While Nick, Chris and Joe trip the night fantastic in Oregon’s high desert, the state’s low politicians are exploring new and creative ways to infringe gun owners’ Second Amendment rights. Last year, Mayor Sam Adams’ homies enacted legislation creating three no-go areas for felons convicted of firearms related offenses (a.k.a., Illegal Firearm Use Hotspots). As part of the deal, Portland’s Illegal Gun Ordinance Oversight Committee has submitted its report to the City Council. Surprise! They like it! Unfortunately for the PC police, there’s something of an “ethnic issue” with its implementation. African Americans account for 87 percent of 18 people subject to the extra-legal exclusion. Never mind. In true liberal fashion the Committee points out the Hotspots are for the minority community’s own good . . .
It is important to consider that gun violence disproportionately impacts African Americans in our community and nation-wide. In the first four months of 2012,303% of the victims in gun crimes in Portland were African American.54Yo of known offenders in these crimes were also African American. When compared with the African American population in Portland, which sits around six percent, it is clear that the impacts of gun crimes have a disproportionate impact on the African American community in Portland. The Committee views Hotspot exclusions as having the potential of preventing violence in our African American community.
So that’s that then. Only not quite. The report recommends a few changes. For one thing, the Committee doesn’t want to submit justification for the ordinance every six months (annual reports ought to do it). For another, they want to expand the existing Hotspots. And add two more. And possibly three after that. So it’s a hit! Criminals convicted of firearms offenses are staying out of Portland’s Hotspots, reducing gun crime. How do we know this? Uh . . .
To date, there have been zero violations of the exclusions. The committee was not able to determine the cause of this – whether excluded individuals are following their conditions of probation or, simply, not getting caught in Hotspots – but the Committee does expect both the violations of exclusions and demographics of excluded individuals to change in the future. Once the ordinance is implemented Bureau-wide, exclusions will be issued and enforced by officers outside of the Gang Enforcement Team. Therefore, the Committee has the expectation that Hotspot exclusion demographics will more closely match gun crime demographics in our city.
So naturally the Committee has decided that it’s time to increase the number of Hotspots AND the number of people whose constitutional rights are trampled by the system.
The Committee will work with the District Attorney’s Offlrce to implement a new Gang and Gun Conviction Package with Hotspot exclusions as part of the conditions of probation.
One more thing: the Committee reckons that the Failure to Report Theft of Loss of a Firearm portion of their Hoptspot-creating city ordinance isn’t working because A) people aren’t aware of it and B) it’s not proactive enough. To that end . . .
What our community really needs is a way to track guns back to their owners so that our public safety system can prosecute the people who burglarized community members even if the suspect is not caught for that specific burglary. The Committee explored the option of a voluntary registration for gun owTìers. While it is illegal in Oregon to force registration of firearm ownership, Portland City Council could provide a voluntary registry to community members who want to track serial numbers and other information about their firearms. The Committee will also continue to explore potential changes to state laws that prohibit a mandatory registration on every sale of a gun.
Anyone who believes that ALL gun control laws are NOT a slippery slope should read this and repent. Publicly. Anyone who faces similar measures within their community (Chicago’s decided to actually tear down its “hotspots”) should fight against it tooth and nail. And anyone who cherishes their Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms should avoid Portland like the plague and send an email to Mr. Adams explaining their aversion.
“The Committee will also continue to explore potential changes to state laws that prohibit a mandatory registration on every sale of a gun.”
——
That’s the sound of the other shoe dropping.
Every legislative session sees new gun control laws that certain anti-gun Democrats work to get passed. Fortunately, they almost always fail to pass.
Behold, the military practice of being “Voluntold” has come to gun control. Sure, the gun registry is *optional* if you don’t mind being jammed up by the local government for not “volunteering”.
The entire job description of any government entity simply entails the further degradation of liberty. Government drones/politicians go into work every day with the sole purpose of eroding freedom, whether they know it or not. This story should be no surprise to anyone.
The real offense to civil liberties is the restriction on freedom of movement. While one could argue that such restriction can be placed on felon as condition of his parole, a blanket prohibition based on the nature of the crime after the sentence has been fully served is a clear violation of a person constitutional rights. Furthermore, if a person on the black list cannot go into a neighborhood where his family lives it imposes conditions on the freedom of association of someone who never committed a crime.
Black list… pun…. +P
On the bright side we do have access in Portland and around Oregon to a large number of fine micro-brews, great coffee, numerous food carts, lots of rain, lush green forests, high desert, an ocean, salmon and sturgeon, and lots of good folk who are into BBQ, grilling, and smoking food. We also have lots of fit young women flashing colored tattoos and body piercings. There is even a fully naked blond girl in her twenties who rides her bicycle all around Portland. I’ve seen her twice.
No, no. Yeah, we have some of that stuff, here and there. But what we have the most of is RAIN. Rain, rain, RAIN. Virtually year around.
Really.
I’d rather have rain than live in the drought much of the rest of the country is experiencing. Kinda weird that we have one of the highest water rates in America. I’m going to do a lunch at Otto’s Sausage Grill for a micro-brew and a grilled smoke polish sausage.
