SALEM, Ore. — Carol Manstrom says she lost her 18-year-old son when he grabbed his father’s unsecured pistol and shot himself. Paul Kemp lost his brother-in-law when a man opened fire with a stolen AR-15 assault-style rifle at a shopping mall.
On Wednesday, Manstrom and Kemp helped deliver 2,000 signatures to Oregon’s elections office as part of an effort to get a measure on the 2020 ballot that would create the stiffest law in America requiring the safe storage of firearms.
The initiative would require guns to be secured with a trigger or cable lock, or in a locked container. It also mandates that a lost or stolen firearm be reported within 24 hours and makes violators of the measure liable for any injury from an unsecured weapon, except in matters of self-defense or defense of another person.
Massachusetts is the only state in the country that requires all people to keep their firearms safely stored when not under their immediate control, said Allison Anderman, managing attorney at Giffords, a gun-control advocacy group. The Oregon initiative goes further because it makes gun owners strictly liable to lawsuits if their unsecured weapons cause injuries or damage.
