Although the midterm elections were a mixed bag for gun owners and Second Amendment supporters, there is some good news on the horizon.
Gun control is all but effectively dead in the House of Representatives going forward. The Senate, however, is somewhat troublesome with Democrats now having a 51-49 edge over Republicans—even with Senator Kyrsten Sinema declaring her independence from the Democratic Party.
Nevertheless, state governments and the courts will be able to push back against federal directives fired off by either the Biden White House or agencies.
Oregon Measure 114 Implementation Problematic for Gun Controllers
The bad news for Oregonians is Measure 114 narrowly passed by a 50.65% to 49.35% vote. If and when enacted, it would make firearms ownership conditional on having a permit, place more obstacles to ownership by imposing a fee to obtain the aforementioned permit, and ban firearms and magazines that exceed 10 rounds of ammunition and make it a Class A misdemeanor.
But trouble has followed the narrowly-passed Measure 114 since Election Day.
By December 8th, the ballot initiative was supposed to go into effect but various roadblocks to implementation –including a temporary restraining order filed by a state judge – may doom the law from
Ahead of the December 8th deadline, Oregonians have been buying soon-to-be restricted firearms and accessories in droves.
Jake Fogleman of The Reload reports, “November saw more firearm background checks conducted in Oregon than any other month in the state’s history, according to the latest FBI data. 91,661 National Instant Criminal Background Checks (NICS) were conducted in the month, roughly triple what the state had been averaging each month in 2022. The state’s previous record for a single month of background checks came in March 2020, when 59,115 checks were processed at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.”
“Surges in gun sales are not uncommon following the passage of new gun-control laws, but Oregon’s spike has been especially pronounced. That’s likely because the measure’s language bound the state to enforce new permit-to-purchase rules by December 8, before any infrastructure has been put in place to facilitate a new gun permitting system,” Fogleman also noted.
“Since November 8, 2022, the FICS unit has experienced unprecedented volumes of firearms transactions never seen before in the program’s 26-year history,” read a news release from the Oregon State Police. “OSP continues to work diligently to process and resolve as many of the pended/delayed FICS transactions as possible.”
New Poll Shows Surging Support for Bruen SCOTUS Decision
A new Marquette University Law School poll revealed Americans overwhelmingly support the New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen decision–the 6-3 Supreme Court decision that overturned the remaining may-issue permitting regimes in gun control states in June 2022.
64 percent of respondents support the SCOTUS decision to expand gun rights by invalidating New York’s draconian may-issue law, while 36 percent of respondents opposed the ruling.
More Americans Purchasing Firearms
As expected, the routine threat of gun control executive orders from the White House is convincing diverse Americans to purchase firearms—a trend that isn’t seeing stopping anytime soon.
Over the Thanksgiving holiday weekend, Black Friday in particular, the FBI’s National Instant Criminal Background Checks System (NICS) broke some records on the amount of background checks processed for new firearms purchases.
Per the National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF), the firearms and ammunition trade association, the NICS system conducted “711,372 background checks for the purchase of a firearm at retail during the week leading up to and including Black Friday.”
The trade association also revealed, “FBI’s NICS recorded 192,749 background checks on Black Friday alone, ranking it third in the Top 10 Highest Days for NICS checks and a 2.8 percent increase from Black Friday 2021, when 187,585 background checks were completed. The NICS checks are unadjusted, representing raw data from the FBI and are inclusive of all background checks related to firearms.”
Conclusion
Despite rampant misinformation about firearms ownership and usage, the U.S. remains better off having the Second Amendment.
Looking north to Canada–where they are not only banning commonly-owned semi-automatic modern sporting rifles, but also hunting rifles–should give one great pause.
And elected Democrats have no right to lecture us about firearms after the gun controller-in-chief okayed the release of notorious gun trafficker Viktor Bout (“the Merchant of Death”) back to Russia dictator Vladimir Putin.
Let’s hope and pray Republican lawmakers don’t cave to gun control demands in 2023.
