Armed with Reason: The Podcast - Episode 3
Armed with Reason: The Podcast - Episode 3
This week's guest is Penny Okamoto from Ceasefire Oregon Education Foundation and Survivors Empowered.
In the third installment of our new podcast, hosts Devin Hughes and Caitlin Clarkson Pereira are joined by Penny Okamoto, Executive Director at Ceasefire Oregon Education Foundation and Survivors Empowered.
You can listen to the chat via our channel on Spotify, as well as watch on YouTube.
We hope you’ll tune in and let us know not only what you think, but what you’d like to hear more about in the future. And if you are interested in recommending a guest, or even being one yourself, please let us know!
Given the abundance of gun violence in our country, it is critical to have the ability to discuss and advocate for a safer community. This podcast is one more way for the movement to do just that.
TRANSCRIPTION:
Caitlin Clarkson Pereira: Hi, everyone. Thanks again for joining us here on Armed with Reason, the podcast, which is brought to you by GVPedia. Today I have Devin here with me again.
Devin Hughes: As always, hopefully.
Caitlin: And today we are joined by the wonderful Penny Okamoto. So I am actually going to turn this over to Devin to introduce everybody to Penny.
Devin: Yes, that's right. It's my first introduction here. So, Penny Okamoto is the executive director of the Ceasefire Oregon Education Foundation and Survivors Empowered. So, many many hats. She's been in the gun violence prevention movement for 20 years, actually more than 20 years, and has helped transform Oregon's gun laws, most recently by being a driving force behind Measure 114, which we're going to talk a bit more about later. And on a more personal note, for GVPedia hopefully everybody listening here is familiar with the Denver Accord. If you're not, go visit GVPedia and click on the Denver Accord button. It's basically a road map to reducing gun violence, and Penny is actually the driving force behind the Denver Accord. When we were planning our conference way back in 2019 —which feels like a different century or a millennium after what happened in the 2020s — we were preparing for that. And then like a few weeks before, Penny was like, you know what would be a great idea is if we created like a document that compiled all the gun laws that work, and we should totally do that. And I was like, Yeah, okay, let's do that. And sure enough, it turned into this excellent road map. So thank you, Penny, for that. And so with that introduction, can you tell us a bit more about yourself, and in particular how you got into the gun violence prevention space?
Penny Okamoto: Well, first of all. Thank you so much for that, that extremely generous and somewhat biased introduction. I really appreciate that. I'm really not the driving force behind Measure 114 or the Denver Accord. What you said was true, but the Denver Accord would not have happened without some very generous and very smart help from you, from GVPedia, and all the experts and survivors and advocates who were at that Denver conference to honor the 20th anniversary of the massacre at their Columbine High School. And Measure 114 — did you want me to start talking about that?
Devin: Or you can start with whatever you like.
Penny: So, okay, a little bit of history about Oregon. I’ve been doing this work about 24 years now in the state of Oregon and at the national level, and really until even after Columbine until 2012. It really until the shooting, the massacre at Sandy Hook, not much was done. It was really hard to get anything moving. A lot of people are, Oh surely Congress will take care of it. And of course, we know that that's just really never happened. So after Sandy Hook, people really started to jump up and work and get things done. And the same thing happened within the state of Oregon, we had some great groups come in. We had Gun Owners for Responsible Ownership come in. They were the survivors, actually, of a town shooting that happened at a local mall outside of Portland, Oregon, just three days before Sandy Hook. We had Moms Demand Action. But we also had a lot of groups that weren't solely focused on gun violence prevention, but they were great allies. So, League of Women Voters, a great ally, the National Organization of Women at Work, great allies, But then we also had allies in Augustana Lutheran Church, AIDS worker, United Church of Christ, Jewish Community, Christian community, Muslim community. There were all great allies. So, you know, when people take a look at Oregon, you think, Oh, it's a blue state. But in reality, it's a mostly red state with blue dots that are usually the cities, the major cities. But that whole foundation of people who wanted to do something about gun violence prevention was ready to go when the time was right — and the time was right after Sandy Hook. We got some great stuff passed after that. But then, I'm going to be really honest. Democrats kind of didn't really live up to the promise, did they? And we wanted to have a couple of bills passed. We wanted to have we wanted to pass or close the Charleston loophole. So Charleston loophole, for people who don't know, means that, once a person goes to buy a firearm, after three business days, if that background check is not yet completed, the gun dealer has the option of completing that firearm sale and will not receive any type of penalties if it turns out the person was indeed a prohibited purchaser. So somebody wanted to do that. We wanted to do permit-to-purchase because from the Denver Accord shows what, Devin?
