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THE DAILY ASTORIAN • MONDAY, MARCH 26, 2018
Gun retailers react to ‘assault weapon’ sales ban initiative
must collect about 88,000
signatures by July 6 to go
before voters in November.
Should the petition make it
to the ballot and get approved
by voters, people who legally
bought the types of guns
the petition seeks to restrict
would have to register those
weapons and pass a back-
ground check, requirements
that have also prompted criti-
cism from gun retailers.
Violating the law would
be a felony.
At issue for gun retailers
is the definition of “assault
weapons,” which the peti-
tion describes in detail as
semi-automatic rifles, pis-
tols or shotguns with certain
features.
As an example, the mea-
sure would ban the sale of
semi-automatic rifles that
have the capacity to accept
a detachable magazine and
include any of eight features,
such as a pistol grip, a fold-
ing stock or a shroud around
its barrel that allows the user
to hold the rifle steady with-
Concerns that
measure is too
broadly written
By CLAIRE
WITHYCOMBE
Capital Bureau
SALEM — As students
and their supporters marched
in communities across the
country against gun violence
on Saturday, Oregon gun
retailers claim a citizen ini-
tiative petition intending to
restrict the sale of so-called
“assault weapons” is too
broad.
One of the petitioners,
though, maintains that the
petition was written in con-
sultation with gun owners
and is intended to boost pub-
lic safety.
The group, which filed an
updated petition Thursday,
wants to get a ban on the sale
of certain semi-automatic
guns with specific features
on the statewide ballot. They
‘Assault is an action,
not a class of firearm.’
Scott Bryce
co-founder of GunRunner Arms in Junction City
Christopher Oertell/Pamplin Media Group
Oregon gun retailers claim a citizen initiative petition in-
tending to restrict the sale of so-called ‘assault weapons’
is too broad.
out burning their hand.
It would ban the sale of
any semi-automatic pistol
or rifle “with a fixed maga-
zine, that has the capacity to
accept more than 10 rounds
of ammunition.”
Karl Durkheimer, who
owns Northwest Armory,
a retailer with locations in
Portland and Tigard, said that
he was still trying to figure
FIVE-DAY FORECAST FOR ASTORIA
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TOMORROW'S NATIONAL WEATHER
NATIONAL CITIES
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DUII
•At 12:18 a.m. Saturday,
Samantha Jo Gassner, 31, of
Seaside, was arrested by Sea-
side police on Franklin Street
near Avenue U and charged
with driving under the influ-
ence of intoxicants.
•At 1:43 a.m. Sunday, John
Olsen, 58, of Scappoose, was
arrested by Seaside police on
12th Avenue near The Prom
and charged with DUII.
•At 2:41 p.m. Sunday,
Cindy Curl, 57, of Seaside,
was arrested by Seaside police
on the 1510 block of Roos-
evelt Drive and charged with
DUII. The car she was driving
allegedly hit a telephone pole,
and she attempted to flee after
the accident. Her blood alcohol
content was 0.17 percent.
•At 8:15 p.m. Sunday, John
Coetzee, 57, of Warrenton, was
arrested by the Clatsop County
Sheriff’s Office and charged
with DUII and reckless driving.
tuary of Astoria is in charge of
the arrangements.
March, 20, 2018
MORLEY, Kelly Renee, 55,
of Silverton, formerly of Knappa,
died in Keizer. Virgil T. Golden
Funeral Services of Salem is in
charge of the arrangements.
acy Reign Knutson, born at
Columbia Memorial Hospital
in Astoria. Grandparents are
Ruby Knutson of Warrenton,
and LuAnna and Walter Erick-
son of Rainier.
ON THE RECORD
REGIONAL CITIES
City
Baker City
Bend
Brookings
Eugene
Ilwaco
Klamath Falls
Medford
Newberg
Newport
North Bend
tributed the gun, the licensed
dealer that sold the gun, and
the purchaser. About 70 per-
cent of the ATF’s traces are
successful, according to a
July 2016 report by indepen-
dent news organization The
Trace.
Ron Redding, owner of
Guncrafters, a Salem retailer,
argued that the statute change
sought by petitioners could
hurt gun manufacturers, and
claimed that banning the sale
of weapons as specified in the
petition would merely create
a black market for them.
Petitioners say that their
intent is to protect public
safety.
Rev. W.J. Mark Knutson,
senior pastor of Augustana
Lutheran Church in Port-
land and initiative petition
campaign chairman, said the
campaign has members who
are gun owners and were con-
sulted in the crafting of the
petition’s language.
Rather than banning what
he characterizes as assault
weapons outright, Knutson
said, the petitioners sought
to grandfather in legally pur-
chased guns in a way that
respected the rights of gun
owners.
“This is not a campaign
against anybody,” Knutson
said. “It’s a campaign to pro-
tect our children and public
safety in Oregon.”
