioters whose year of mostly peaceful protesting transformed down town Portland into a wasteland reminiscent of Beirut or Mogadishu.

    • “The text of Ballot Measure 114 specifically states that the new restrictions shall not go into effect until 30 days after the results of the election have been certified”

      Uh, no. 114 doesn’t specify its own effective date and the law says ballot measures go into effect 30 days after the election where they’re approved. There’s plenty here to attack without making new stuff up.

  4. By the way, Oregon is the State that was conned into creating two corrupt bureaucracies that entered into a criminal conspiracy with the Oregon Marijuana Mafia to expropriate the private property of innocent victims for the purposes of committing Federal felonies. Prior to the reforms required by House Bill 3200 which was passed unanimously during the 2019 session of the Oregon legislature, both the Oregon Medical Marijuana Program and the Oregon Liquor and Cannabis Commission were gleefully issuing address specific grow site permits to tenants or anyone else without the knowledge or consent of the property owner. This has cost Oregon landlords many millions of dollars. Upcoming legislation will hopefully put an end to the equally corrupt practice by the OMMP and OLCC of issuing address specific cannabinoid processing permits (usually Butane Hash Oil Extraction which often causes catostraphic explosions and fires) without the knowledge or consent of the property owner.

    God only knows how long it will take Oregon to get a permitting process operating. My guess is never.

    • So you’re telling me that the legalized marijuana industry is just as evil criminal and corrupt as when it was an illegal marijuana industry. And crime never went away when marijuana was legalized. Like we were promised.

      • The difference between legal and illegal drugs is the ability of large corporations and the government to cash in on it. Cigarettes are still illegally sold where local taxes are too high. If pot becomes legal, drug dealers won’t suddenly become law abiding businessmen. They will switch to illegally selling something else or maybe just tax free pot.

        • They often stick with pot because their lack of overhead in the form of taxes and regulatory compliance results in a cheaper product than can be legally produced.

          It’s rather similar to running cigarettes and dip into NY. You can make $2-$3/pack while having a $2-$3 price advantage over legal competition.

          One of the reasons I generally find conspiracy theories laughable is that they require intelligence and competence to pull off, two things .gov shows it has approximately none of.

        • I’ve heard that in California, the legal pot is so expensive with all the regulations and taxes, the margins are still attractive for the bootleg growers to stay in business in the ‘Emerald Triangle’ of the PNW…

        • “I’ve heard that in California, the legal pot is so expensive with all the regulations and taxes, the margins are still attractive for the bootleg growers to stay in business…”

          The same issue was the case in Colorado until they reduced the cost of doing business legally. You can’t “win” when you have legal dope being sold at $65/eighth ounce while the exact same shit and the same quantity can be picked by any middle school student for $50.

          At that point it’s cheaper to just give your kid a $3.00 postal scale and couple Grants or a Benji and send them to school than to hit up Ye Ol’ Weed Shop. Tell them there’s a two roach limit on the bag you get tonight (and those roaches better come from pinners you greedy little bastard!), call that the fee, and wait for them to come home. Cheaper, easier and you don’t have to interact with some dealer, let the kid do it. At least the dealers at school want this to be done quick and discretely, so the kid won’t get trapped talking to them and smoking a gram and a half of your bud before you get the bag.

          The other thing screwing Cali is a combination of soil chemistry, geography and “export”.

          One of the reasons the cartels moved to fent is pretty simple. For decades they grew pot to sell in Cali but when Cali went legal the market collapsed when transport costs were included. (This was later reestablished at a lower point because economics but that’s another discussion. In a nutshell, who wants outdoor Mex when they can legally grow chronic?)

          Anyway, cartel dudes are not farmers or good with soil chemistry. They depleted the shit out of the soil for decades with harvesting pot for max profit NOW. They never, forgive the pun, plowed any of that money into reconstituting the soil. The result is poor soil.

          With the collapse of the weed market for dirt weed, the cartels moved something like 80% of the “pot land” over to growing poppies to manufacture H. But their H sucked compared to Afghan product because the poppies were growing in bad soil and therefore had low opium content. Shitty opium makes shitty heroin.

          So, they looked for a fast fix as per normal. That fix was to spike their shitty H with fentanyl they could buy from China. So, they did.

          That’s the root of the fentanyl crisis.

          At this point they grow shitty poppies in Mexico and elsewhere in Central America to make H they spike with fent, coco in South America and weed in the Western US to export to states where it’s still illegal. More and more though, they’re just moving straight fent in quantity because the junkies actually prefer it. It’s a dollars/kg game just like most private market items that require wide distribution networks.

          There’s an evolutionary story in there somewhere about broad vs. narrow selective pressures and the distance between peaks and the depth of valleys but that’s probably a poor analogy for this crowd. But that discussion would also require going kinda deep into the cartels other businesses like human trafficking, running hitmen, numerous scams, front businesses etc. It’s a literal book because they’re a diversified sort of conglomerate with vertical and horizontal integration across a wide range of, uh, “businesses”.

          A not terrible primer for those that care about that last paragraph: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fitness_landscape

      • Very strange that this doesn’t happen with booze. Must be some sort of anomaly that we’ll have to get the guys at CERN to delve into.

        • “Very strange that this doesn’t happen with booze.”

          Moonshine isn’t exactly as cheap to produce at scale as one might think, with all the precautions the distillers have to take with problems like the highly distinctive odors that fermentation and distillation makes.

          That means, things like effective fume scrubbers are required. That can take a considerable amount of water and energy consumption to do properly. And privacy.