Devin: It's number one.
Penny: It's the most effective way to reduce gun violence. And then we also wanted to ban the future sale or possession of high capacity magazines. We actually banned the future sale and manufacture of high capacity magazines. And we also wanted to ban assault rifles, but we weren't able to do that. So in Oregon, after 2018, after the 2018 massacre at Parkland, Mark Knutson, Reverend, Dr. Mark Knutson of Augustana Lutheran Church calls me up, and he's like, Penny, we've gotta do an initiative petition to, you know, to ban assault weapons and things like that. I was like, Mark, we got like four months — this is like a two year long process. He’s like, We can do it, let's do it! So we got a bunch of people together, and we probably could have we probably could have gathered the necessary 100,000 signatures, whether it was 100,000, but tens of thousands of signatures necessary. But we ran out of time. We had a week more we probably could have done. We were stopped by the courts and then we got stopped the next year, really by COVID. And we couldn't really do that. So we ended up passing Measure 114 actually in November of 2022. So Measure 114 does some really important things. Measure 114 requires a permit to purchase a firearm. It closes the Charleston Loophole; it bans the sale or manufacture of high capacity magazines — that's more than ten rounds of magazine for civilian use — and it prevents people from carrying high capacity magazines in almost all public places. People can carry high capacity magazines at their own property, at shooting ranges and then also certain competitions, but that's about it. So those are things that are really important that we got done. We got that done without the legislature, because the Democratic controlled legislature in Oregon, they would try to take up these bills. They wouldn't get anywhere. They wouldn't go anywhere. They weren't getting this job done. And it was critical that we got this done. So we did. We passed it. So Democrats weren't very happy about me calling them out and saying, you know, we have to do an initiative petition because the Democratic legislators are not getting it done and people's lives are on the line. If people's feelings are hurt, that's their problem from not getting this done earlier. And I'm not really sure how that sounds, but it's honest. It's a fact. I'm not saying anything that isn't true. So anyone who wants to do an initiative petition, if you can do it in your state, it's an amazing amount of work. It takes a lot of money. It takes a lot of money. But if you want to take control of guns instead of having guns control you in your state, it's something that you probably really need to do, even if you're in a Democrat controlled state. Okay. So that was kind of all over the map in the answer. But if you give me another question, I'll try to be far more specific.
Caitlin: No, that was a really great introduction into what Measure 114 is for folks who aren't familiar with it. And also a really important point, right? We know that time is not on our side when it comes to gun violence, that over 100 Americans die every day because of a gun. And so whether you're in session, at a session, or working on other issues as elected officials, whatever it might be, we we don't have the ability to sit by and watch the calendar years just move forward. Right? We need to act. And I'm really glad that you were able to take the reins on that and say, Hey, we're going to do it, whether or not you bring this to the floor for a vote. So that's really important for folks to know that they have the ability to do that. The nuances are very different depending on the state that you're in. But it's important to remember that sometimes those things are more in our control than we are than we are taught initially. So can you just give us a little insight into the current status of Measure 114?
