Oregon Senate To Vote On Expanding Background Checks

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M Glasgow

The Oregon Senate could vote Tuesday on expanding background checks to include private gun sales.

The measure would require people to run a State Police background check on gun buyers. People selling guns to family members would not have to run a background check.

That's defined fairly broadly to include not just immediate members of your family but also cousins and nephews and aunts and uncles and that sort of thing.

But opponents of the measure say that if someone wants to sell a gun to a long-time friend or neighbor - even if they have known them for decades -- they will still have to go through a criminal background check.

Right now, background checks are required for guns sold at licensed dealers or at gun shows. If the measure passes, it would head to the Oregon House.

Copyright 2015 Northwest News Network

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Chris Lehman graduated from Temple University with a journalism degree in 1997. He landed his first job less than a month later, producing arts stories for Red River Public Radio in Shreveport, Louisiana. Three years later he headed north to DeKalb, Illinois, where he worked as a reporter and announcer for NPR–affiliate WNIJ–FM. In 2006 he headed west to become the Salem Correspondent for the Northwest News Network.