THE BULLETIN • MONDAY, JUNE 13, 2022 A3
LOCAL, STATE & REGION
2 supermoons to brighten
night skies this summer
BY JAMIE HALE
The Oregonian
Full moon watchers will
want to circle two dates on
their calendars if they haven’t
already: June 14 and July 13,
dates of the two supermoons
in 2022.
The pair of especially large
full moons are coming just in
time for the summer solstice
on June 21, each rising just
after dusk on some of the lon-
gest days of the year.
And while the term “super-
Background
Continued from A1
Advisers to Kitzhaber at the
time said the governor’s direc-
tive stemmed from a desire to
ensure police were enforcing
existing gun laws. The gover-
nor, they said, saw the move
as a way to push for additional
gun-related restrictions.
That meant following up
when someone who shouldn’t
have a gun tried to buy one.
The unit focused on the
misdemeanor crimes of lying
on the federal background
check form and trying to buy
a gun illegally.
State police assigned five
troopers to field offices in
Portland, Salem, Springfield,
Roseburg and Bend — among
the busiest regions in the state
for gun sales.
When background checkers
with state police denied a gun
purchase over a violent misde-
meanor or stalking conviction,
an outstanding warrant or any
one of a dozen other disqual-
ifiers, they sent the cases to
the unit.
Guns
Continued from A1
Given the bipartisan sup-
port, “there are no excuses
for delay, and no reason why
it should not quickly move
through the Senate and the
House,” he said.
Leaders hope to push any
agreement into law rapidly —
they hope this month — be-
fore the political momentum
fades that has been stirred
by the recent mass shootings
in Buffalo, New York, and
Uvalde, Texas. Participants
cautioned that final details
and legislative language re-
main to be completed, mean-
ing fresh disputes and delays
might emerge.
In a consequential devel-
opment, 20 senators, includ-
ing 10 Republicans, released a
statement calling for passage.
That is potentially crucial
because the biggest obstacle
to enacting the measure is
probably in the 50-50 Senate,
where at least 10 GOP votes
will be needed to attain the
moon” conjures up fanciful
images, it simply means that
the moon will be a little closer
to the Earth when full, making
it a little larger and brighter
than normal. The moon will
appear the biggest as it rises
over the horizon, which is
perhaps the best time to look
for it.
The June 14 full moon,
also known as the “straw-
berry moon,” will rise at
10:01 p.m. in Portland, ac-
cording to Time and Date,
while the July 13 full moon,
or the “buck moon,” will rise
at 9:41 p.m. Look for both
moons over the southeastern
horizon.
The supermoon phenom-
enon occurs as the moon
reaches its closest point to
Earth in a given annual cy-
cle. Because the moon follows
an elliptical path around the
Earth, its closest distance from
our planet (known as the per-
igee) varies throughout the
year.
William Rosen, managing
director of state policy and
government affairs for Ev-
erytown for Gun Safety, a na-
tional gun control advocacy
organization, said following
up on denied gun sales is im-
portant work that most states
don’t bother to tackle.
Ten other states have laws
or policies requiring police to
follow up on denied gun sales,
he said. Pennsylvania reported
nearly 5,000 convictions of
people who tried to buy guns
illegally over a two-decade pe-
riod starting in 1999.
Rosen pointed to one 2008
federally funded study show-
ing that up to 30% of people
who try to buy a gun and fail a
background check are arrested
within five years.
“Not in every case does it
mean that someone is going to
commit a crime but certainly
every case warrants an inves-
tigation, a knock on the door,
some questions about what is
going on here,” Rosen said.
In Oregon, the troopers’ in-
vestigations typically involved
a time-consuming process
of poring over federal and
out-of-state court records for
criminal convictions that in
some cases were so old they
were archived, Swift said.
He would track down the
person to ask if they knew
they were prohibited from
buying a gun — interactions
he said sent a message that po-
lice took seriously any attempt
to circumvent state and federal
gun laws.
“Not only would he not
have gotten a gun,” Swift said,
“there would have been a fol-
low up knock at the door by a
state trooper.”
But state police leaders
questioned the unit’s value
given the agency’s chronically
stretched staffing, its mandate
to patrol the state’s highways
and the generally low prose-
cution rates for the low-level
crimes the troopers focused
on.
A 2018 federal report spot-
lighted how three states,
including Oregon, handle
denied gun sales. Some pros-
ecutors told the U. S. Govern-
ment Accountability Office
usual 60-vote threshold for
approval.
“Families are scared, and it
is our duty to come together
and get something done that
will help restore their sense
of safety and security in their
communities,” the lawmakers
said. The group, led by Sens.