Penny: Sure. So 114 was supposed to go into effect really in December of 2022. There's been a court challenge. So there's a court challenge at the federal level, and there's a court challenge at the county level. So court challenge at the federal level has already gone through Justice Karin Immergut. She's a great justice. She's actually a Trump appointee. And she said that this measure can absolutely go into law. Her ruling has been appealed, which we expected. But she said so many interesting things. So they talked about in the case, there was discussion of whether or not firearms are a common use for self-defense. And she was specifically looking at whether or not high capacity magazines were commonly used for self-defense. And what she determined was that no, high capacity magazines are not in common use for self-defense. When people report self-defense gun uses, the average is about 2.2 bullets are actually used, and you don't need a high capacity magazines for that. So she determined really from data and studies that, no — I'm going to say it again — high capacity magazines are not in common use for self-defense. She also determined that people who sell firearms sell high capacity magazines. These arms dealers aren't going to be hurt by that financially, because it is true that people, instead of buying a 30-round magazine, they can buy three 10-round magazines. So they're not going to be hurt financially. Which leads to the question, okay, if people can use 10-round magazines and several of them, why limit high capacity magazines? I'm going to refer you right to my friend and woman I'm honored to call my friend, Pat Maisch, who, with the Gabby Giffords shooting, disarmed the shooter when he stopped to reload. He stopped to reload and she grabbed that that away from him. She grabbed his magazine away from him, allowing two other people to jump on him and stop that horrific shooting. So, yes, we do know that high capacity magazines allow more people to be killed. Even just the data that Devin has and GVPedia has clearly shows that. And I will also remind people that when the shooter at Sandy Hook stopped to reload, 11 children escaped. 11 children escaped at Sandy Hook because that shooter had to stop to reload. On one hand, it obscene that we have to beg to not be shot at with more than ten rounds at a time. But that's where we are. And one of the things that really hit people in Oregon was the fact that when people are hunting large game in Oregon, like Elk, hunters are limited to five round magazines and one in the chamber. So we actually provide more protection for Elk in Oregon than we do for classroom kids. So even now, even with Measure 114, people can still have ten rounds of five rounds. It is a huge improvement, but that's really where our mentality is. We give a better chance of getting away for an Elk than we do with classroom kids. So that's where the federal law is right now or the federal lawsuit is, excuse me. We're waiting for that to be appealed, and we really think that once it's appealed, we'll be able to implement. The law was passed. Measure 114 is law. It's passed. We're just waiting for it to be implemented. In September, 2023, will be the Harney County hearing with Judge Raschio. And I have every confidence that Judge Raschio will say, No, this is unconstitutional, we can't move forward. And we will have to appeal that. To give you a kind of idea of that area, that's the area where, you remember a few years ago, Ammon Bundy and the Bundy ilk, the militia members, took over a wildlife preserve, the National Wildlife Preserve. So it's in that same really rural, very conservative area. So we're pretty confident that Judge Raschio will rule that this is not constitutional, and then we'll have you back. So we hope though, after everything is said and done, we think we might be able to get that implemented. 114 implemented. Again — it is law already — implemented, though, in the first quarter of 2024.
Caitlin: Fantastic. And just I mean, you did a really great job when you answered the question initially, but what would you say is the reason that Measure 114 matters for you? You explained why it matters for Oregon for sure, but as far as the rest of the country, why is it so important?
Penny: It's important because it shows that it can be done. It's important because it tells Democrats if you're not going to take responsibility, if you are going to be lax on gun laws, people are going to stand up and they are going to do your job for you. And then they're going to say, So why do you need to be elected and why? Why do you need to have my contribution to your campaign if you can't get these laws passed? So it really lets legislators know they've got to be more serious about this. They need to take gun violence prevention and gun laws and gun ownership far more seriously than they do. Second, things that can be done. And one of the other things that, so this really kind of gets into the weeds, and I talked to Devin a little bit about this, so you can tell me if it's getting a little too weedy, you can let me know.
Devon: There's nothing that's ever to weedy, I’m the wrong person to ask that.
Penny: All right. We're going to get as weedy as Cheech and Chong then! Old person reference, sorry. So, okay, so here's the deal. When states pass an initiative petition, most states have only like one concept. Okay. Our lawyers were brilliant. Okay. We had Liz McKenna, we had Jim Jagger, we had Chuck Mitchell. They were the lawyers who wrote these, who wrote 114, and another ownership edition. They did a brilliant job. Their overall concept was reducing gun violence. And they said to reduce gun violence they put in the four things. They put in the permit-to-purchase, they put in closing the Charleston Loophole, where you can take large capacity magazines, and then also limiting large capacity magazines. And by the way, it's important to say that Measure 114 does not ban the ownership of magazines you already own. People already own high capacity magazines can still keep them. You just can’t buy new ones, civilians. Anyway, so when people have an initiative petition, if you have one concept — let's say if we had just put permit-to-purchase on there, we know permit-to-purchase polls [well]. There was a recent Johns Hopkins poll that came out, I think it polls at 81% or in the 70s for permit-to-purchase. It polls really high. Okay. So if we had just put that on our initiative petition, we know we would have passed it. We would have passed it by a pretty high margin. Okay. But if you were passing something at like more than 50%, you're leaving something on the table. Okay. So that's why we also put in things like, well, it's not the only reason, but one a good reason why we felt confident that we could also put in closing the Charleston Loophole because we know that also polls really high. And not just among, you know, non-gun owners or Democrats, among everybody. Okay. And then we also knew that high capacity magazines poll really well. So we added that. So when you're writing an initiative petition, you want to load it up with as many concepts as you can that are still going to pass. And that's tricky. It's really tricky to figure out, okay, what is and what isn't going to pass, because some people might like permit-to-purchase, but they don't like limiting high capacity magazines. So you might lose a vote there. Okay. And conversely, some people might say, why are you only doing this? Why aren't you banning assault rifles? Why aren't you doing all sorts of other things? So it's tricky. But if you load it up enough, if you're passing just by over 50% — which is what happened with measure 114, it passed by 50.7%, 50.7 less than 51% — but it's still passed with the majority. And so we know we did a great job on it, and it's important, and they really want people to know, people to know, excuse me.
