Somewhere out there, possibly roaming between Oregon and Idaho, is a man who isn’t supposed to possess a firearm because he is criminally insane and is a convicted felon. His mother is looking for him.
I know where he wasn’t on Dec. 2: U.S. District Court Judge Karin Immergut’s courtroom listening to the debate on the merits of Measure 114, a new gun control law.
This measure was barely approved last month by 50.7 percent of the voters. It is supposed to take effect Thursday. Such a close vote in blue Oregon suggests that even liberals are starting to question whether more gun laws will make a difference.
Measure 114 would require anyone buying a gun to get a permit first from a sheriff’s office, take a firearms safety course and pass a background check (already a requirement when buying from a federally licensed seller). The measure also would ban magazines or clips containing more than 10 rounds – referred to as “large-capacity magazines.”
Several gun groups, three sheriffs and two gun store owners were in Immergut’s courtroom seeking a restraining order to delay Measure 114, believing the ban on large-capacity magazines violates the Second Amendment. In addition, sheriffs and store owners said the permitting requirements cannot be met by Thursday.
The Attorney General’s office, representing Measure 114 backers, insists the law is good to go constitutionally, and the permit process will be ready.
Whatever Immergut decides will likely be appealed. Measure 114 backers already have set a new goal for the 2023 legislative session: a push to ban semiautomatic weapons.
What does any of this have to do with a man like Aaron Emanuel Ferguson?
Two blocks away from Immergut’s courtroom in the federal courthouse is the state courthouse where Ferguson’s legal file includes this document from 2017: “Order Prohibiting Purchase or Possession of Firearms.”
Ferguson, now 45, was found to be mentally ill and sent to Oregon State Hospital. His various crimes have included burglary, harassment, causing disturbances, resisting arrest. In one of the burglaries, he crawled naked into another person’s bed thinking it was his home.
His mother, who lives in Minnesota, hasn’t seen him in several years but knows he loves Oregon.
“I had contact with him once when he was in the Mental Institution in Salem, but as with all places that have to do with privacy laws, no matter who I try to contact I cannot receive information on him,” she told me in an email.
“Aaron was a really wonderful child, he was a sweetheart as a young teen and would take his younger brother and sister to play videos or to the movies. He had a heart as big as the whole outdoors, loved the mountains and spent numerous hours in the Idaho mountains with his grandparents.”
When he was 18, he started to change. By age 20 it was obvious that something was wrong.
“Around this time he moved in with a group of guys, I have no doubt they were using hard-core drugs. I believed this was when his mental health took a turn, however, his siblings … told me later he would talk to the role-play videos. He thought they were communing with him.”
Eventually, Ferguson was diagnosed with schizophrenia social anxiety disorder.
His mother described some of the beliefs her son has held: “He works undercover for the President, he rescues young girls out of human trafficking, he didn’t get released from the Army during basic but was secretly trained & worked for them undercover.”
She said her son as 6-foot-5, although some court documents now have him as 6-foot-4 and 6-foot-2.
“When homeless he is scary looking, and if not medicated he could potentially be dangerous if he feels you are a threat,” she said.
Ferguson has moved around a lot. At one point, he made it to Jamaica.
“He felt his spirit wife was there,” his mother said.
Another time, Ferguson landed in Texas.
“The bus station gave him a free ticket back to Idaho. Aaron said (it was) because they knew he was undercover; I say to get him out of the bus station.”
Mostly he has bounced between Idaho and Oregon. For a time, he lived with his father in Idaho but didn’t like to be inside because “he could feel the electricity,” so he stayed in a van his parents gave him.
Ferguson was arrested in Boise and spent time at the Idaho State Hospital in Blackfoot.
“I’m not sure how many times, but they’d get him stable and drop him off in Boise, just pull over and let him out…,” his mother said. “I believe that he is the safest when he is in the Oregon facility, while there he told me they were helping him understand his schizophrenia, he sounded so happy there. He progressed till he was in Cottages where he was able to work, order pizza, take walks, etc.”
The last time the mother communicated with her son was six years ago after he was transferred to a St. Helen’s halfway house. A year later, he was back in trouble. A psychologist with the Oregon Health Authority determined he suffered from “Schizoaffective Disorder” and “Cannabis Use Disorder (by history).”
Does Ferguson know or care that, like thousands of others in Oregon, he is prohibited from owning a firearm? Does he have an opinion on Measure 114?
In Judge Immergut’s courtroom, attorneys on both sides haggled over the legal fine points and the history of the Second Amendment.
