A federal judge ruled Friday that Oregon’s voter-approved tighter gun laws requiring a permit to purchase a firearm and limits on magazine size are constitutional. On Monday, her ruling was appealed by the two gun store owners and two gun rights advocacy groups that brought the case.
The appeal is unsurprising and sends the case on to the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. That court may send the case back to Oregon U.S. District Court for additional proceedings. Alternatively, the Ninth Circuit will make a decision that could be sent to the U.S. Supreme Court for review. The Supreme Court justices may or may not decide to grant review.
Voters passed the new gun laws by a slim majority – just 50.6% said yes. The laws were immediately challenged in federal and state court.
Friday’s ruling by U.S. District Court Judge Karin Immergut holds that it is within the state’s rights under the U.S. Constitution to regulate how many rounds a magazine can carry.
She wrote that though magazines are often required to operate firearms, those containing 11 or more rounds are not necessary to make a gun work. She also ruled that the permit-to-purchase system outlined in Measure 114, the ballot measure approved by voters in November, is in keeping with the state’s right to regulate who is allowed to own a firearm and is not unconstitutionally vague.
A state judge in Harney County approved a request for an injunction blocking the law from going into effect. That block holds, despite the federal ruling. The state case is expected to go to trial in September.
Friday’s story is below here:
By CONRAD WILSON and JONATHAN LEVINSON/Oregon Public Broadcasting
A federal judge says Oregon’s new, stricter gun safety rules are constitutional.
In a 122-page written order issued late Friday, U.S. District Court Judge Karin Immergut found banning large capacity magazines and requiring a permit to purchase a firearm are in keeping with “the nation’s history and tradition of regulating uniquely dangerous features of weapons and firearms to protect public safety.”
Immergut’s order comes after a weeklong trial in early June testing the constitutionality of Oregon’s new gun laws, which voters approved last fall. It follows a U.S. Supreme Court ruling last year, in which the court’s conservative majority decided that no one should need special permission to exercise their Second Amendment right to carry firearms outside their home.
Large capacity magazines “are not commonly used for self-defense, and are therefore not protected by the Second Amendment,” Immergut wrote. “The Second Amendment also allows governments to ensure that only law-abiding, responsible citizens keep and bear arms.”
She ruled that Ballot Measure 114′s permitting system does not violate the Second Amendment and therefore does not deprive Oregonians of their liberty.
Despite the federal decision, Ballot Measure 114 remains blocked by a state court. A trial is scheduled for September in Harney County Circuit Court.
Immergut, a former U.S. attorney for Oregon, was appointed by then-President Donald Trump in 2019. Oregon Sens. Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley, both Democrats, supported her nomination.
Ballot Measure 114 passed in November with 50.6% of the vote. Since its passage, firearms groups, sheriffs and gun store owners filed lawsuits challenging the law. In January, a state court judge blocked the law from going into effect.
The law would ban future purchases of so-called “large capacity magazines” that can carry more than 10 rounds of ammunition. It also requires those wishing to buy a firearm to get a permit first. Permits will require applicants to complete a safety class and a federal background check.
The federal trial focused almost exclusively on the magazine restriction portion of the law. Days before the trial, Immergut set aside the aspects of the case that dealt with Measure 114′s permitting process, calling arguments against it “unripe” because any potential harm was in the future.
Plaintiffs argued regulating magazine capacity infringed on the rights granted by the Second Amendment. Attorneys pointed to the Supreme Court’s 6-3 ruling in New York State Rifle and Pistol Association v. Bruen, which – among other things – states lower courts can no longer consider whether a law restricting firearms serves public interests, such as enhancing public safety. Rather, the Court ruled they should look to the text of the Second Amendment.
“These are our rights, endowed by our Creator and they belong to us and it’s not something for the government to give or take away as a privilege any time they see fit,” the National Shooting Sports Foundation’s Mark Oliva said prior to Immergut’s ruling. The group is among the plaintiffs arguing the state’s tighter gun laws infringe on the Second Amendment.
The Supreme Court’s Bruen ruling also states firearms regulations must be “consistent with this nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation.” That has set off a new interest in Revolutionary War era historians and firearms experts who can explain the laws that governed firearms and the state of firearm technology in the late 18th Century.
Immergut said that magazines are necessary to operate many firearms but magazines holding more than 10 rounds “are never necessary to render firearms operable.”
Attorneys defending Measure 114 include lawyers for the state as well as the nonprofit Oregon Alliance for Gun Safety. They argued magazine capacity can be regulated because a magazine is not part of a firearm, but rather an accessory. Throughout the trial they called experts who testified about revolutionary history and types of firearms that were common at the time of the nation’s founding. Firearms that could fire more than one round without reloading were extremely uncommon, several experts testified. Historians also testified that deadly weapons – such as Bowie knives – had a history of being regulated when they posed threats to society.
The defense also stressed that part of the Bruen decision allows for new firearms regulations if there’s an “unprecedented societal concern.” They called experts who testified to the spike in mass shootings, especially during the last 30 years. High capacity magazines were used in all of the deadliest mass shootings, they testified.
Expert witnesses also testified that states with restrictions on magazines capable of holding 10 rounds or more had fewer mass shootings, and shootings that did occur in those states were less deadly.
The state’s case concluded with Jenna Longenecker. She testified that both of her parents were killed by gunfire. Her mother was killed in the 2012 Clackamas Town Center shooting and her father died by suicide several years later. Suicide accounted for 75% of all gun deaths in Oregon in 2021, according to the latest data from the Oregon Health Authority.
“I wanted to remind the Court that this is a very real issue that does happen to real people and has real lasting impacts,” Longenecker said during an interview following her testimony.
In her ruling, Immergut agreed.
She wrote that interpersonal gun violence increased dramatically in the early and mid-19th century, much of it involving pistols.
“State and municipal governments in the beginning half of the nineteenth century regulated weapons viewed as being particularly dangerous to public safety,” she wrote. “These regulations were tailored to address the particular features of the weapons that made them most dangerous to public safety.”
Immergut’s ruling is in line with a similar Washington state firearms case decided in June. A federal judge there ruled against firearms groups that sued to block Washington House Bill 1240. That legislation was signed into law in April and bans the sale and distribution of assault weapons, defined in the bill as “civilian versions of weapons created for the military and are designed to kill humans quickly and efficiently.”
“The Plaintiffs maintain that they need only show that the ‘arms’ regulated by HB 1240 are ‘in common use’ today for lawful purposes and so are not ‘unusual,’” U.S. District Court Judge Robert Bryan states in his ruling. “If they do, they contend, the weapon cannot be banned under Heller and Bruen. The Plaintiffs misread Heller and Bruen.”
In an email, the Oregon Firearms Federation said that while its leaders hadn’t had a chance to read Friday’s entire ruling, the decision is “simple nonsense and sure to be overturned at the 9th circuit.”
The Oregon Alliance for Gun Safety, which joined the state in defending Measure 114, said in a statement that Immergut’s decision brings the state closer to enacting policies which will save lives.
“The Supreme Court has articulated that Second Amendment rights are not unchecked — they come with responsibilities — and the U.S. District Court affirmed this in our case,” Executive Director Jess Marks said in a press release.