They kept stating it has a disproportional impact on African Americans. It seems to originate with African Americans. But that would be non-PC to state.
Are non-African Americans going into these areas and shooting African Americans? Are White Hispanics shooting African Americans in disproportional numbers? Are hard working Latinos shooting anyone else in these areas?
All this data they have, but the need to sanitize for racial reasons makes it hard to digest it all. The only safe recommendation is to register all guns and disarm everyone, that can be stated without upsetting any protected class.
The areas highlighted have very high black populations. Notice the large hotspot in north Portland is right along Martin Luther King Jr Way?
What was that Chris Rock joke about MLK Jr named streets? “”You know what’s sad? Martin Luther King stood for non violence. And I don’t care where you are in America, if you’re on Martin Luther King Boulevard, there’s some violence going down.”
Truer words…
I hate all the Portland politicians that do the PC dance around this issue. Someone needs to have the balls to tell blacks in Portland that they ARE the problem. It starts with a lack of parenting, particularly the “fuck em and forget em” attitude that many black men have towards women. But it also comes to the fact that there is a complete absence of leadership in the black community. There is a whole lot of victim mentality, however, and that really holds them back as a group. Some can rise above it, but many can’t.
Oooooooooo! Voluntary gun registration! Sign me up. See, gun registration in Massachusetts is mandatory, and voluntary registration would be a major improvement. It would also reduce the Commonwealth’s gun registration paperwork burden by, oh, 100%, since only a total moron with a vacuum between his ears would volunteer for anything quite this stupid.
“gun registration in Massachusetts is mandatory”
——
Damn shame ol’ Mitt couldn’t have fixed that whilst he was busy instituting an AWB, huh?
Sorry, but the AWB was in effect before Romney. So was gun registration.
All I know is that I’m having a hard enough time holding my nose and voting for Romney (just because I think there’s a slim chance he’ll appoint better SCOTUS justices than Obama) as it is – but if he appoints the even more anti-gun Chris Christie as a running mate, then screw Romney, I’m voting for Gary Johnson. I refuse to vote for two anti-gun assholes.
NC has no registration outside of Durham, but in my county there were so many people relocating from areas with registration that for a time the local sheriff’s office was accepting “registrations” from people who felt they just HAD to register. I think even that may have stopped as I can’t find any mention of the policy on the county website anymore.
Unfortunately for the PC police, there’s something of an “ethnic issue” with its implementation. African Americans account for 87 percent of 18 people subject to the extra-legal exclusion.
How surprising…
Portlandia goes from comedy to documentary.
So, if your a felon(*) in possession of a firearm(**), you cant have a gun in a specific area because they said so (according to the numbers it’s a hot spot). Well good thing I’m white and not a fellon. But in all seriousness, maybe if gangs looked at drug dealing and turf wars a business and not a war they would stop shooting each other and start working on setting up franchises and expanding upon their enterprising skill sets.
I mean how stupid is it to hear someone say “Hey this is my street” when it’s in fact the city who built the street, and it’s the very street that was there well before you where born, and will remain well after your death. The worst are taggers, writing on walls like a dog pisses on a fire hydrant. Perhaps if we reduced the divide in equality we could perhaps offer greater opportunities for our urban youth, some of which could afford them a much safer work environment.
* Cant Own Guns
** OH no! He got a gun! But the law says… Oh he robbed a house or got if of the black market.
“Perhaps if we reduced the divide in equality we could perhaps offer greater opportunities for our urban youth, some of which could afford them a much safer work environment.”
(sarcasm on) Wait, WHAT?!? You mean we should actually address the root cause of the drug and violence problem in urban communities of color (disparity of resources and lack of opportunity due to a long history of institutionalized racism), instead of drawing up pointless laws that implicitly blame guns, not the offenders using them, for inflicting violence, all while undercutting the right to legal ownership of firearms by responsible citizens? Nah, let’s try to legislate this into oblivion, blame guns, and pretend it’s working. (sarcasm off)
Also, their justification for the “voluntary registration” of firearms (that it will aid in the prosecution of those offenders caught with stolen guns) smells pretty fishy. If a legally-owned firearm is stolen, wouldn’t the police report of the theft include the stolen gun’s serial number (copied from that handy-dandy personal firearms record the ATF so helpfully includes with every gun purchase), so if the firearm is recovered and found to be used in the commission of a crime, the authorities could cross-check their records and ascertain that it was stolen? Don’t we live in the era of computers?
gimlet: (copied from that handy-dandy personal firearms record the ATF so helpfully includes with every gun purchase)
I have no idea to what you’re referring. Are you being snarky, or is this perhaps something that only occurs in your area?
No snark here. Every gun that I’ve purchased came with a little pamphlet from ATF in the box with the owners’ manual that encourages you to write down the serial number, make, model, etc. of all the guns you own and keep it stored separately from your guns. I kept the one that came with my first M&P and chucked the others.
http://www.atf.gov/publications/download/p/atf-p-3312-8.pdf
Curious. I’ve never seen one of those, and I’ve purchased “more than I need and less than I want” firearms.
