Thursday, January 22, 2009

"All The Neighbors Can Say Is 'Ain't It a Shame'"

The hit-and-miss journalism of the Chronicle's C.W. Nevius takes another swipe at "homelessness" and "mental illness" this week, with the usual hand-wringing and "why can't we do something about this?" moral outrage.

Well, C.W., here's why...



It seemed everyone in the Tenderloin knew where Caprice Darnell Curry was headed. Last week that's where she ended up - assaulted, stabbed, dead on the street.


What the neighbors can't shake is the gloomy feeling that her death could have been prevented. They knew that Curry, a 31-year-old man who presented himself as a flamboyant, flirtatious woman, had serious psychological problems. They knew she was in danger. Yet when she was taking her meds, Curry could also be charming, caring and likable.

Most of all, they knew that she had the potential to be saved.


We talk a lot about people falling through the cracks of the city's support system. It isn't often that we get to actually watch it happen.


It is ridiculous that this continues. It's easy to say the problem is the number of severely mentally ill or drug-addicted people in the city. The bigger picture is that the city has failed to find a way to deal with two fundamental problems.


It's "easy to say the problem is the number of severely mentally ill or drug-addicted people in the city" BECAUSE IT'S TRUE!!! No one who wasn't lying would deny that San Francisco has an extremely high number of people with severe mental illness, drug addictions, alcoholism, or all of the above - both in terms of sheer numbers and as a percentage of the population. This is of course predicated - and greatly exacerbated by - the city's permissive attitudes towards drug abuse and alcoholism, and an attitude that seems to encourage mental illness and discourage people from taking medication that can help them (but has no trouble advocating "medication" that can harm them).

First, there is no mechanism to compel those with psychological problems or drug addiction to seek help. And second, concentrating those with the very worst problems in the Tenderloin - a center for drug sales and violence, and where there is the city's highest concentration of parolees - is disastrous.


First... who is to blame for that? Mostly the mental health "advocates" who keep insisting that people with severe mental illness are somehow capable of making these decisions. As to the second point... what's the alternative? Spreading those with the "very worst problems" to other neighborhoods, where they can accost families with children, where no one is around to look after them?

In this case, Curry was arrested several times, given medications and encouraged to go to counseling. Yet at the end of the day, she was turned back onto the Tenderloin streets and left to succumb to her tendencies to get herself into drugs and danger.


YOU CANNOT SAVE PEOPLE WHO DO NOT WANT TO BE SAVED!


Eshana Singh is a mental health services program director. She counseled Curry at the Lyric Hotel, a residence for people with both mental health and substance abuse problems.


"If I could have waved a magic wand, it would make her take her medications, to be the incredible person she could be," Singh said.


But there is no magic wand. Does that mean friends have to stand by and watch a slow-motion train wreck?


UH... DUH... OF COURSE IT DOES! BECAUSE THE PERSON DRIVING THE TRAIN IS STEPPING ON THE GAS!


"We talked about this many times," said David Villa-Lobos, a 28-year Tenderloin resident and executive director of the Community Leadership Alliance. "As many times as this young man went to court, nothing was done. The cops are trying to do their job, but something breaks down in the courts. The poor guy needed some help. He needed some supervision."


Instead, Curry got court dates, warnings and invitations to counseling. Unless the patient is deeply, dangerously disturbed, that's all that can be done.


"The basic problem is that no one can be forced into treatment," said Dr. Bob Cabaj, director of San Francisco Behavioral Health Services. "If someone is deemed not to be gravely disabled, they would be encouraged to follow through (with counseling), but if they don't want to, they don't have to."


There is an alternative. Many of those who work in the system wish they could be empowered as "conservators" for those who are in psychological need. With that authority, health workers could require patients to take their medications and undergo treatment.


"If I could do anything, I would ask to have a stronger ability to use conservatorship when it is appropriate," Cabaj said. "To have someone's case overseen by someone who cares."


And yet, no one seems to be working real hard to make that happen.


Or we can have the alternative - the short, sad life of Caprice Curry.


She was certainly no shrinking violet.


"She strutted around like a model," Singh said. "She was more of a woman than I was. She was very flamboyant and very flirtatious. She flirted with everybody."


But when she wasn't taking her drugs, she could also be mouthy, difficult and argumentative. There were scenes at the local markets, a fight at the Laundromat. She smoked crack.


A month ago she was taken to the hospital after getting beat up. Singh said Curry was given better medications and returned with a new interest in counseling.


But what was it she returned to?


"You see the neighborhood," said Dmitry Erikalov, Curry's friend for nine years. "People get killed there every month. People deal drugs everywhere in the open."


Seth Katzman, who is the director of Conard House, which runs the Lyric Hotel, said the neighborhood is a prescription for failure.


"It is really difficult to put individuals with severe mental illness and substance abuse problem in a neighborhood where so many others have the same problems," he said. "You might go to a 90-day rehab program, and they may do a great job, but when you come back into the Tenderloin and everybody is using, I can't imagine staying sober."


