By Dave Workman
Editor-in-Chief
An anti-gun ballot measure that barely passed in Oregon four years ago—and has yet to be implemented because of continuing court challenges—resulted in a 157 percent spike in gun sales, according to a new study published this week in the Journal of Public Economics.
A report by Oregon State University (OSU) says Measure 114, which squeaked to victory on fewer than 25,000 votes out of more than 1.9 million cast, says there are now “thousands more firearms in the state than there otherwise would have been.” Passage of the measure ignited a buying spree, based on background check information from before and after the November 2022 election.
The head of a national grassroots gun rights organization based in neighboring Washington state says this rush by Beaver State citizens to buy firearms before a permit-to-purchase mandate contained in the measure kicked in was “as predictable as winter rain in Portland.”
Alan Gottlieb, chairman of the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms, which has two state affiliate organizations in Oregon—the Oregon Gun Owners Action League and Oregon Firearms Federation—believes Measure 114 will ultimately be found unconstitutional.
“Backers of Measure 114 have been humiliated,” Gottlieb said. “Their intention was to make gun ownership so burdensome that the number of firearms in the state would decrease. Instead, Beaver State citizens sent the gun control crowd a message that their narrow win at the polls back in November 2022 has turned into a serious policy and philosophical defeat.”
The nationally-recognized gun rights advocate was unflatteringly critical of the voters—primarily in Portland and along the I-5 corridor including Salem, Eugene and Corvallis—who supported the measure.
“Would-be Utopians in the Willamette Valley who barely passed the measure vastly underestimated the determination of rights-minded citizens from Brookings to Baker City,” Gottlieb said. “Their nutty dream of a gun-free Oregon has turned into their personal nightmare because now there are more guns in the state, and people realized constitutional rights are not up for grabs, and should not be subject to election outcomes.”
The OSU report quotes economist Assistant Prof. Katie Bollman stating, “It’s not particularly surprising that people go out and buy more guns when they have compelling reason to believe it’s going to become harder to in the future. But the magnitude of the increase is pretty remarkable, as is the underlying dynamic driving it.”
The report clearly states, “Measure 114’s proponents intended to reduce the number of firearms in Oregon, subsequently reducing firearm-related accidents and violence. On the surface, this reasoning is plausible: restricted access to firearms may well reduce the number of firearms (and firearm-related deaths).”
The permit-to-purchase and other red tape requirements were supposed to deter or prevent people from exercising their Second Amendment rights. But the new study says quite the opposite has happened. In short, the plan backfired.
According to OSU coverage, Bollman acknowledged, “This makes it particularly notable that Measure 114 has not been implemented – there are more guns in Oregon after passing permit-to-purchase than we expected to have if it had not passed.”
Almost immediately after the election was validated in late 2022, gun rights organizations literally descended on Oregon with legal challenges. At least four federal lawsuits were filed, with a district court judge ruling the measure is constitutional, and one state lawsuit in an eastern Oregon circuit court, where the judge ruled the measure is unconstitutional.
The federal ruling was appealed, as was the state ruling. The state case is now before the Oregon Supreme Court, while the federal litigation appears to be gathering dust at the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco.
While Oregon citizens are still waiting for a ruling on the measure’s constitutionality, the Legislature has postponed implementation until Jan. 1, 2028, provided it survives the legal challenges.
