By Jeb Bladine • President / Publisher • 

Bladine: County wants new gun laws ignored

A majority of Americans want new gun laws in response to our continuing national epidemic of mass shoots. Congress is being pressured, but laws already passed by the U.S. House of Representatives are expected to be gutted, if not completely discarded, by the U.S. Senate.

It doesn’t matter here in Yamhill County, which commissioners have proclaimed a “Second Amendment Sanctuary County.”

Two county commissioners took the entire population hostage with shameful political pandering and extremist actions. Let’s be clear about their beliefs:

Whatchamacolumn

Jeb Bladine is president and publisher of the News-Register.

> See his column

All laws regarding firearms and firearm accessories — all rules, orders, acts and regulations — “are a violation of the Second Amendment.” Yamhill County has the “legal authority to refuse to cooperate with state and federal firearm laws that violate those rights.”

That dogma introduced county Ordinance 913, which declared us a sanctuary for people violating state and federal gun laws. The ordinance bans enforcement of laws created after February 2021, but it says all such laws are unconstitutional.

The state of Oregon disagrees. A high-profile state lawsuit against Yamhill County will play to a packed house at 10 p.m. Friday, July 8, in Yamhill County Circuit Court. If you want to tune in to the Zoom session — after all, you’re paying the legal costs — send an email request to Yam.calendaring@ojd.state.or.us.

There will be plenty of verbal gymnastics and legalese, but behind the fancy rhetoric, here is what our commissioners want:

If Oregon lawmakers set 21 as the minimum age to buy an AR-15, and our sheriff or a deputy tries to enforce that new state law, commissioners, per their ordinance, would want the officer charged with a Class A violation/

I believe new laws are needed to reduce the mass shooting toll that ill-defines us to a bewildered world; I believe we can protect general rights to bear arms while limiting or eliminating those rights for people — and companies — who cannot meet common sense regulations; I believe we should expand the rules and fully prosecute the offenders.

I believe that the blood of those 19 children and two teachers in Uvalde, Texas — among so many, many others — is at least partially on the hands of people who believe that all gun control laws and rules and regulations are unconstitutional and should be ignored.

Elected officials with such beliefs have one more thing in common: They took office after free and fair elections in which voters had a choice.

Jeb Bladine can be reached at jbladine@newsregister.com or 503-687-1223.

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