Chief O’Meara: ‘Don’t think, that, “oh, I bought myself a shotgun so I’m good.” Buy yourself a pit bull and you’ll be gooder’

By Meg Wade for Ashland.news

Ashland Police Chief Tighe O’Meara and Jackson County Sheriff Nathan Sickler spoke about gun use and safety, answering questions on topics including proper storage and specifics of Oregon law, to an audience of 50 at the Ashland Public Library Tuesday afternoon. The event was sponsored by the Ashland branch of the American Association of University Women, and closed out their 2024-2025 “Big Ideas” discussion series.

O’Meara and Sickler kept their opening comments short and used most of their 90 minutes to answer audience questions. They made sure to highlight the different contexts that inform their approach to firearms and that can also determine the legality of use.

“It depends,” O’Meara repeated often. “Should you have a gun? Probably not. But it depends.”

O’Meara made sure to explain in his remarks that Oregon is a state that allows open carry of firearms. This includes Ashland.

“There is nothing illegal about strapping a six shooter onto your side, as long as it is plainly evident, and walking around Ashland or walking around anywhere in Jackson County,” he said.

O’Meara shared that the Ashland Police Department will sometimes receive calls from concerned residents reporting that someone is carrying a gun, which on its own is not enough to initiate a police response.

“I’m not trying to dissuade any of you from ever calling us,” he clarified later, when an audience member asked what they should do if they saw someone carrying a gun who seemed to be mentally unstable or agitated. “Yes, 100%, if you just see somebody walking down the street with the rifle slung over their back, if it gets the hair is on the back of your neck up enough that you want to call, call.

“If you feel like a situation warrants a call to dispatch, then call dispatch. Just be prepared for us to come back on the tail end of it and say, we looked into it, there really wasn’t anything going on there, but thanks for letting us know.”

Although open carry is legal, carrying a concealed firearm without a license is not, and many audience questions focused on the specifics of Concealed Handgun Licenses, or CHLs.

Federal law prohibits possession of a firearm on federal properties, with limited exceptions, including courthouses and other federal buildings in Oregon. In contrast, until recently, anyone with a CHL was allowed to bring a firearm into many other public buildings, such as public schools and local government offices.

After the passage of Senate Bill 544 in 2021, however, local governments and school districts can now choose whether or not to ban guns on their property, including guns carried by those with a CHL. As reported by The Oregonian, by early 2024 over half of school districts in the state had opted to exercise this new power, and now ban all firearms.

Ashland School District voted to ban guns from its campuses in 2022. Neither Sickler nor O’Meara could confirm if other public school districts in the county had taken similar action.

Public universities are also now allowed to enforce bans on guns. Southern Oregon University does not allow guns on its campuses, even with a CHL.

Neither O’Meara nor Sickler knew of a publicly available resource to find a complete and current list of schools or public buildings prohibiting firearms. However, SB 544 requires both that the prohibition be clearly posted on school grounds and that a notice be posted on the school’s website.

Private businesses have always been allowed to prohibit firearms from their properties. “If businesses want to disallow you from doing that, they can,” Sickler said. If a store like “Ace Hardware, or Bi-Mart, or Albertsons,” wants to prohibit open carry or firearms more generally, they can.

This includes nonprofit groups, which are private entities. An audience member shared her surprise at being unable to enter the Oregon Shakespeare Festival with a firearm despite a license to carry. Sickler and O’Meara confirmed OSF’s legal right to refuse those with firearms.

The restriction is not currently listed in the Terms and Conditions on the OSF website, but OSF representatives confirmed they do “prohibit firearms inside our buildings, regardless of whether the carrier holds a concealed handgun license. This policy is stated in our playbill, and we also have signage on the front windows of the Bowmer and Thomas theatres — located to the lower left of the front doors.”

On Tuesday, the audience raised many other questions about secure gun storage, and secure and legal transfer of firearms, with or without a CHL.

While Sickler repeatedly cited ORS 166.395 as the primary statute to consult regarding proper gun storage, additional details on securing and storing firearms during transfer can also be found in ORS 166.400. Many other statutes pertaining to firearms can also be found throughout Chapter 166 of the Oregon Revised Statutes. SB 544 also updated some requirements on secure storage.

Local advocates from the group Be SMART, which promotes secure gun storage with an emphasis on safety for children, were also present, hosting a table with resources on how parents could initiate conversations with other parents about secure gun storage, along with statistics from Everytown for Gun Safety showing that firearms are now tied with motor vehicle accidents as the leading cause of death for children and teens in Oregon.

Member Marci Gerston let the audience know they had free gun locks available, and asked the presenters to share information about suicide prevention and how to keep guns away from those who might hurt themselves or others.

O’Meara explained that one can file for an “ERPO,” or Extreme Risk Protection Order, through the Jackson County Circuit Court in Medford. The filing is free. If granted, an ERPO can lead to the removal of all firearms from a home, to be temporarily held by police.

O’Meara took this as a moment to highlight studies showing guns purchased for self-defense are more likely “to be used on you or used for a suicide than for you to use it against a bad guy trying to break (in) …

“So, make your decisions, just be well-informed about them and don’t think, that, ‘oh, I bought myself a shotgun so I’m good.’ Buy yourself a pit bull and you’ll be gooder.” 

Data from Oregon Health Authority’s Violent Death Reporting System backs up O’Meara’s interpretation of the statistics. It records 400 deaths from firearms in Jackson County between 2013 and 2022, with an average annual rate of 17 per 100,000. Of these, the majority are suicides, at an average annual rate of 14 per 100,000.

What if you have guns and don’t want them, and want to see them out of circulation?

“If you have guns that you don’t want, we’ll take them,” O’Meara said.

He shared that the Ashland Police Department has not initiated a buy-back program of any sort due to lack of capacity to securely store the quantity of firearms they would expect to receive, but that they do keep and store guns as they come in. “We do not turn in guns that are in our possession for credit,” he explained. “We either just sit on them or we use them for our own training, or, if we can, figure out a way to destroy them.”

Asked if it’s really advisable to just walk into the police station carrying a weapon, even with the intent to return it, O’Meara said, “People do it all the time,” then added, “As long as it’s in a case, and it’s unloaded.”

More information about the rules and requirements for CHLs is available from the Jackson County Sheriff’s Office.

Ashland resident and freelance journalist Meg Wade’s byline has appeared in Mother Earth News and other publications. Email Ashland.news at [email protected].

This article mentions suicide. Individuals in crisis or looking to help someone else who is can reach the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline by dialing 988, or visit 988lifeline.org for more resources.