A bill proposed by Oregon Senate President. Rob Wagner, D-Lake Oswego, to establish a task force to find solutions to gun violence and suicide is slowing moving through the legislative process.
The bill would create a 17-member task force with legislators as well as professionals in fields like behavioral health, youth psychology, law enforcement and veteran support, and would outline recommendations for things like: “How to better support youth experiencing suicidal ideation,” “How to reduce stigma on suicidal ideation” and ideas for improved community safety protocols.
Further, the task force would receive $400,000 from the state’s general fund. That figure could increase if research on these topics requires a third party. According to a legislative report on the bill, which contained data from the Oregon Health Authority Center for Health Statistics, 477 of the 878 people who died by suicide in Oregon in 2022 did so via firearms. According to the staff report, the task force may discuss “barriers needed between troubled people and guns, resources for people in crisis,” and “suicide by gun, suffocation, other means.” The act would sunset at the end of 2026. The Senate Committee on Judiciary and the Joint Committee on Ways and Means recommended the bill’s passage.
“This bill represents a crucial next step in overcoming stigmas around mental health, supporting our neighbors who are most vulnerable, and saving lives from firearm suicides. The task force created by SB 1503 will provide the Legislature with data-informed, effective, proven steps we could take to reduce firearm suicides in Oregon,” Wagner wrote in testimony supporting the bill.
Some firearms groups have come out against the bill and Sen. Mark Owen, R-Crane, voiced opposition to it at a meeting of the Joint Committee on Ways and Means. He said he supported suicide prevention work but did not agree with the focus on firearms in the bill.
“Throwing that one word out there puts a prejudice on the outcome of the task force,” he said.
Further, 10 Republicans in the joint committee voted against recommending the bill’s passage.
Candy Yow with the Oregon Women for Gun Rights testified against the legislation.
“The problem I see with SB1503 is it isn’t really about preventing Suicide, it is about attacking Firearm Owners and our Constitution again. Mental Health is the main factor of Suicide, we need to deal with the Mental Health issue more than anything if we truly want to help prevent Suicide. It is easy to point a finger at Firearms and blame them but I have never seen a Firearm shoot without someone pulling the trigger, the same as a drug overdose, or any other means of Suicide, it is the decision of the person doing it,” Yow wrote.
On the other hand, Kathleen Clark of the Oregon Health & Sciences University Gun Violence Prevention Research Center testified in support of the bill.
“This bill is forward-looking in establishing a Task Force on Gun Violence and Suicide Prevention and directing it to identify effective interventions, new advancements, evidence-based practices and policies, and barriers to their implementation,” Clark wrote, later adding: “I’m dedicated to producing science that can help inform a balance between the need to retain individual rights while minimizing these preventable deaths and injuries.”
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