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THE DAILY ASTORIAN • TUESDAY, JANUARY 22, 2019
Gun storage laws could come to Oregon
Restrictions could
follow other states
Alternative to NRA
insurance has early support
By JONATHAN
LEVINSON
Oregon Public Broadcasting
In his Portland home,
Austin Meyers stood in front
of his gun safe showing how
he stores his ammo, his pis-
tols and his rifl e.
He was putting a cable
lock on his matte Glock hand-
gun and prepared to demon-
strate how fast he could
unlock it and load a magazine
if he had to in an emergency.
The cable lock is essen-
tially a metal cable with both
ends connected to a pad-
lock, forming a secure loop.
One side of the cable goes in
through the chamber, down
the magazine well and then
loops back into the locking
mechanism. With the cable
lock in place, a magazine
cannot be loaded into the gun
and the gun can’t fi re.
Meyers locked his gun,
put a magazine a few feet
away and stashed the keys in
a safe place. For security rea-
sons, Meyers did not want to
disclose where he keeps his
key.
State laws regarding gun
locks vary widely. Twen-
ty-three states, including
Oregon, don’t have any laws
about fi rearm storage.
But that could change.
The state Legislature has
introduced two different
bills requiring gun owners to
lock their fi rearms when not
in use. If one of the bills is
passed, gun owners in Ore-
gon will have to think about
this scenario if they haven’t
already.
Meyers walked through
what he would do if someone
broke into his house.
“If you hear a window
break, fi rst get your keys,”
Meyers said, reaching for the
keys he hid moments before.
“Get the gun from your your
nightstand. Get the key into
the lock.”
He struggled for a moment
to get the key in the lock the
right way.
“Open the lock up, pull
that out. Get a mag in and
then you’re good to go,” he
said.
By JONATHAN
LEVINSON
Oregon Public
Broadcasting
Jonathan Levinson/Oregon Public Broadcasting
Sgt. Brandon White of the Multnomah County Sheriff ’s Offi ce puts a cable lock on a training
Glock. The sheriff ’s offi ce gives out gun locks for free to anyone who wants one.
In all, for Meyers —
who’s been a competitive
shooter for fi ve years — it
takes 16 seconds.
And while that might not
be fast enough for some peo-
ple, Meyers thinks that’s
plenty of time. He says you’d
probably hear someone
breaking in before you had to
use your fi rearm.
“I don’t think that it’s
extreme at all. It is pretty
common sense you know, if
you’re not using it — keep it
locked up,” he said.
Oregon’s approach
Common sense is exactly
how state Rep. Barbara
Smith Warner, D-Portland,
described it, too.
She and state Sen. James
Manning, D-Eugene, are
sponsoring one bill: the
Cindy Yuille and Steven For-
syth Act, named for the two
victims killed in the 2012
Clackamas Town Center
shooting.
Gov. Kate Brown has also
introduced a bill that would
create a new crime called
“endangering a minor,” pun-
ishable by 364 days in jail
and a $6,250 fi ne.
Smith Warner compares
her safe storage bill to the
campaign to make seat belt
use more commonplace.
“It takes kind of a public
health approach,” Smith War-
ner explained. “You create an
expectation, you do a broad
public education campaign
about it and you have that
become the default activity.”
She said no one is going
to be busting down doors to
check gun safes.
But if something happens
— say a child gets hold of
your gun or a stolen gun is
used to commit a crime —
then, she said, it will be a
violation.
“It’s like a traffi c ticket,”
Smith Warner said.
The new law would
require all gun owners to
secure their fi rearms when
not in use. That means lock-
ing them up and keeping
them out of the hands of peo-
ple who are prohibited from
owning guns, like minors or
felons. It also requires gun
owners to report a stolen gun
within 24 hours or face liabil-
ity for any damages.
Safe storage and man-
datory reporting hit close to
home for many Oregon res-
idents in 2012. That year, a
man used a stolen AR-15 to
kill two people and injure a
third at the Clackamas Town
Center, a shopping mall just
outside of Portland. The rifl e
wasn’t secured in the owner’s
home and was never reported
stolen.
“Nobody prepares for a
moment like that,” said Paul
Kemp, remembering that
afternoon.
His sister had been at the
mall visiting her husband
with their daughter.
“They had just left and
then the shooting started and
she couldn’t get a hold of
Steve,” Kemp recalled.
Kemp’s brother-in-law,
Steve Forsyth, was one of the
two people killed that day.
Kemp is lobbying for
Smith Warner’s safe storage
bill. He said that law could
have saved Forsyth’s life had
it been in place at the time.
The national picture
Oregon isn’t the fi rst state
to pass a safe storage law.
Some states, like Califor-
nia, are more strict, requir-
ing owners to keep fi rearms
locked if they live in a home
with people prohibited from
owning them.
Other state laws are more
relaxed. In Ohio, a gun dealer
is only required to offer a
lock with every purchase.
Twenty-seven states and
the District of Columbia
have a version of safe storage
called a child access preven-
tion law.
Andrew Morral, a senior
behavioral scientist at the
RAND Corp. , was part of
a team of researchers that
looked at how different kinds
of gun laws impact things
like homicide and suicide.
“There’s variation,” Mor-
ral said, “but the basic idea is
you’ve got to keep your guns
locked if there’s any chance
of a kid accessing them.”
Massachusetts is the only
state that requires all guns to
be locked when not in use.