Devin: And I think that's an important point because I am following a lot of the pro-gun reaction afterwards. They're like, Oh look, it barely passed in the bluest of blue states, Oregon, where communism is basically the constitution, and so on and so forth. And that just proves that these measures aren't all that popular yet. Like, you did multiple things at once, and every single thing you add in there gives a person another reason to say no. And so, like, I think there is kind of a discrepancy between like what the polls often show, and oftentimes with ballot initiatives or laws being passed by narrow margins, it's like, why is that? Well, most people are thinking of these laws, like in theory, and then when they see it written down, it's like, Oh, this one thing's slightly different and I'm going to stick with the status quo. I don't think it's evidence that the measures are unpopular, just that the more reasons you give somebody to say no, you're going to get more people saying no on it.
Penny: That's correct. That's absolutely correct. And I do want to add this because Governor Tina Kotek, you know, she never really, she could have helped us out a lot. She did not. There was the first person who publicly supported Measure 114 was a representative, she was wonderful. Just came out right away and supported it. So we were grateful to have that. But there's another thing it's important to note too, in terms of, well only 50.7% of the voters supported it. Donald Trump actually lost the popular vote. So, yeah, I don't need to hear about people complaining about popular votes. But the other thing is that actually more people voted yes on Measure 114 than voted for Tina Kotek. So again, this is my notification to Democrats: you need to be supporting gun violence prevention issues.
Devin: Yeah. And I think it does kind of show the power of gun violence as an issue that's been largely just put on the back burner or is seen as a third rail. And I think that's something that has changed, at least in the more than ten years that I've been doing this. I kind of want to broaden out and say, like over your more than 20 years of doing this, what have you seen change in gun violence prevention? You touched on this slightly earlier, but to get more specific, like where have a couple of things have changed for the better; and where are some of the lessons that we should have learned but still haven't?
Penny: The biggest lesson I would say is that if Democratic legislators are not passing the laws you want, if they're stopping you — I am not a registered lobbyist, so I can say this — because what the Democrats are going to say is, Well, you're not going to vote Republican, right? So you're going to vote for me even though I didn't support your bill. Or they’ll give you lip service. “You know, we tried…” Yeah yeah, ok. In this day and age, trying. Now, we can't we can't have that anymore.
Devin: Do or do not. There is no try.
Penny: Right. Exactly. I mean, gunshot death is the number one cause of death of kids in the United States now. But, you know, you can't just say, Hey, we tried. That doesn't work. So but what you can do is say, you know what? You're right. I'm going to vote for you, but I'm not going to give you any money, and I'm not going to give the Democratic campaign any money until you guys start to do what's in the Denver Accord. Go to GVPedia.org, and click on the Denver Accord, and you're going to see what's in there. And Democrats don't like me saying that, but folks, what choice have you left me? If you're not going to vote for our bills, then we're not going to give you money. And if you don't like that, then vote for our bills. They're really reasonable and they're effective. Do it. So that's probably the biggest lesson that I've learned. But what I've seen change, so really, I got started on this in 1999, just after Columbine with the Million Mom March. And one of the goals of the Million Mom March was to pass licensing. And I thought, I'm never gonna see that in my lifetime. We passed licensing in Oregon like less than 25 years later. So that's pretty amazing. So I never thought I'd see it, and we did. So that is one thing. But the other thing I've seen is that after Columbine, everyone thought, Oh you know, government will do something about this. The legislature though, they'll step up to the plate, they'll make things tighter. They're make things safer. It'll happen. And of course, it never did. After Sandy Hook, people were just beside themselves with grief. You know, just grief and despair. How did this happen? Surely now, surely now Congress will act. And of course they didn't. All right. And after Parkland, people were beside themselves with grief and rage. Grief and rage is what I saw. Literally, people in the streets calling for the downfall of the NRA. Never seen anything like it. And now after Uvalde, people are furious. They're absolutely furious. And, you know, Measure 114 was an amazing outlet for people who were in Oregon who were furious about Uvalde and about the legislators — the state legislature and at the federal level —not doing it. I know people are going to talk to me about President Biden and BSCA, the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, which was a good thing. I'm glad they did that. But folks, folks — how many Uvaldes, how many Sandy Hooks, how many Parklands? How many of these mass shootings do we need before the federal government realizes that you cannot take these half step measures against gun violence? It's not what we need, it is obscene that this is all that they're doing. It is obscene. I'm glad that President Biden has done this, but the Democrats need to do far more. They need to have national registration. They need to have national permit-to-purchase. Okay. We need someone. We need to ban assault weapons. So do I get another minute or so?
