Law and Order

In Oregon, they do things differently. The City of Portland has passed five new gun laws which they are sure will make a big dent in crime there, notwithstanding a lack of evidence to this effect where they've been tried elsewhere.

My favorite is one, unique to Portland, forbids persons convicted of gun crimes from hanging out in areas with a high gun crime rate:

Three ordinances would hold adults responsible if their gun gets into a child’s hands, penalize gun owners who don’t report the theft or loss of a firearm, and designate shooting hot spots and allow the city to exclude certain gun offenders from them.

While the theft reporting and child protection laws have been passed in other major cities, criminal justice experts say the exclusion zones that would restrict gun offenders from areas designated as high in gun violence would be unique to Portland.

As long as I find it impossible to do this kind of thinking, I can see I'm never going to make it to high political office.

Taking the idea to it's next level, they could forbid known criminals from frequenting high crime areas, and thus reduce the crime rates in the seedier parts of town. Of course this would cause the crime rates in otherwise crime-free areas to rise, but as long as the overall crime rates stayed at politically acceptable levels, one assumes the town councils jobs are safe, which is what matters.

Just think, you would be no more (or less) likely to be raped, robbed, or murdered in Portland if you lived in the public projects or a gated subdivision. The next best thing to utopia.