This month , Washing-
ton become the second
state in the country to ban
the National Rifl e Asso-
ciation’s Carry Guard
insurance. The policies
are liability coverage
for gun owners who use
their fi rearms for self-de-
fense and are sometimes
referred to as murder
insurance.
The insurance gives an
upfront payout to cover
the cost of legal fees if a
policy holder is involved
in a shooting. The pol-
icies extend coverage
even if a person ends up
pleading guilty or is con-
victed of a crime, such as
homicide.
Washington
state
offi cials said the Carry
Guard policies are illegal
because you can’t insure
a criminal act.
But Chris Thobaben, a
A gun owner there can
face up to $15,000 in fi nes or
12 years in prison for storing
a fi rearm where a child may
have access to it.
There are a few states —
Utah, Mississippi and Tennes-
see — where there’s no legal
requirement to lock up your
guns, but it’s a misdemeanor
to recklessly or knowingly
provide fi rearms to a minor.
Smith Warner’s proposed
legislation is a hybrid. The
requirements are strict but the
penalties are not. Like Massa-
chusetts, it requires gun own-
ers to securely store all fi re-
arms, but the penalty is only
a fi ne up to $2,000.
Morral said that of the 13
types of gun laws they stud-
ied, the child access preven-
tion laws had the greatest
impact.
“It does look like safe
storage laws can reduce lives
lost to suicide and uninten-
tional injury,” he added, “and
Marine Corps offi cer and
2020 candidate for Wash-
ington state representa-
tive, said he has a better
idea.
Thobaben proposes
requiring gun owners to
make a one-time payment
at the point of purchase.
That payment would be
for an insurance policy
that would stay attached
to the gun for its lifespan,
even if it’s sold.
“So if gun No. 11567
is used to kill John Smith,
John Smith’s family is
subject to receive the
payout of John Smith’s
life value,” Thobaben
explained.
The policy upends
the traditional insurance
model. It doesn’t cover
the shooter, only the vic-
tim of gun violence.
And Thobaben’s plan
might catch on.
He said his proposal
has support from the
gun control group Moms
Demand Action and
members of the NRA.
you know that’s an endorse-
ment, defi nitely, for safe
storage.”
Massachusetts’ safe stor-
age law is one law among
many contributing to the
state’s low gun death rate —
at 3.6 gun deaths per 100,000
people in 2016, it’s the low-
est in the country. Massachu-
setts’ death rate is fi ve times
lower than the highest rates
in Alaska, Alabama and Lou-
isiana, where there were over
20 deaths per 100,000 peo-
ple. And it’s three times lower
than Oregon’s.
But with Democratic
supermajorities now hold-
ing power in both houses of
Oregon’s Legislature, some
are hoping new laws might
reduce those numbers.
They’re also hoping Ore-
gonians won’t punish them
next election for the extra 16
seconds it will take to access
their fi rearms if the safe stor-
age bill becomes law.
Oregon bottle deposit system hits 90 percent redemption rate
By CASSANDRA
PROFITA
Oregon Public Broadcasting
Oregon’s bottle deposit
system is recycling more
containers than ever before
despite major disruptions in
global recycling markets.
Last year, Oregon recy-
cled 90 percent of the bev-
erage containers covered
by its bottle deposit system.
The rate has jumped from
64 percent just two years
ago and the total number of
bottles recycled reached an
all-time high of 2 billion in
2018.
“That’s a really inter-
esting thing given how
much change is happening
in recycling markets right
now,” said Joel Schoen-
ing, with the Oregon Bever-
age Recycling Cooperative,
which runs the state’s bottle
deposit system.
Schoening said the pro-
gram isn’t suffering from
the same problems as curb-
side recycling.
“Because we deal only
in glass, plastic, aluminum
with very few exceptions we
have a very clean recycling
product,” he said, “which
makes it easier to sell and
recycle domestically.”
The new numbers refl ect
the recent expansion of the
program to include more
types of beverage contain-
ers, including energy and
sports drinks, tea, coffee
and kombucha, as well as an
increase in the deposit value
from 5 cents to 10 cents.
In 2018, the program also
saw a 50 percent increase in
sign-ups for the BottleDrop
service that allows consum-
ers to drop off their bottles
to be counted and credited
to their accounts. Accord-
ing to the Oregon Bever-
age Recycling Cooperative ,
more than 300,000 Orego-
nians now have BottleDrop
accounts.
Peter Spendelow, a natu-
ral resource specialist with
the Oregon Department of
Environmental Quality, said
the bottle deposit program
is helping the state keep its
recycling rate up even as
some recycling companies
across the state are having
to send some of their recy-
clables to landfi lls for lack
of buyers.
featuring hanz araki
“We can see good
increases in aluminum,
glass and rigid plastic con-
tainers — three materi-
als that are dominated by
the bottle deposit system,”
Spendelow said.
In 2017, China — the
world’s largest buyer of
recyclables — severely
restricted the amount of
recyclable material it allows
into the country because
commingled recycling ship-
ments had too much non re-
cyclable trash in them. That
left recycling companies
with a much smaller market
for recyclable material.
Spendelow said the bot-
tle deposit system benefi ts
from cleaner mix of recy-
clable materials than curb-
side programs.
“People do not put cof-
fee cups in when they return
their bottles through the
redemption center,” he said,
“whereas you do see those
in curbside bins.”
Spendelow said the suc-
cess of the bottle deposit
system proves that depos-
its can work to incentiv-
ize proper recycling, but it
isn’t the solution for every-
thing that’s going in curb-
side bins.
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