There are a lot of disheartening things in this world, unfortunately. It's part of life, and you sort of expect it in a general sense, then feel in deep in your soul when a specific example rears its head. A prime example of that, for me, is the Pacific Northwest rolling toward gun control over the last handful of years.
I love the rainforests up that way, and it's an area I considered moving to at some point. Now, though, they're so hostile toward gun ownership that there's just no way I could justify it.
Take Oregon (please?) for a moment. Since Measure 114's passage, the laws there are very, very hostile toward the Second Amendment, and there are tons of delays in background checks.
Recently, the Oregon State Police said that their data says that's simply not true, but gun rights advocates report people waiting years, all because of an arrest that never resulted in a conviction.
And at least one is asking the right question.
Pending cases rising Kevin Starrett, executive director of the Canby-based Oregon Firearms Federation, said his organization usually hears daily from people experiencing delays or denials on their background checks for “no apparent reason.”
He questioned why state police are able to find evidence of an arrest promptly but struggle to verify whether an actual conviction took place. That setup puts the burden on the person seeking a gun to provide documentation for cases that may stretch back decades, he said.“OSP has an institutional policy of ‘we don’t care, we don’t have to.’” Starrett said in an emailed statement. “There are people who have literally been waiting for years for a resolution.”
Last year, 15,838 background checks were recorded as “pended” or requiring further research in 2024, a number that has increased in the past few years from around 11,000 in 2021, according to the firearm unit’s annual 2024 report. The number of cases still open at the beginning of the year has also increased from just two in 2020 to more than 4,800 in 2024.
Oregon State Police Capt. Kyle Kennedy, an agency spokesperson, said that in the past year and a half, same-day approvals have become far more common. Pending cases are also being resolved faster, but there are increasingly complex cases that require finding documentation from an agency regarding a previous criminal history, Kennedy said. Oregon law prohibits the sale of guns to individuals who have been convicted of a felony or misdemeanor involving violence within the past four years.
“When they’re in Oregon, it’s usually the easiest, because we can reach out to Multnomah County and go, ‘Hey, do you have this info?’” he said. “They’re usually a lot more responsive in state, but we have a ton that are out of state, and it’s just a lot of work.”
The thing is, you can't pretend that everything is just hunky dory with your background check system when thousands of people are still waiting for their background checks to come in.
Further, it shouldn't be all that hard to find out if someone was actually convicted. If it is, then maybe the state should start using the NICS system, which doesn't leave people hanging nearly that long, even in a state that ignores the three-day maximum waiting time outlined in federal law.
Why is it, as Starrett asks, that Oregon State Police can find an arrest out of state immediately, but they don't seem to be that worried about it taking God only knows how long to see if there was a conviction?
I can't help but think that the easy answer is a matter of they simply don't want. As he says, they don't care, and there's no requirement that they have to.
Folks, this is why this idea of waiting period maximums, such as the three days at the federal level, exists. You can't just sit on background checks indefinitely under the guise of trying to be thorough. They don't have to care, so they won't. They'll just let it sit and wait for someone else to do the next step.
At least saying they've got a week to do it puts a fire under them. I think it's stupid anyone has to wait, but if we're going to play that game, there needs to be a cap on how long someone has to wait. If not, then some will wait indefinitely, and they'll wait over nothing.
