'Boyfriend loophole': backlash after Oregon joins 23 states in curbing guns

Emerald Valley Armory gun shop in Creswell, Oregon, about 120 miles south of Portland, is experiencing a spike in sales.

While Washington stalls over gun reform even as thousands prepare for the March for Our Lives rally for gun control, Oregon just passed the first gun control law since the attack in Parkland, Florida. The new measure makes it more difficult for people with domestic violence convictions to purchase or even possess a firearm.

“Any time they talk any kind of gun control, sales just go through the roof,” said shop owner Raye Gunter, adding that looming restrictions always inspire gun enthusiasts to stock up.

Since 1996, federal law has largely prohibited people with domestic abuse misdemeanors from accessing guns. But what Oregon did was close a gap in the federal statute, by expanding the definition of domestic partner to “intimate partner”. Under the new state law, someone who is convicted of a domestic abuse misdemeanor – who only dated their victim, never lived with them, and never had children together – cannot buy or own a gun.

“A lot of people who commit domestic violence are dating partners, they’re not in relationships that are recognized under federal law as domestic relationships, and therefore those abusers are not prohibited from purchasing or possessing firearms,” said Allison Anderman, managing attorney at Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence. “It’s left up to the state to close that loophole.”

Known has the “boyfriend loophole” the gun ban extends to those under a restraining order, or convicted of stalking. It’s a big step to protect single women, according to its supporters.

For gun advocates, however, the new bill is a point of contention and confusion. Gunter thinks the “boyfriend loophole” could be seriously abused. “If you get somebody who’s upset with their former partner, they can say anything they want and that person’s going to have to prove their innocence with no due process,” he said.

The Oregon Firearms Federation agrees.

“What this bill does is give people a mighty tool to destroy the life of an innocent person,” said Kevin Starrett, who heads the organization. By “innocent” Starrett is referring to a boyfriend who could be falsely accused of domestic abuse.

“We think it’s a farce that anyone believes a woman is protected from someone who is really dangerous by any piece of paper or the confiscation of guns,” said Starrett.

Giffords thinks otherwise. The law firm cited a nationwide study from the University of Pennsylvania that looked at more than 31,000 police reports and found that roughly 82% of violence incidents between intimate partners included dating partners. Less than 15% involved spouses. A majority of the victims in those cases were women, a trend consistent across the nation.

Moreover, Giffords’ statistics show abused women are five times more likely to be killed by their abuser if the abuser has access to a gun. The law center says domestic violence deaths in the US have reached war zone proportions: of the 1,352 intimate partner homicides in 2015, 55% were committed with firearms.

The Oregon state senator Floyd Prozanski knows this to be true. In 1973, when he was a senior in high school, his older sister was shot and killed by her boyfriend.

Prozanski, a gun owner himself, championed the “boyfriend loophole” bill, which was signed into law by Oregon’s governor, Kate Brown, on 5 March. Brown was joined by hundreds of rallying high school students demanding gun control after Florida’s school shooting. The shooter, 19-year-old Nikolas Cruz, was accused of abusing a former girlfriend.

According to Anderman, support for tighter gun control around domestic abusers is at an all-time high, even in more conservative states, and has been growing since the Sandy Hook massacre, when 26 people, including 20 children, were murdered at a Connecticut primary school.

With the “boyfriend loophole” enacted, Oregon now joins 23 other states that have amended federal law to include dating partners in their definition of domestic partners.

The Parkland fatalities “put this bill more front and center, in the sense that it made more people realize that we need to take steps towards general gun safety laws and regulations,” said Prozanski, who is pushing for higher regulation on assault-style weapons.

The bill, however, narrowly passed on party lines. Prozanski called it “a very terrible vote.” All senate Republicans voted against it, along with one Democrat.

State senator Kim Thatcher, a Republican who attempted to bring the bill back to committee for amendment, thinks its language is retroactive and rushed.

“A citizen who pled guilty 20 years ago to a misdemeanor stalking charge but has been an upstanding citizen since that time, will automatically lose their right to possess a firearm,” said Thatcher, adding that Oregon’s definition of a stalker is far too broad, while the bill’s “intimate partner” wording is hazy. She would like to see the loophole apply only to convictions post-law, as well as “offer recourse to gain rights back after a period of time of good behavior”.

Just how it is enforced by the Oregon state police could prove to be tricky.

As before, when a convict attempts to purchase a gun, a retailer must request a background check, run by the state police’s Firearms Instant Check System (Fics) unit. Now, under the new bill, if the unit finds any domestic abuse flags they would need to establish the offender’s relationship with the victim through police reports and court records. If the relationship is covered under the “boyfriend loophole”, the purchase of the firearm would be denied.

The new procedure also requires the state police to notify all federal, state and local law enforcement agencies whenever a gun transaction is denied.

“It’s fine for the ones that try to go out and buy a gun now, but unfortunately a lot of people who commit domestic violence already own guns,” said Caroline Forell, professor at the University of Oregon’s School of Law. “It’s going to continue to be very hard for state and local law enforcement agencies to enforce this, especially with all the other things they have to do.”