Oregon is awash with idiocy. I am sorry to say but it is true. Because measure 114 has been tied up in court since 2022 and both the senate and the house have a Democrat supermajority there are now eight different bills that are going through to supplant measure 114, just in case.

I have been receiving notifications from both the National Rifle Association Institute for Legislative Action (NRA-ILA) and Oregon Firearms Federation (OFF) to go to the capitol and show my indifference to the bills sometimes more than once a day. As if going there and holding a sign is going to stop this. My own neighbor, that claims to be pro-second amendment is going to vote for these bills to pass.

One theory that I heard the other day is that because gun control has been beaten so badly in most of the United States they are focusing their efforts in states that are the most receptive like Oregon, Washington and Colorado. I do have to say that as much as I see much of my second amendment getting written away, so far Oregon has nothing on the other two. It won’t be long.

It sure seems like this is the case when I look at the pro-second amendment advancements throughout the country. What is the drive for all of this gun control in the first place? In my opinion, it is the fictitious phenomenon that gun violence is increasing and that mass shooter events were created at Columbine.

The other day, I was reading the local newspaper and I saw this article saying that there was sniper fifty years ago. You can read the entire article in the picture below. I looked up the census information and saw that the population was 6,361 in 1970 and 8,530 in 1980. Presumably, the population was 7,500ish in 1975.

The reason I looked up the population is that Dallas is a small town today, I figured it was smaller fifty years ago. More than that, it was an active shooter in a small, homogeneous town twenty years before Columbine. I had never heard of it, probably because the shooter was not successful.

“If we could save one life…” is a phrase commonly uttered in these kind of political situations. But really? I could think of a lot of things to ban. What about airplane travel of any kind? How about eliminating the 0.08 blood alcohol limit? For that matter a lot of people die in car crashes, I think driving can be dangerous. People die skiing, mountain climbing, hiking and swimming. People literally kill themselves with their diet.

If we were serious about eliminating risk then there would be a whole lot of things no longer permitted. I think that it really comes down to all the things that I think are risky and don’t effect me should be eliminated. As an example, I believe that there certainly is a place for wolves in the landscape but when they are killing your livelihood then it is a different perspective. The best compromise I can think of would be that wolves should be allowed to exist and they should be allowed to be eliminated when causing damage.

It is an ecological fantasy to say that man does not effect the environment. It is also part of the same fantasy that man is not part of the environment. Self defense is a God given tenant that pre dates our country and goes back to the origin of our species. Firearms are the best tool for self-defense and codified in our American heritage; not a specific type or construction or even needs based. It doesn’t matter if you don’t like it or whatever baggage you bring to the conversation.

I understand the pain of loss, especially when it is senseless or even innocent. My own 16 year old cousin committed suicide with his shotgun in 1994. It was hard on my young 19 year old psyche. We were relatively close and it changed our family forever. I have never blamed the firearm or the access to it. I blame the choice of the individual.

Would that have happened if the shotgun was locked up or not there at all? I don’t know. I don’t have an accounting of how the situation unfolded and the other circumstantial parameters. It doesn’t matter in the slightest because it doesn’t change the outcome. It also wouldn’t be addressed in this latest round of gun control bills. This was a common, pump action shotgun with bird shot setup and used for hunting. It was not a high capacity, rapid shooting, already possessed tool.

I am not for any further restrictions. If you told me that if enacting all of these bills I would be having a conversation with my cousin tomorrow I would still say no. Something tells me that a person in that kind of mindset would subject to other ills of life like drugs or even worse violence against others regardless of the means. There is something sick and psychotic about wanting to keep other’s tortured in their own life in the name of do-goodery. Besides, mental health is a conversation significantly deeper than a one day blog post.

End Your Programming Routine: When I declared that I was going to leave this state in November 2022, I did not fully consider the complications. I can see that this is not the state that I want it to be and I still do want to leave. It is just quite a bit more than just reacting to legislation. I am under no delusion that I can save this state and preserve my rights no matter what I do. Doing what I can means writing my thoughts down trying to persuade the world in my point of view. I doubt it will work but it is what I can do.