Oregon Democrats are charging ahead with new gun control measures, passing a bill that bans bump stocks and allows municipalities to outlaw firearms in public meeting spaces—just a year after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled a federal ban on bump stocks was unconstitutional.
The legislation, Senate Bill 243, cleared the Oregon Senate late last week after intense debate. It now heads to the state House, where Democrats also hold a majority. The move comes despite the Supreme Court’s 2024 ruling, authored by Justice Clarence Thomas, which clearly stated that bump stocks do not convert semiautomatic rifles into machine guns under federal law.
In his majority opinion, Thomas wrote that “semiautomatic firearms, which require shooters to reengage the trigger for every shot, are not machineguns.” He added, “We hold that [a bump stock] does not” change that reality. The ruling struck down a Trump-era ATF rule that had imposed a national ban on bump stocks following the 2017 Las Vegas shooting.
Yet Oregon lawmakers are brushing off that legal precedent. According to Oregon Public Radio, Democrats claimed bump stocks effectively transform semiautomatic weapons into machine guns, an argument directly contradicted by the high court’s decision.
State Sen. Anthony Broadman (D) defended the new ban, saying, “These are accessories that turn otherwise legal firearms into machines of mass casualty, and they serve one purpose—to fire as many rounds as quickly as possible.”
That’s the same logic the Supreme Court already rejected.
SB 243 also contains provisions that would empower cities and counties to ban the carry of firearms inside government buildings where public meetings are held, raising alarms among gun rights advocates about creeping local restrictions.
Second Amendment supporters say the bill is an overreach that not only violates the spirit of the Supreme Court’s ruling but also sets a dangerous precedent of state-level defiance of constitutional protections.
The gun rights group Gun Owners of America slammed the move on social media, warning that “Oregon Democrats are sending a clear message: They don’t care what the Constitution or the Supreme Court says. They will disarm you by any means necessary.”
The bill’s passage adds Oregon to the list of Democrat-controlled states aggressively pushing firearm regulations despite mounting legal challenges. Similar legislation in Illinois, New York, and California has faced intense scrutiny in federal courts, especially in light of recent Supreme Court guidance reaffirming an individual’s right to bear arms.
Breitbart’s AWR Hawkins pointed out that Democrats continue to lean on tragic mass shootings to justify bans on accessories like bump stocks, even though they are rarely used in gun crimes. “Pew Research shows most Democrats pushing these laws have a deeper motive: an eventual road to broader firearm bans,” he wrote in a recent column.
The political momentum in Oregon mirrors broader trends across blue states, where gun control advocates are turning to state legislatures to impose new rules in the wake of federal legal setbacks. But with the Supreme Court signaling a more robust defense of the Second Amendment, such laws could be on borrowed time.
For now, the Oregon House is poised to advance SB 243, setting up another potential legal clash over firearm rights in America—and putting the state on a collision course with the Constitution.
