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Wallowa.com
Wednesday, June 8, 2022
A17
Wyden says GOP faces ‘question of our time’ on gun bills
By PETER WONG
Oregon Capital Bureau
Democrat Sen. Ron
Wyden says it’s up to
Republican colleagues in the
U.S. Senate to show whether
they are serious about fed-
eral fi rearms restrictions
after two mass shootings
this month in Buff alo, New
York, and Uvalde, Texas.
The Senate debated such
legislation most recently in
2013, after the 2012 shoot-
ings at Sandy Hook Ele-
mentary School in New-
town, Connecticut, claimed
the lives of 20 children and
six adults. But the Senate
fell short of the 60 votes
required to advance legis-
lation without a fi libuster,
although Wyden and Dem-
ocratic Sen. Jeff Merkley
voted for it.
The Senate is now in
recess for Memorial Day —
and a group of Democratic
and Republican senators
began talks to see if there is
a basis for legislation.
“That is the question of
our time. You noticed how
I approached it: The next
10 days are really crucial,”
Wyden told reporters Friday,
May 27, in the lobby of the
federal building where he
has his Portland offi ce.
“The question of com-
mon-sense gun reform is not
an either/or proposition. We
protect the right of gun own-
ership for law-abiding peo-
ple, and we’ve got to have
a new measure of safety to
prevent gun violence.”
Wyden himself has intro-
duced or co-sponsored a list
of bills. Among the propos-
als: Universal background
checks for fi rearms pur-
chasers, raising the age of
possession from 18 to 21,
restricting guns on cam-
puses, banning assault
weapons, and barring access
to guns by terrorists, domes-
tic abusers and others at risk
of harming themselves or
others.
“All of those would make
a real diff erence in reducing
the risk of these mass shoot-
ings, as well as tackling the
reported increase of shoot-
ing incidents in our home-
town,” Wyden said. “We are
not talking about something
thousands of miles away.”
Wyden discussed the
issue at a town hall meeting
in Keizer several days after
the Feb. 14, 2018, shootings
at Marjory Stoneman Doug-
las High School in Park-
land, Florida, that claimed
Wallowa County Chieftain/File Photo
U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden said it’s up to Republican colleagues
in the U.S. Senate to show whether they are serious about
federal fi rearms restrictions.
17 lives and wounded 17
others.
The prospects for leg-
islation are not high. The
Senate has not taken up the
issue since the failed votes
in 2013. The Senate dead-
locked 47-47 on May 26
on closing debate on a bill
(HR 350) to improve mon-
itoring, investigating and
prosecuting domestic ter-
rorism by the FBI, Justice
Department and Depart-
ment of Homeland Security.
That vote was short of the
60 required to close debate,
although Majority Leader
Chuck Schumer of New
York switched his vote to
preserve the option of bring-
ing it back.
The House passed two
bills in March 2021, but
neither is likely to pass in
the evenly divided Sen-
ate. One bill (HR 8) would
expand federal background
checks on potential buy-
ers to sales at gun shows
and on the internet, not
just those by licensed deal-
ers. The other (HR 1446)
would allow more time for
federal law enforcement to
conduct a check and close
the so-called “Charleston
loophole,” under which the
shooter in a 2015 massacre
obtained fi rearms although
the check had not been com-
pleted within the required
three business days.
After Uvalde: ‘Enough’
Wyden spoke in the after-
math of the nation’s lat-
est mass shootings. On
May 14, 10 Black people
died in a supermarket in
Buff alo, at the hands of an
18-year-old man motivated
by white supremacist ideol-
ogy. Ten days later, 19 chil-
dren and two adults died at
the hands of an 18-year-old
shooter — who also died —
at Robb Elementary School
in Uvalde, Texas.
Wyden spoke on the
same day that the National
Rifl e Association opened
its annual convention in
Houston, a few hours from
Uvalde, with former Presi-
dent Donald Trump as one
of the speakers. Wyden
called it “a shameless gath-
ering of death.”
“Enough of our country
being the only industrialized
western nation that shrugs
its shoulders at the mas-
sacre of children,” Wyden
said in his opening remarks
to reporters. “Enough of the
clichés and excuses.
“Enough of letting those
convicted of crimes hurting
women and kids keep their
guns.
“What other message
could there be besides
‘enough,’ when this shame-
less gathering of death is
being held only a few hours’
drive from this week’s
school massacre?”
“There is a long and
ever-lengthening list of
atrocities that Oregonians
know all too well.”
Wyden specifi ed the Ore-
gon incidents:
• Thurston High School,
Springfi eld, 1998: Two
parents and two students
shot dead; 25 wounded.
• Clackamas Town Cen-
ter, 2012: Three deaths,
including the shooter.
• Reynolds High School,
Troutdale, 2014: one stu-
dent dead plus the shooter;
one teacher wounded.
• Umpqua
Commu-
nity College, Roseburg,
2015: Eight students and
an instructor shot dead,
plus the shooter; eight
wounded.
‘Can’t put up a fence’
Wyden said Oregon has
compiled a good record
of state legislation in the
past two decades. Voters
extended a requirement for
background checks to pur-
chasers at gun shows in
2000, and lawmakers did
so for most private trans-
actions in 2015. A red-fl ag
law in 2017 allows family
members and law enforce-
ment to seek court orders if
people are deemed at risk of
harming themselves or oth-
ers; the orders last one year.
Safe storage requirements
passed in 2021, under a law
allowing school, community
college and university gov-
erning boards to restrict fi re-
arms on campuses.
“But we can’t put up a
fence around our state,”
Wyden said.
Though Wyden isn’t one
of the senators involved in
the latest negotiations, he
said that as chairman of the
Senate Finance Committee,
he is preparing to advance
legislation to improve men-
tal health services with
bipartisan support. One
of those who testifi ed to
Wyden’s committee earlier
this year was a senior at La
Pine High School, who also
volunteers for a youth line
— and who said there are
not enough people to fi eld
calls and off er help.
For Wyden, the issue is
personal. His older brother,
Jeff , had schizophrenia
and died in 2002 at age 51.
His brother’s struggles are
described in “Conquering
Schizophrenia,” a book by
Peter Wyden, their father,
who died in 1998.
But Wyden also said
improved mental health ser-
vices must go hand in hand
with stricter regulations on
fi rearms.
“I just don’t want anybody
to walk away with the argu-
ment that (mental health) is
somehow the entire solu-
tion,” he said. “Most people
with mental health issues are
not involved in the kind of
massacres we’ve seen.”
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