OHA Responds to IP 28 Signature Submission

July 6, 2026
7:22 am

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Oregon’s wildlife managers just got handed another existential threat, and the Oregon Hunters Association isn’t waiting around to see how it plays out. With 142,784 signatures now in the Secretary of State’s hands, Initiative Petition 28 is one step closer to the ballot, and its backers are selling it as a simple “reform.” In reality, the measure would handcuff the very professionals who use science-based harvest data to keep game populations healthy, which is exactly why Todd Adkins and OHA are already building a fact-driven counter-offensive aimed at hunters, farmers, ranchers, and timber families who know what happens when urban voters override field biology. For the 2A community the stakes are bigger than elk tags or timber sales. Every time ballot-box biology replaces professional wildlife management, the same coalition that wants to end “trophy hunting” quickly pivots to restricting the tools used to conduct that management—centerfire rifles, semi-auto platforms, and the ammunition that makes population control feasible on a landscape scale. IP 28 is therefore a gateway issue: if anti-hunting activists can convince enough Portland and Eugene voters that professional wildlife work is cruel or unnecessary, the next logical step is to limit the firearms and optics that make that work possible, exactly the incremental strategy we’ve watched play out in California and Colorado. The smart play for Oregon gun owners is to treat this petition the way coastal elites treat magazine-capacity bans—as the first domino. OHA’s early push for transparency and data is a model the firearms community should copy: flood social feeds with harvest statistics, depredation photos, and economic numbers showing how regulated hunting funds habitat that benefits every species, not just the ones activists like to post about. If IP 28 reaches the ballot and passes, the precedent will be used to justify the next restriction on lawful firearm use; if it fails, the defeat sends a clear message that Oregon’s rural economy and constitutional rights aren’t up for auction every election cycle.

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For the 2A community the stakes are bigger than elk tags or timber sales. Every time ballot-box biology replaces professional wildlife management, the same coalition that wants to end “trophy hunting” quickly pivots to restricting the tools used to conduct that management—centerfire rifles, semi-auto platforms, and the ammunition that makes population control feasible on a landscape scale. IP 28 is therefore a gateway issue: if anti-hunting activists can convince enough Portland and Eugene voters that professional wildlife work is cruel or unnecessary, the next logical step is to limit the firearms and optics that make that work possible, exactly the incremental strategy we’ve watched play out in California and Colorado.

The smart play for Oregon gun owners is to treat this petition the way coastal elites treat magazine-capacity bans—as the first domino. OHA’s early push for transparency and data is a model the firearms community should copy: flood social feeds with harvest statistics, depredation photos, and economic numbers showing how regulated hunting funds habitat that benefits every species, not just the ones activists like to post about. If IP 28 reaches the ballot and passes, the precedent will be used to justify the next restriction on lawful firearm use; if it fails, the defeat sends a clear message that Oregon’s rural economy and constitutional rights aren’t up for auction every election cycle.

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