A new study published in the Journal of Public Economics indicates that the passage of Oregon’s Ballot Measure 114 led to a substantial increase in firearm purchases across the state.
According to the study’s findings, background checks—a standard indicator of firearm demand—rose by 14 percent in the days leading up to the November 2022 election. Following the narrow passage of the referendum, background checks increased by 157 percent.
The measure passed by a margin of 1.3 percent, representing a difference of under 25,000 votes out of more than 1.9 million cast.
Measure 114 was designed to establish a permit-to-purchase requirement for firearm acquisitions and to place restrictions on ammunition magazine capacities. However, the law has not taken effect due to ongoing state and federal court challenges regarding its constitutionality.
The Oregon Legislature has extended the potential implementation date to Jan. 1, 2028, contingent on the outcome of the legal proceedings.
The Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms (CCRKBA), a national gun rights advocacy group, issued a statement responding to the study’s publication.
“This was as predictable as winter rain in Portland,” said CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb. “Backers of Measure 114 have been humiliated. 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.”
Gottlieb argued that the proposed permit requirement prompted an immediate response from buyers while legal action was being prepared.
“Backers of Measure 114 had hoped their permit-to-purchase requirement, which we believe to be wholly unconstitutional under both the state and federal constitutions, would prevent people from buying firearms, and ultimately result in fewer guns in Oregon,” Gottlieb said. “Their narrow victory awakened Oregonians, who flocked to gun shops and sporting goods stores while literally every major gun rights organization in the country filed federal and state legal challenges, and those battles are still in progress.”
Gottlieb added, “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. 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 measure remains stalled in the judicial system while higher courts review the legal challenges to its provisions.
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