Responding to a rash of gang related shootings in Portland, Mayor Adams and gun control advocates are calling for “tougher background checks” in an effort to curb the gang shootings.

Always citing some unnamed “serious loopholes that allow unqualified people to buy guns,” Adams “endorsed a bill introduced by New York U.S. Sen. Chuck Schumer intended to close the loopholes,” whatever they are.

Teressa Raiford, cousin of one victim that was shot and killed last year said, “It is too easy for people in Oregon to buy illegal guns.”

Not explained by any of the members of the inaccurately named “Mayors Against Illegal Guns,” they are against ALL guns, not just illegal guns, is how a background check applies to the passing back and forth of stolen and illegal guns on street corners by gang members across the nation.

Invoking Jared Loughner, the mentally disturbed shooter who shot Az. Rep Gabrielle Giffords in January, we are told that he “should have been barred from buying the guns used in the incident because he was an admitted drug user. But he passed two background checks because the federal database used to check gun buyers did not have that information.”

Not stated was the efforts to give him a pass on his mental state and keep his several run-ins with law enforcement out of his record, which would have placed him on a “no-buy list.”

We also read that Schumer’s bill “would also require private gun sellers to verify, either through law enforcement agencies or licensed firearm dealers that people buying their guns are not on the list.”

Do you think “King Kool’ and ‘Dirty Duke’ on the street corner dealing drugs, establishing their turf for their gang and passing stolen or illegal guns to each other will consult a “no-buy list?”

Last year Adams proposed changes designed to “get guns out of youths’ hands,” by imposing special curfew for juveniles found by a court to have violated gun laws, prevent juveniles who have shown a disregard for gun laws from becoming involved in nighttime gun violence, provides police a tool to intervene with a juvenile who has shown disregard for gun laws when the child is out in public during times of increased gun misuse and create incentive for State prosecution of juvenile firearm offenses.

As I understand it, Oregon Law says it is already illegal for anyone under the age of 18 to own a handgun and in order to buy ammunition for it, you must be 21. To purchase a handgun from a licensed dealer, they must be 21.

The Zero tells us, “The city recently enacted five new gun-control laws aimed at curbing gun-violence, particularly among juveniles.”

If more gun control laws will curb gun violence by gang members and other criminals, wouldn’t the new laws have prevented the latest shootings?

All gun laws are only followed by legal, law-abiding gun owners. Criminals, by nature, don’t follow the law.

May I suggest to Mayor Adams, if you really wish to curb gin violence in Portland by criminals and gang members, why not write and enforce an ordinance requiring criminals to obey the law and then, make shooting people against the law too.

That will have just much effect on criminals as will efforts to “close this so-called, yet unnamed” loophole.

The problem is not guns in the hands of responsible, law-abiding citizens.

The problem is the criminal!