SALEM — Advocates of Initiative Petition 17 made their way Friday, July 8, to Salem to hand-deliver the final batch of signatures in support of the only piece of statewide gun control legislation that Oregonians will likely consider this year.

The initiative would require people to get a permit and pass a background check before buying a gun and would stop the sale of gun magazines that hold more than 10 rounds.

It needs 112,020 valid signatures to get on November’s general election ballot. By July 8, supporters had collected more than 159,000 signatures, said the Rev. W. J. Mark Knutson, of Augustana Lutheran Church, one of the initiative’s chief petitioners.

The Secretary of State’s Office must count and verify the signatures before Initiative Petition 17 can appear on the ballot.

Lobbying group Lift Every Voice Oregon and its over 1,600 volunteers were already celebrating Friday as a victory, Knutson said.

“When you go back to Sandy Hook, Parkland, Buffalo, Uvalde, Highland Park … grief is what we feel everyday, but today has to be a day of joy,” Knutson said. “Because this will give Oregonians a chance to step out in the nation with the most progressive piece of legislation this year for public safety.”

The Lift Every Voice Oregon campaign organized shortly after the 2018 mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, where a gunman killed 17 students and staff. The group tried to get bills reflecting its initiatives heard in the Legislature in 2019, but “nobody wanted to touch it,” Knutson said.

As pandemic restrictions eased this year, hundreds of volunteers from ages 12 to 94 started collecting signatures across the state for Initiative Petition 17. Elected officials like U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Oregon, and state Treasurer Tobias Read endorsed the initiative.

But the effort to push for stricter gun laws in Oregon also has led to pushback from pro-gun organizations.

In a July 1 statement, the Oregon Firearms Federation referred to Secretary of State Shemia Fagan, whose office will handle the measure’s signatures, as a “rabid anti-gun extremist” and said Initiative Petition 17 was a “gun ban.”

Penny Okamoto, executive director of Ceasefire Oregon, a gun violence prevention group, said the measure “in no way confiscates guns.”

“Unless you can’t pass a training course and a background check, it’s not going to stop anything,” she said. “And it’s not going to stop people — I should say, qualified, responsible people — from acquiring firearms.”

The initiative would create “higher standards” for gun ownership and would make it more difficult for people to acquire one if they are not lawfully allowed to possess one. It could also slow the proliferation of high-capacity magazines, which are often used in mass shootings, she said.

The overarching goal of Initiative Petition 17, Okamoto said, is to prevent future mass shootings like the ones in Buffalo, N.Y., Uvalde, Texas, and Highland Park, Ill., from happening.

“All of these bills come at a horrific price — an unthinkable price,” she said. “I don’t want them forgotten.”