Knutson pointed to the
advent of seat belts as an
example of when American
society adapted to protect
public safety.
Burns
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Forecasts and graphics provided by AccuWeather, Inc. ©2018
Source: Jim Todd, OMSI
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UNDER THE SKY
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Sunset tonight ........................... 7:36 p.m.
Sunrise Tuesday .......................... 7:05 a.m.
Moonrise today .......................... 2:11 p.m.
Moonset today ............................ 4:30 a.m.
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ASTORIA
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Precipitation
Sunday ............................................. Trace
Month to date ................................... 3.11"
Normal month to date ....................... 6.13"
Year to date .................................... 21.72"
Normal year to date ........................ 23.52"
Mar 31
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REGIONAL WEATHER
Astoria through Sunday.
Temperatures
High/low ....................................... 50°/32°
Normal high/low ........................... 55°/40°
Record high ............................ 69° in 1934
Record low ............................. 27° in 1996
Full
THURSDAY
out how much of his inven-
tory would fall under the peti-
tion’s definition of an assault
weapon.
He expressed doubts that
the measure was written
by someone familiar with
firearms.
“As someone who has
sold guns, been a gun dealer
for over 25 years, and been
collecting guns since I was 16
years old, it’s not written by
people who have very much
gun knowledge,” Durkheimer
said in a phone interview.
Scott Bryce, co-founder
of GunRunner Arms in Junc-
tion City, likewise objected
to the use of the term “assault
weapon” in the petition.
“Assault is an action, not a
class of firearm,” Bryce said.
This was a common crit-
icism among Oregon gun
dealers contacted by the EO
Media Group/Pamplin Media
Group Capital Bureau, who
distinguish between fully
automatic and semi-auto-
matic weapons.
The former have gener-
ally been illegal for civil-
ians under federal law for
decades.
An automatic weapon fires
continuously when you pull
the trigger once. By contrast,
a semi-automatic weapon
fires a single shot when you
pull the trigger and automat-
ically reloads between shots.
Many “modern” guns sold
and collected are semi-auto-
matic guns.
Durkheimer was also
skeptical of the initiative
petition’s provision for cre-
ating a registry for people
who own those certain types
of guns and having them go
through a background check.
The way it works now,
a person who wants to pur-
chase a gun from a licensed
dealer is subject to a state and
federal background check.
However, the Oregon
State Police don’t maintain
a registry, and Durkheimer
sees the petition as trying to
change that status quo.
“If you come in and you
buy a .22 rifle, the only per-
son that knows you have that
.22 rifle is Northwest Armory
and yourself,” unless you
choose to share that infor-
mation with someone else,
Durkheimer said.
When a gun has been used
in a crime, the police have to
request a “trace,” or manu-
facture and sale history, from
the federal Bureau of Alco-
hol, Tobacco, Firearms and
Explosives using the serial
number of the weapon in
question.
The ATF can then find
out the manufacturer of the
gun, the wholesaler that dis-
Menacing
•At 1:27 p.m. Friday,
Louis Bo Potter, 29, of West-
port, was arrested by the Clas-
top County Sheriff’s Office
on the 91450 block of Caleb
Road and charged with men-
acing, interfering with a
police officer, possession of
a weapon with intent to use,
second-degree criminal mis-
chief and disorderly conduct.
He allegedly threatened peo-
ple with a knife.
Shown are noon positions of weather systems and precipitation. Temperature bands are highs for the day.
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DEATHS
March, 24, 2018
LARSON, Allen Leroy,
86, of Astoria, died in Astoria.
Caldwell’s Luce-Layton Mor-
BIRTH
March 18, 2018
KNUTSON, Emily and
Roy, of Seaside, a girl, Leg-
PUBLIC MEETINGS
Weather (W): s-sunny, pc-partly cloudy, c-cloudy,
sh-showers, t-thunderstorms, r-rain, sf-snow fl urries,
sn-snow, i-ice.
MONDAY
Seaside City Council, 7 p.m., City Hall, 989
Broadway.
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• A complete, highly detailed image of
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• Reduces the time of X-rays by 50%
and the dosage of radiation by 1/5.
• Extra oral imaging for patients that
typically gag or struggle with x-rays.
KLEMP F A MILY D ENTISTRY
1006 West Marine Drive, Astoria
(503) 468-0116
www.klempfamilydentistry.com
TUESDAY
Clatsop County Human Services Advisory
Council, 4 to 5:30 p.m., 800 Exchange St., Room
430.
Seaside Airport Advisory Committee, 6 p.m.,
City Hall, 989 Broadway.
Astoria Planning Commission, 6:30 p.m., City
Hall, 1095 Duane St.
LOTTERIES
OREGON
Sunday’s Pick 4:
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WASHINGTON
Sunday’s Daily Game: 8-3-7
The Daily Astorian
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