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Traffic Stops and Gun Crimes
Despite President Biden’s inane musings on retraining police officers on the use of deadly force, there are laws that can help mitigate the gun violence problem in the United States. Laws that were written years ago. Laws that are being ignored by some prosecutors who see criminals as victims rather than a danger to the community.
From Channel 2 News, Monday, January 16, in Portland, OR:
PORTLAND, Ore. — Police officials arrested two convicted felons Sunday who were caught driving in a stolen car in East Portland with a sawed-off shotgun in the vehicle.
East Precinct Portland Police officers spotted the stolen vehicle driving near Northeast 148th Avenue and Halsey Street with switched license plates.
They stopped the driver, and inside the car they found multiple stolen license plates and a sawed-off shotgun.
They say two people were taken into custody on unauthorized use of motor vehicle and felon in possession of a firearm charges.
There is a 10-year sentence for a felon possessing a firearm. A sawed-off shotgun violates federal and state firearms laws. Additional charges can be added to the theft of a motor vehicle, as well as the stolen license plates.
If the Multnomah County DA does not want to go the distance prosecuting these individuals, then a federal prosecutor should prosecute on the federal firearms charges. Law-abiding citizens who possess firearms are not the problem with rising crime rates.
Published in Policing
That seems to be the issue with a lot of issues in the country. There already is a law addressing that issue, but it isn’t being enforced. Usually Congress doesn’t need to pass a law to be seen as doing something, but instead should see if an existing law is being ignored.
Kevin D. Williamson has written about this in the past. He points out that in Chicago, for example, a great many of the firearms used in crimes were bought by “straw buyers.” (Straw buyers are people who are not barred from legally possessing guns and buy them for those who are barred.) Straw buying is obviously a Federal crime. Yet the US Attorneys in Chicago and other cities almost never prosecute the straw buyer.
If the Feds were serious about stopping “gun violence,” they would prosecute these people. But they don’t because it’s not glamourous nor seen as a a way to promotion.
No more gun laws should be passed if the existing laws are not enforced.
Is murder a state crime that can be prosecuted at the state level? If so, why are such crimes left to Chicago authorities?
The powers that be seem assiduously to ignore the gang violence that leaves corpses in every blue city every day, but insist on going after law-abiding gun owners. In Seattle, the city even disbanded the police’s gang unit at the very time violent crime was and is on the increase. And then the media all whine about gun violence as if guns go around shooting on their own. Pathetic.
In one big city, the police department was ordered to delete their gang database, because it contained not just gangsters but known associates of gangsters.
In my home state of Arizona, the “state” prosecution of crime is generally carried out on a county-by-county basis, with an elected County Attorney in each county responsible for the local office. My impression is that this is typical around the country, though perhaps not in every state. Sometimes the terminology is “District Attorney” rather than “County Attorney,” as in Law and Order.
Counties are administrative subdivisions of the states, so it is a “state” crime being prosecuted by a “state” authority when a typical prosecution occurs. The county system has the advantage of allowing local control over local law enforcement.
There is typically a state Attorney General, or the like, who often has some concurrent jurisdiction with the County Attorney to prosecute certain types of crimes.
I could never be a criminal. They have to use such crap guns.
Didn’t Portland do that too? Or something very similar.
Yes, the Gang Enforcement Team (GET) was disbanded.
We hear about gun safety from the dims and news media (sorry for the redundancy) with no distinction of legal owners vs illegal guns. Of the x number of murders committed, at least those tried for murder, how many were committed by legal firearm owners vs illegal weapons? I never hear that discussed except in generalities.
What you describe sounds like states, in some cases, might be able to act if the job is not being done?