Devin: Yes.
Penny: Okay. So I was actually talking to a man who was a teacher when — excuse me. I'm terribly sorry — back more than 20 years, going to 25 years ago now, when Oregon had a mass shooting in Littleton. No, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, Springfield, Oregon. There're so many I. In Springfield, Oregon, it's the Thurston High School shooting. And one of the things that the teacher told me, he was right there. He he ran into the cafeteria where the shooting was happening, and the shooting was over very quickly. The shooter was actually 15 years old, and he was disarmed by one of the teenagers who had been shot and lunged at him anyway, and then disarmed him. But he said that the if that shooter had had an assault rifle, not even a fully automatic, just a semiautomatic assault weapon like an AR-15, that there would been so many more people killed. There were two people killed there and dozens injured, more than that injured. So that's one of the things you have to look at in terms of, you know, assault rifles. Nobody needs an assault rifle. You can't even hunt with an assault rifle. Assault rifles are not used in self-defense. The only reason we have assault rifles is to increase the bottom line, increase the profits for arms dealers, for the NRA, for the National Sports Shooting Foundation. That's all. That's the only reason we have those guns. And it is obscene that America trades the lives of their children for gun lobby profits.
Caitlin: Put that on a bumper sticker! For real. Why don’t you run for office Penny? Where can I donate money to your campaign?
Penny: No I'm never running for office. Never have. Never will.
Caitlin: I wish I could speak highly of the experience, but I'm not quite sure I can.
Penny: So another thing people don't realize, too, in Oregon and a lot of other places, when people give money to campaigns, like so-and-so is running for campaign, whatever money is not spent, that if the person wins, they can donate that money to their caucus. And then the caucus, based on donations, decides who's going to be the chair of the Judiciary Committee, which is a key committee in gun violence prevention. Who's going to be, you know, the whip, who's going to be the House minority leader, the House majority leader? That all comes down to contributions. So when I talk about cutting off the finances from the Democratic Party or from Democrats who are not going to help you, that's what I mean.
Devin: I think that's a great place to wrap up as we're at 30 minutes. And, hey, I'm the one with the stopwatch this time.
Caitlin: Yeah. Penny, thank you so much for joining us today, giving us some more insight into what's been happening and in Oregon and reminding us that we have a lot more power than sometimes we think we do. And that's really how we make change, right, is for people like you and me and and Devin, to get up and stand up and say, Hey, we're going to do something about this.
Penny: Right
Caitlin: Change can happen at the ballot box, but there's lots of other places that change can can happen as well. So and that's a really fantastic reminder.
Penny: Your ballot, your wallet, and your feet!
Caitlin: Or your shop — a bumper sticker too, right? Vote with your ballot, wallet, or your feet.
Penny: That's actually Ceasefire Oregon PAC's slogan. But, I'm so honored to be here, I'm so grateful, and thank you so much for your kindness and all your kind words. It means a lot to me, it really does, so Thank you.
Caitlin: Of course. And we maybe we'll have you back on again one day soon, and you can delve into another topic with us related to two Oregon, or Survivors Empowered, or or one of the other wonderful places that that you've been able to to work with and make progress for us.
Penny: And one more thing — donate at GVPedia.org, donate to this organization. Thank you so much for your time.
Caitlin: Oh, of course.
Devon: Thanks. Thank you, Penny.
Penny: Thank you.