Chris Murphy, D-Conn., John
Cornyn, R-Texas, Thom Tillis,
R-N.C., and Krysten Sinema,
D-Ariz., produced the agree-
ment after two weeks of
closed-door talks.
The compromise would
make the juvenile records of
gun buyers under age 21 avail-
able when they undergo back-
ground checks. The suspects
who killed 10 Black people at
a grocery store in Buffalo and
19 students and two teach-
ers at an elementary school
in Uvalde were both 18, and
many perpetrators of recent
years’ mass shootings have
been young.
The agreement would offer
money to states to enact and
put in place “red flag” laws
that make it easier to tempo-
rarily take guns from people
considered potentially violent,
plus funds to bolster school
safety and mental health pro-
grams.
Some people who infor-
mally sell guns for profit
would be required to obtain
federal dealers’ licenses, which
means they would have to
conduct background checks
of buyers. Convicted domes-
tic abusers who do not live
with a former partner, such
as estranged ex-boyfriends,
would be barred from buy-
ing firearms, and it would be
a crime for a person to legally
purchase a weapon for some-
one who would not qualify for
ownership.
Congressional aides said
billions of dollars would be
spent expanding the number
of community mental health
centers and suicide prevention
programs. But they said some
spending decisions are unre-
solved, as are final wording on
juvenile records and other gun
provisions that might prove
contentious.
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Arrests
Continued from A1
Jamie Hale/The Oregonian file
A full supermoon rises over the Oregon Dunes on the Oregon Coast
near Reedsport in April 2021. The 2022 supermoons will be this Tues-
day and July 13.
This year’s July full moon
will be the closest of the year,
at 221,993 miles from the
earth. The June full moon will
be 222,098 miles away. The
new moon on Dec. 23 will
also be “super,” with a perigee
of 222,619 miles.
that the cases require signif-
icant effort and in turn “may
offer little value to public
safety compared to other cases
involving gun violence.”
Prosecutors in Oregon said
the crimes were typically dif-
ficult to prove since the pro-
spective buyer may have not
intentionally tried to skirt the
law.
As a result, the unit found
itself on the chopping block
over the years and in 2020,
Davie eliminated the team, re-
turning the troopers to patrol
and referring those investiga-
tions to local police.
That year, troopers referred
297 cases to local prosecutors
for review. Last year, the num-
ber dropped to four.
It’s unclear the extent to
which local police picked up
where the state police left off.
State police track the data
but required a public records
request before they would re-
lease the numbers; the agen-
cy’s review of The Oregonian’s
request for the information
has been pending for more
than a week.
A spot check of prosecutors
offices shows a drop in cases
referred for review.
In Clackamas County, for
instance, prosecutors say the
referrals related to the denied
gun purchases made about 5%
of the office’s misdemeanor
caseload through the end of
2020. The office has received
one referral so far this year.
The Lane County District
Attorney’s Office saw a similar
pattern. In 2020, the office saw
75 cases related to denied gun
purchases. Last year, prosecu-
tors received a total of seven.
Grants Pass Police Chief
Warren Hensman said his of-
ficers review reports of gun
purchase denials and follow
up when warranted.
But he said he’d prefer the
work be returned to the state
police. He said troopers have
the expertise and statewide
reach and his agency is already
juggling competing demands
for officers’ time.
“We are struggling with
homelessness, drug addiction,
theft, domestic violence is
through the roof,” he said.
Police learned about the
U-Haul from a tipster, who
reported that “it looked like
a little army was loading up
into the vehicle” in the park-
ing lot of a hotel, White said.
Officials spotted the truck
soon after and pulled it over,
he said.
Videos of the arrest
posted on social media
show the men kneeling on
the grass with their hands
zip-tied behind their backs.
Police led the men, one
by one, to the front of patrol
cars, took off their masks
and then brought them to
a police van.Those arrested
came from at least 11 states,
including Washington, Ore-
gon, Texas, Utah, Colorado,
South Dakota, Illinois, Wy-
oming, Virginia, and Ar-
kansas, White said.
Only one was from
Idaho, he said.
The truck was stopped
near where the North
Idaho Pride Alliance was
holding the Coeur d’Alene
Pride in the Park event. Po-
lice had stepped up their
presence in the area during
the event.
“It appears these people
did not come here to en-
gage in peaceful events,”
Kootenai County Sheriff
Bob Norris told a Coeur
d’Alene Press reporter.
Patriot Front is described
by the Southern Poverty
Law Center as “a white na-
tionalist hate group” that
formed after the deadly
“Unite the Right” rally in
Charlottesville, Virginia, in
2017.
“Patriot Front focuses
on theatrical rhetoric and
activism that can be easily
distributed as propaganda
for its chapters across the
country,” the Southern Pov-
erty Law Center said of the
group.
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