AP Photo/Julie Jacobson, File

It seems that gun control advocates have identified a few potential paths toward disarmament. While they may understand that the current landscape makes total disarmament unlikely, they’re more than willing to worm their way along whatever paths they can identify.

For example, there’s an understanding that certain people shouldn’t be allowed to have guns. The population as a whole tends to agree that felons and those with serious mental illness are not the people who should be walking around with a firearm.

However, something like this makes it easy to accept the idea that there are people who should be barred from owning guns. Once that is accepted, you can expand that list.

That’s what Oregon recently did.

Democrats in the Oregon Legislature pushed through a gun control bill Thursday after they sacrificed a more sweeping one – to the ire of student activists – in a deal with minority Republicans.

The bill senators passed 25-3 on Thursday is aimed at keeping guns out of the hands of domestic abusers and stalkers.

Gov. Kate Brown told reporters earlier Thursday she looks forward to signing what she called “the domestic violence bill” that earlier passed the House.

“We have been able to make incremental progress as I have been governor, and we will continue to do so in a strategic and thoughtful manner,” Brown said.

Brown was behind an agreement to drop legislation that would have allowed businesses to raise firearms purchasing age from 18 to as high as 21, and require safe storage of firearms.

The problem with this, however, is that these “domestic abusers” are guys who weren’t married or cohabitating with the women they supposedly abused.

Now, on the surface, this may make some people shrug. After all, what does it matter? An abuser is an abuser is an abuser, right?

However, let’s remember that when people are married, there’s documentation that they’re in a relationship. If Joe abuses Sally, we know he’s a domestic abuser because we have a marriage certificate that proves the relationship. It’s not some assault, but a man beating his wife.

The same is true if Joe and Sally aren’t married, but living together. We have evidence that both live in the same domicile, thus providing evidence of a relationship.

Without either of those, it becomes a far more difficult situation. How many men may lose their gun rights because a woman claims they were dating at the time of an assault?

Let’s also remember that this bill will mean that if a man and a woman are dating and have an argument, if she walks away and he grabs her arm to stop her–an assault but hardly the act of a violent man–he can be stripped of his Second Amendment rights for life.

Even deeper is the fact that Oregon is trying to expand the pool of those who can be acceptably disarmed. Oregon is doing this, and few will speak up to defend stalkers or domestic abusers because both groups are disgusting to our minds. However, it won’t end there.

Don’t believe me? California wants to keep people with more than one DUI convictions from owning guns.

It will continue, and we all know it. That is unless people wake up and recognize what’s going on and start opposing these measures on general principle.