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Welcome to the Ceasefire Oregon website.
We work to prevent gun violence.

The Oregon Senate will vote very soon on four gun safety bills: SB 700 (universal background checks), SB 347 (guns in schools), SB 699 (guns in public buildings), and
SB 796 (in-person class required to obtain CHL). Ceasefire Oregon strongly supports all four bills. Please sign our petition TODAY asking the Oregon Senate to pass these four common-sense gun laws. Now is the time for gun law reform.

Then email your state senator TODAY and ask him or her to vote YES on all four bills. The vote will take place very soon! Contact your senator today!

Oregonians support common-sense gun safety laws: watch and share this video.

These are the four bills that the Oregon Senate will vote on very soon:
• Senate Bill 700: Universal Background Checks – Closes the private sales loophole so criminals and other dangerous people can’t buy guns.
• Senate Bill 347: Gun-Free Schools – Gives school districts the authority to prohibit guns on campus.
• Senate Bill 699: Guns in Public Buildings – Ensures that citizens cannot openly carry guns in buildings where public bodies are deliberating.
• Senate Bill 796: In-Person Class for Concealed Handgun License – Requires citizens to attend an in-person class before obtaining a concealed handgun license.

For more info on the bills, please see our Oregon legislative update here.

Keep guns away from dangeous people:
Require universal background checks
Background checks prevent criminals and people with serious mental illness from buying guns. That's why a background check should be required for every gun sale. 81% of Oregonians support universal background checks on all gun sales. Ask your legislators in Salem to require universal background checks: vote YES on SB 700. This is a terrific bill that we strongly suppport.
Read more here.

Securing Our Schools from Gun Violence

Some people are calling for more guns in schools in response to the tragic shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary School. The most outrageous call came from Wayne La Pierre of the National Rifle Association. Other news reports describe school districts struggling to find a way to safeguard students and reassure parents.

Guns in schools aren’t new. An estimated 25% of schools in this country already have some sort of armed police presence at least some of the time. This is the time to think clearly and act responsibly on school security.

Please take the following TWO STEPS to reduce the risk of gun violence in Oregon schools.

LEARN. Read the following to learn how Oregon law needs to change to reduce the danger to students and teachers:

Current Oregon Law: Most guns in schools are prohibited by both federal and state law. But anyone who has one of Oregon’s over 169,000 concealed handgun licenses (CHLs) can carry a handgun, including an assault weapon, into a public school (K-College).

The armed visitor does not have to tell the school he is bringing a gun into school.
The armed visitor does not have to present a CHL.
The school cannot find out whether an armed visitor has a valid CHL.

Some school districts have more restrictive regulations, but the legal validity of those rules is doubtful. And there is no skill requirement for getting a concealed handgun license in Oregon—you don’t have to be able to hit what you shoot at. Citizen shooters greatly increase the risk to public safety officers and students alike in an emergency.

(Exceptions to the basic rule above are teachers, contractors, and students over 21 if the district has inserted those prohibitions into their contracts.)

The School Guns Bill, SB 347: Senator Ginny Burdick has introduced SB 347, which Ceasefire Oregon strongly supports. The bill was amended and passed out of committee to the Senate floor on April 18. The Senate will vote on this bill very soon. Please contact your legislators and tell them to vote YES on SB 347!

SB 347 would permit K–12 school districts to prohibit CHL holders from bringing guns into their schools, pursuant to the district’s written policy. Even in districts that adopt such a policy, public safety officers would still be able to carry guns into schools, as would other authorized people. And even in those districts, parents who are CHL holders would still be permitted to have their guns with them when they drop off or pick up their children at school, as long as the guns are not carried into a school building. School districts that want to permit all CHL holders to bring their guns into schools can still do so (and would not have to take any action to do so) under this bill.

The bill increases student and teacher safety in these ways:

It puts school districts in charge. Local school districts can be expected to confer with public safety officials, teachers, and parents about the best way to keep students safe. Local school districts will be permitted to decide whether and under what circumstances to allow armed civilians into their school buildings. Under current law, school districts have no control over who brings a gun into schools.

It reduces the risk of vigilantes in the schools. Parental concern is high right now, and many parents own guns for the purpose of defending their homes and families. Few gun owners have the training and skill needed to respond in a crisis situation without further endangering students and staff. SB 347 will allow school districts to develop needed security plans and keep well-meaning individuals from creating additional risks.

It reduces the risk of unintentional shootings. Although the Sandy Hook horror is the primary focus of public attention right now, on a day-to-day basis, accidents and inappropriate access to firearms are the causes of many more child deaths. Careless gun owners, like the Tillamook gun dealer who lost his handgun in a theater where it was found by school children the next day, are far more common than mass murderers. School kids need to be protected from them as well.

You can download our flier, Securing Our Schools from Gun Violence, here.
Books Not Bullets: Please sign our petition to keep guns out of school.

ADVOCATE. The Oregon Senate will be voting on SB 347 very soon. Email your state senators and representatives and tell them to support SB 347. Then contact Oregon House Speaker Tina Kotek and House Majority Leader Val Hoyle and tell them to move this bill to the top of the legislative agenda and enact it immediately.

Give school districts local control over who carries a gun into your child's school.
Enact SB 347 to put school districts, not vigilantes, in charge of school security.

Ceasefire Oregon

Ceasefire Oregon works to prevent gun violence by advocating reasonable, effective gun laws. We educate the public and legislators about gun violence, lobby on behalf of bills that will help make our communities safer, and work to prevent the passage of bills that would make it easier for dangerous people to obtain and carry firearms.

Over 30,000 people are killed by firearms in this country every year. More than twice as many are injured. This is a public health crisis of staggering proportions. Guns are too easily available to felons, fugitives, kids, and people with serious mental heath problems. To reduce gun violence, we must make it more difficult for people who cannot lawfully own guns to obtain them.

To find out more about our work and to help, please click the links above.
Take action now to prevent future shootings.

MAKE YOUR VOICE HEARD
Visit the Oregon legislature's website to find out who your representatives are, in Salem and in Congress, and how to contact them. Email your state senators and representatives to let them know that you want them to improve our gun laws.

We are appalled that the U.S. Senate has not passed any gun safety bills this year. The senators who voted no on the amendment to require increased background checks should be ashamed. Both Oregon senators did, however, vote for that amendment on April 17, as well as for others that would have helped reduce gun violence. Please thank them for their votes. Call or mail U.S. Senator Wyden (202.224.5244 or http://wyden.senate.gov/contact/) and U.S. Senator Merkley (202.224.3753 or http://merkley.senate.gov/contact/) and say thanks.

You can reach your representatives in Congress through their websites.

Click here for information on President Obama's plan to reduce gun violence.

On this terrific video, a young man explains why he is working to reform our nation's gun laws: http://my.barackobama.com/Why-Sami-is-Fighting

Sign up here to support our work to prevent gun violence.