Oregon Senior Assistant Attorney General Brian S. Marshall told Immergut that 12 other states have already banned large-capacity magazines. The ban would reduce the risk of a single gunman killing large numbers of people, he said, but would not interfere with the ability of citizens to defend themselves.
“The criminal is going to have in excess of 10 rounds,” said John Kaempf, attorney for Oregon Firearms Federation.
Law enforcement would still be able to carry large-capacity magazines. Why wouldn’t 10 rounds be enough for self-defense for private citizens?
Kaempf argued that the Second Amendment accords a presumptive right to bear arms, and the U.S. Supreme Court earlier this year ruled the government cannot restrict the use of weapons that are “commonly” used. He insisted that large-capacity magazines are now commonly used for self-defense.
His argument was unconvincing. If a private citizen thinks they are going to find themselves in a situation where they will need more than 10 rounds for self-defense, they are probably hanging around the wrong crowd.
What the criminal has going for him isn’t magazine capacity. It’s how the people inside Immergut’s courtroom lined up on predictable sides of the gun control issue while life outside the courtroom carries on as usual.
“Do you think background checks are unconstitutional?” Immergut asked.
Criminals are never going to go through background checks, Kaempf said.
Measure 114 landed on the November ballot courtesy of signatures gathered in a grassroots effort by an organization called Lift Every Voice Oregon. If the name was trading on the black national anthem, “Lift Every Voice,” it’s doubtful black gun owners were reassured that under Measure 114 they would need a permit from the county sheriff to buy a new firearm.
Lift Every Voice Oregon began in 2018 after a shooting at a high school in Parkland, Florida where 19-year-old Nikolas Cruz, a former student with disciplinary problems, quickly killed 14 students and three staff.
Another shooting earlier this year at a school in Uvalde, Texas, where an 18-year-old gunman killed 19 children and two adults, practically guaranteed Measure 114 would qualify for the ballot.
We can’t fix American culture and family life that have been disintegrating for decades. Popular media – TV, music, books, movies – have made violence entertaining. News media are quick to seek motives and excuses for some killers as if there can be justification for some violence. Overlay that with the usual politics, and you have a country where angry guys commonly resort to gunfire.
When the Parkdale shooter was sentenced in October to life in prison instead of the death penalty, how many signature gatherers for Lift Every Voice Oregon quietly cheered because they were opposed to the death penalty?
How many women in Moms Demand Action, another group who supported Measure 114, were sympathetic to Cruz when his attorneys attributed his murderous behavior to his mother’s drug and alcohol abuse?
“By sending Mr. Cruz to prison for life, we send the wrong message to ourselves as well as the victims’ families. We have failed to adequately denounce him,” said Robert Blecker, author of “The Death of Punishment: Searching for Justice Among the Worst of the Worst.”
Now Cruz has embraced prison as a lifestyle – another peculiarity of American culture. He told a friend he could have pen pals, eat a healthier diet, and watch his favorite sports teams on TV.
And then there’s Anthony Johnson, another player in Measure 114, who handled communications for the campaign. In 2014, he was a major force in Measure 91 that legalized recreational marijuana.
The night he won that victory, Johnson declared, “The payoff will be a seismic shift in the way the criminal justice system is administered and the way commerce is regulated in the state.”
Most of the thousands of Oregonians who signed the petition to put Measure 114 on the ballot probably didn’t read the eight-page text of the measure and the explanatory statement. Nor did they read that it will create a new Class A misdemeanor crime for making or possessing large-capacity magazines. Among the state’s District Attorneys who signed on to Measure 114 is Multnomah County DA Mike Schmidt, who has a track record of dismissing current misdemeanors.
What difference will a new misdemeanor make?
I just read this article, I am Aaron's mom. This article is devastating to me, Pamela Fitzsimmons wrote to me saying she knew someone who could help me find my son, asked questions - then I never heard from her again. Now I know why. There is no reason to refer to Aaron in this article. In reference to this gun law, it wouldn't be because he doesn't care as this writer tries to infer, it would be because he has no awareness about it. I doubt seriously he's even tried to get a gun. I also want to make it clear even when unmedicated his beliefs were always that he was "helping" people, that was always his heart - to help. I'm sickened by this person writing as if Aaron knows about the law & is trying to break it. He is homeless, mentally ill and has a family who has tried contacting every office & hospital possible trying to find him. If you know where he is contact Oregon State Mental Institution, they have my contact information. It takes a vile person to take private information given to pass on to the person she said could help & then put it in an article without permission. Pamela you are heartless.
can't help it:
https://babylonbee.com/news/kamala-harris-urges-nation-not-to-forget-january-6th-on-this-pearl-harbor-remembrance-day