On my last purchase (my first from that dealer), however, I did have to sign a form that in half-inch all caps on a half sheet of paper said:
IT IS UNLAWFUL, AND PUNISHABLE BY
IMPRISONMENT AND FINE, FOR ANY
ADULT TO STORE OR LEAVE A FIREARM IN
ANY PLACE WITHIN THE REACH OR EASY
ACCESS OF A MINOR UNDER 18 YEARS OF
AGE OR TO KNOWINGLY SELL OR
OTHERWISE TRANSFER OWNERSHIP OR
POSSESSION OF A FIREARM TO A MINOR
OR A PERSON OF UNSOUND MIND.
Sig: _______ Date: _____
It was a carbon copy form, they kept a copy and stapled the other to my Bill of Sale. I thought it was silly, but I signed it anyway.
“303% of the victims in gun crimes in Portland were African American”
— Can someone explain to me how the city statisticians can claim 303% of a total victim count by percentage which would have to be 100%?
Is the gubermint now counting as gun crime victims the children or dependents (who were not around at the time) of their parent who got shot? A new definition for additional victims wouldn’t surprise me when leaders such as our secretary of state make comments that the real victims of war are the women since they lose husbands, sons, fathers, and brothers. I’ve heard the newest re-definition requirement for child support payments is now about to be extended to age 26 under Obama Care provided the adult-child continues to stay in school and live with the primary parent. Such are the people who rule over us from the government.
Aharon: “303% of the victims in gun crimes in Portland were African American”
— Can someone explain to me how the city statisticians can claim 303% of a total victim count by percentage which would have to be 100%?
I can explain it for you. It’s a copypasta error. The original pdf reads:
In the first four months of 2012, 30.3% of the victims in gun crimes in Portland were African American. 54% of
known offenders in these crimes were also African American.
When you cut and paste it, it gets messed up.
Thanks Matt in Florida!
(sarcasm on) For a moment there I was actually questioning the caliber of the fine people working in government. (sarcasm off).
The copy/paste was a victim of formatting errors. It should read “In the first four months of 2012, 30.3% of the victims in gun crimes in Portland were African American. 54 of known offenders in these crimes were also African American.”
Look at page 11 of the linked report. http://www.portlandonline.com/auditor/index.cfm?c=50265&a=404684
Thanks Bob H.
We must get RF a proofreader!
I have a list of my firearms and their serial numbers in a safe place. If it becomes necessary (by virtue of loss), I will provide that information to my insurance company and the police. Until then, that information will stay my business…
I don’t see the upside in giving it to anyone ahead of time. My collection is not so large that they’ll recover it before I notice it’s been stolen.
Same here. I keep additional copies or records for many important papers in a safety deposit box. I even keep an up to date backup copy of my hard drive in it.
I keep all my important documents on my refrigerator door, held up with magnets.
Is it ever a burden, you know, being the coolest guy on this block?
How about noticing were the majority of crimes are occuring and putting more cops there? Gee, that would seem to be a better use of the data than this committee can come up with. Regarding volutary registration, though, (engage sarcasm) the city should build a multimillion dollar complex to house hundreds of employees to process all the forms (disengage sarcasm).
What’s so bad about all this. Why in the old days, they used to just run ’em outta town on a rail! I have just got to question the constitutionality of banning felons from their home neighborhoods. Doesn’t sit too well. Th enxt step is to banthem from town, so they either have to go live in the surrounding communities or go back to jail.
I’m not sure I understand this “Hot Spot” idea. Presumably these are people (convicted felons) who are not allowed to poses a gun anywhere but they’ve created “hot spots” where it’s more illegal for them to be in possession of a firearm?
Voluntary registration my ass. I already do that – receipts, pictures and other pertinent information related to my guns is stored on my file server, that’s backed up to an off-site location. If one of my guns is ever stolen I’d be happy to provide the police with the serial number to that gun. Otherwise they can stay the hell out of my business.
The NSA thanks you for registering your firearms on its server.
@Mark N.
Your comment assumes:
A) that the off-site server I mentioned is not under my control.
B) that the data is not encrypted before transmission
Even if A were not true, as long as B is then it does not matter if a three letter agency has access to the server. All they’d see is noise.
FLAME DELETED
This graphic is very informative for me, even though I’ve lived here for almost 20 years. Portland has a fairly low violent crime rate overall, and it’s nice to know I can reduce my exposure by more than 1/3 by simply avoiding the mostly-blighted crime hotspots.
Downtown Portland is unfortunately one of them, and its attractions are the main reasons we live in this area. Nearly all violent crime there occurs after dark, so it’s fairly easy to avoid (at least during the long days of summer.)
Anyone who believes that ALL gun control laws are NOT a slippery slope should read this and repent.
Sorry, I’m horribly confused by the irony between your defense of the ATT and then stating the above.
When the fight stopped, the black men went outside, followed by the officers. Exactly what happened or why is not clear, other than the fact that Larsen shot five times at one of cars, killing Robert Reese with a gunshot wound to the back of the head. Witnesses to the beating and the shooting disagreed about whether the officers identified themselves as police officers, whether they spoke to the black men after the beating, and whether Larsen was drunk when he shot at the car.