This sign got my attention on a bike ride Sunday.
Somehow, the sign I passed on a bike ride outside of Medford on Sunday reminded me of the gun bill — and signs of a completely different kind — the Oregon legislature has passed and sent to Governor Brown for her signature.
The legislation, enrolled as Senate Bill 554-B, was billed by its supporters as a safety measure. But it’s hard to escape the suspicion that its main point was to annoy gun owners generally, and especially those who are holders of state permits to carry handguns concealed.
Part of the bill requires firearms to be locked up or secured with a trigger lock when not under the control of their owners. Responsible owners already keep their guns secured. And others aren’t likely to become responsible because the state tells them what they must do in their own home.
The bill’s other part challenges the boards of public universities, community colleges and school districts to ban concealed-handgun-license holders from carrying on college or school grounds.
Under current law, it’s a felony to carry a gun in a public building, but the law makes an exception for people who have completed the requirements and obtained a concealed handgun license. SB 554 allows school and college boards — but not city councils or other local governing boards —Â to adopt a policy cancelling that exception for their buildings and grounds.
If they do cancel it, they must “post a clearly visible sign at all normal points of entry to the school grounds.”
The bill takes effect 90 days after the legislature adjourns. After that, school boards everywhere will have to decide whether to adopt the policy allowed by the new law and post such signs.
“Clearly visible” signs “at all normal points of entry” — will these constant no-gun reminders serve as a deterrent? Or as an invitation to trouble? (hh)
In China, owning guns, gunpowder, and ammunition is illegal for most of the population.
Representatives and Senators should just do the honest thing. Stop chipping away at the problem with stupid gun control laws and just pass legislation that repeals the Second Amendment.
And throw in language that gives the federal government the power to come into our homes and confiscate every firearm.
It only takes 2/3rds majorities in the House and Senate, and 38 of the States. The left coast (Oregon, Washington, California) would ratify a repeal in a second.
Former Supreme Court Justices John Paul Stevens and Warren Burger, both loyal Republicans, openly advocated for a repeal.
It’s time. Let’s become China.
Gordon…you rat, on face value of your rant. BUT, I’ll take your rant for the tongue in cheek humor it was meant for >).
This but unironically, Gordon.
Would you imagine? A country where policemen are not scared to death that any suspect may carry a deadly weapon, a country where teenagers don’t have ways to kill 10 or 20 classmates, or where toddlers can’t reach their “responsible gun owners” parents’ firearms and kill themselves, or a sibling. A country where we are not so afraid of others. A country where suicide is not as tempting or easy as it is with guns.
If you want to call it China, that’s alright. I’d rather by like the UK, France, or Germany, where they have the same freedoms we have in America without second amendment nonsense and guns poisoning our society.
Fascinating. A few years ago when the “intelligent few” decided we should rid ourselves of the Judeo Christian values inherent in the constitution, and replace them with the relativism that comes from post modernist Critical Gender and Race Theories – based on an illusion called diversity and equity – some predicted the outcome would be a morally and corrupt society (starting with the youth). They were called racists, sexists, and “stupid”. Forty years ago, I took guns to school to show teachers, then went hunting or target shooting on the way home – all by my lonesome. This was at a turbulent time on reservation towns with whites and Indians going at it daily – yet both sides of kids never escalated the fist fights and knife fights to gunfights. The exception was between the natives and the US government. The difference was a respect of life and common understanding of right and wrong – not the presence of guns. The intellectual elites have created the society they wanted – and now can’t handle it. The fact you suggesting our population “digress” to having a few elites in government “control” the population shows how corrupt and wrong you have been and are. You have lost your right to have an opinion; you and those like you have proven to be unwise.
“””You have lost your right to have an opinion;”””
Really? How does that fit with your (presumed) support of “the Judeo Christian values inherent in the constitution?”
Have I also lost my right to have an opinion because I agree with the “Would you imagine?” paragraph?
Would you admit that political correctness and cancel culture may be a problem on the right and not just the left? Keep that in mind as House Republicans vote on Liz Cheney.
More than guns can be considered a “deadly weapon” so should those things be banned as well because some idiots misuse a gun? No more cars, screwdrivers, knives, fingers, pencils, water, rope….
The problem isn’t the guns themselves, it’s what criminals are doing with them that is the problem. Banning guns isn’t going to prevent criminals for having guns.
It is tiresome to see/read the sophomoric signs cretinous gun-toters post on fences and car bumpers. Few, if any of these drooling adolescents have the cajones to shoot another human being. These childish tenderfeet are content to shoot coyotes, wolves and other species unable to return fire.
Rather than act on a phony pretense they try to project, these callow cowards pass themselves off as John Wayne in yet another ill-conceived, poorly-acted Western.
Sadly, gun-bearing phallocentric twits in Medford, along with the same crowd in Linn County, try to make us believe they’d have the courage to shoot another human. Laughable if it weren’t so disturbing. More likely, they worship at the hollow altar of Steve Bannon, Roger Stone and Mike Lindell, all cowards and phony wanabees. Putting-up a simplistic sign is a meaningless act amounting to nothing. The people who erect such signs are equally primitive.
The problem is not so much the Second Amendment, but the fraidy cats running around packing heat, owning more guns than they can ever use in a fight [collectors aside], marching in patrols on weekends threatening normal folks having a nice day in the park.
This kind of stuff only seems to happen in America. Like the 194 mass shootings in the last 18 weeks.
https://www.npr.org/2021/05/10/995380788/there-have-been-on-average-10-mass-shootings-in-the-u-s-each-week-this-year
And the bloodthirsty denizens of the far-right just shrug and mumble, “Not my problem.” They won’t even agree to universal background checks. And a couple of Saturday’s ago in Salem some of them were talking about being more prepared for the coming civil war.
They weren’t talking about the Beavers and Ducks.
Oh, you mean like the activist thugs who attacked the disabled vet in pdx. How very reassuring… Maybe disarm them first…Oh no!