          Just the things that law enforcement needs to track. Got a ‘shop’ in an industrial park? Better hope LE doesn’t have a source in a utility provider passing tips on to the feds that your 1,000 sq foot operation is using an unusually large quantity for the square footage you are leasing…

        • $5 federal license and your still passes “Go” and collects $200. Local LE can fuck right off. We’re making fuel officer.

          The fact that you’re an idiot who loses several thousand gallons a month to “spillage” is an EPA issue, clearly. EPA can’t find the spill? Damn son, we do a good job at cleaning up the waste, huh?

          That’s why I have a T-shirt says “Drink what we can and sell the rest”, which is hilarious since I don’t drink and everyone that knows me knows it.

          It’s not a hard law to skirt and it’s not something anyone’s really going to enforce. Too much time and effort for something that’s already legal and you proved it. Without real evidence you’re selling it for consumption… how do they can get a warrant?

        • And no, I don’t make shine and sell it. I don’t make shine at all.

          But I do have a $5 license and a still. Nice and legal. So if I wanted to get into the shine business the real problem is competition from corporations. I can make maybe 50 gallons of high test a month, they make hundreds of thousands. Scale wins.

          But if there’s an apocalypse or something…

  5. If the sheriff won’t enforce oregon’s Gun Control rot it appears oregon’s Gun Control zealots will have to do it themselves…good luck with that.

    • Saw a report where the PASTOR who pushed for this law, complained that when he talked to three Portland police officers about going out and seizing the now illegal mags, that they said “NO”!!!

  6. The real truth is that neither of the two States Laws will stop gun violence because only a Federal Law would make a difference.

    And Iowa’s Constitutional Amendment means absolutely zero when it comes to the Feds passing a gun new gun law or upholding an existing law. If Iowa’s new law were of any significance then Iowa could manufacture and sell machine guns and silencers over the counter, but they cannot because State Law does not trump Federal Law when it comes to gun control. That is historical fact like it or not, and the Far Right can scream from the rooftops, but they are just wearing out their vocal cords.

  7. I’ve got a friend from New Jersey who went to ISU and decided to stay in Ames permanently. I asked him once why Iowa? He told me that in NJ if someone tells you they’re from Iowa it means they’re a hard worker. What does it mean if you tell someone you’re from Oregon? You leave hypodermic needles and human feces on the streets?

  8. I don’t recall who I was listening talk to about this, I wasn’t paying that much attention, but I suspect that the Oregon law goes down hard even without recent SCOTUS decisions.

    It creates several impasses where it’s not possible to follow the law, the result is a de facto ban on gun ownership/possession by people trying as hard as possible to follow the law. It’s essentially the gun version of the Marihuana Tax Act of 1937.

    Attempts to comply are unwise because the entire thing has created a situation where attempting to comply provides evidence of non-compliance to .gov thugs.

    It is, IMHO, better to just ignore these laws and do your thing. Sure, Law and Order folks don’t like it, but at this point they’re NPCs anyway so fuck them.

  9. iowas SO cool:
    you can legally carry concealed
    in a bar or tavern
    AND consume alcohol
    just as long as your bac stays below .08

  10. Supporters of Oregon Measure 114 (2022) spent 94.42% of the money expended on the campaign, to buy only 50.74% of the votes cast.

    That’s even more lopsided than the cost for many of those same sponsors to buy:
    – I-1639 (WA 2018, 87.89% for 59.35%)
    – Prop. 63 (CA 2016, 81.14% for 63.08%)
    – Q-1 (NV 2016, 74.89% for 50.45%) (then more later to buy the legislators)
    or to lose:
    – Q-3 (ME 2016, 85.19% for 48.20%).

    OR-114’s spending was nearly as lopsided as the current record holder:
    – I-594 (WA 2014, 94.93% of the money for 59.27% of the votes)
    but OR’s vote margin was much slimmer.

    It seems even massively lopsided funding is effective at persuading only a modest majority of the voters, and then only sometimes. What sort of money would be required to buy 80% of the votes, and how reliable is that investment? Yes, the people who bankroll these initiatives (like Michael Bloomberg and George Soros and Bill Gates and the Joyce Foundation) have that sort of spare change between the sofa cushions, but they accumulated that money by not throwing it at bad bets.

    I find the premise of “80% of Republicans…” or “97% of gun owners…” or even widespread true grassroots support for gun control implausible, or at least financially infeasible.

    (Stats from Ballotpedia’s Firearms on the ballot series item on OR-114)

    • Why spend $ on some BS measure which is clearly UnConstitutional (as reiterated by Bruen)? The progs were going to pass 114 anyhow. Save the cash/effort for the inevitable court battle.

  11. A fair vote in ORtardia is a contradiction of terms. Ever since the state went to mail-in balloting, there hasn’t been a Republican Governor. You can track you ballot in the system, but you cannot see how it was applied. And the icing on the cake is that the ballots are tabulated using machines running Windows NT…a 20 year old dead OS.

    • You’re not wrong as far as it goes, but tracking who people actually voted for would be a violation of election law – state if not federal, and probably both.

  12. Fact one Oregon Supreme Court has struck down laws as UnConstitutional if it is “UNENFORCEABLE” ie Magazine Ban!!!

    Fact two Oregon Supreme Court has struck down laws as UnConstitutional if it is not “FUNDED” ie licensing process!!! STATE LAW!!!!

    When I checked the State website it listed the state cost at $40-75 million yearly!!!

    DEMOCATS no longer have super majority in Oregon legislators, so Republicans will be able to block the DEMOCAT anti-gun laws!!

    Several Democats before the election made it clear they would move to ban semi auto rifles, if 114 passes, but now they have a problem since they don’t have the numbers to pass said threat…

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