Here's an idea... try going somewhere else!


I'm going to go waaaaay out on a limb here and guess that Curry was not a San Francisco native, and, like many homeless here, she came here from somewhere else for precisely the reasons the "advocates" are trying to "save" her from... drugs, sex, and a place to be crazy without being judged.


Curry didn't. She didn't stay on her meds and she couldn't keep herself out of trouble. At the same time, she was a force of nature at the Lyric, fluttering in and out of Singh's office, flirting with the men and sashaying out the door.


"This is not just another Tenderloin murder," Singh said. "She was a wild child. But she was also loving, caring and considerate. She cared."


And in the end, so did the neighborhood. Erikalov said they raised $7,500 for her funeral. On a glass door at the Lyric is a small shrine, including several pictures. One of them shows Curry standing on the street, grinning into the camera, next to something she used to say all the time.


"You're gonna miss me when I'm gone."


Look... it is always sad to see someone throw their life away... Curry was just a long, slow suicide and there was probably nothing anyone could do.


But the changes you want to see will NEVER happen, because of San Francisco's permissive attitudes towards drug addiction and alcoholism, and its near-celebration of mental illness.


There is, of course, an alternative, and one which I think we will see eventually... whereby mentally ill criminals (and that's what she was) will no longer be given the choice of jail or rehab... you'll get both. There will be "mental health jails" where people who cannot make clear decisions for themselves, and are a danger to themselves and others, will be forced to take their medication, in a situation away from the "general population" of the prison system.


Think the Goddamn liberals will go for that? Me neither.


Plus... I find it very hard to care, especially hot on the heels of a man known to be insane killing a complete stranger just last week near my neighborhood.


The truth is that San Francisco is the most mentally ill city in the USA.


Wednesday, January 21, 2009

Saturday, January 17, 2009

Invader Scum Rejoice! S.F. Begins Illegal Alien ID Program




The long awaited day is finally here for the invader scum and their advocates, as told by the uber-PC SFGate. Please see my notes and errata below the article for translation from PC-speak into English...

"Hundreds Wait For Hours To Buy S.F. I.D. Card"
by Heather Knight

Hundreds of people stood in line for hours at San Francisco City Hall on Thursday to be among the first in the nation to receive municipal identification cards regardless of their immigration status.


The cards, also available in New Haven, Conn., and being considered in other cities, have sparked fury among advocates of stricter immigration laws(1). They argue cities have no business declaring people residents if they are not in the country legally.


But San Francisco officials and recipients of the cards hailed the new program as a way to connect undocumented immigrants with banks, businesses and city services, such as obtaining health care and checking out library books. They also said it will encourage card holders to report crimes to the police without fear of being arrested or deported.


"I really need the identification card," said Marvin Martinez, 50, who arrived in the city five months ago from Florida and is originally from Mexico. Martinez, who didn't say whether he was a legal resident, stood in a long line - one made up mostly of Latino men(2) - that snaked down the marble hallway outside the county clerk's office.


"I'll use it to look for jobs and for school and when the police stop me, I'll have ID to show them(3)," he said. "It'll improve things."


The clerk's office expected to create 30 cards on the first day of the program, and signed up hundreds of people for appointments in the coming days. The clerk's office eventually will hand out about 50 cards per day.


Assemblyman Tom Ammiano, who as a supervisor wrote the legislation creating the card program, was the first to receive a card - though he initially thought he could do so with just his driver's license and had to return with a utility bill. Even his Assembly ID card didn't count, he pointed out with a laugh.


People must show proof of identity like a driver's license or foreign passport(4), as well as proof of residency such as a utility bill or proof of having a child enrolled in the city's public schools.


"Mr. Ammiano forgot to bring his residency documents," County Clerk Karen Hong said. "Education is key."


Ammiano, Hong and many other city officials gathered in the North Light Court on Thursday morning to announce the program. Notably absent was Mayor Gavin Newsom, who aides alternately said was running late or was busy in a meeting upstairs.


The widespread assumption at the news conference was that Newsom - often criticized for holding too many news conferences - was avoiding the controversial issue because it may not play well in his bid for governor in 2010.


"He ducked it," Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi said. "My take is whatever his larger aspirations are, they seem to be eclipsing the local gains like this. He should be proud of this, and I'm sure quietly he is."


After an unrelated event to announce the expansion of a free Wi-Fi program for public housing residents, Newsom said he had been meeting with his budget director during the identification card event. He said he's not worried about how the program will affect his run for governor.


"This would go at the end of a very long list of things that will be points of consternation that will be targeted against me," he said. There had been earlier talk of him joining Ammiano to get a card himself to promote the program, which he also rejected.


"I've got more IDs than I need," he said. "This is for other people. This is not for the mayor of San Francisco. In fact, with respect, I appreciate some city employees getting it, but I wish it was going to the people it was intended for in the first day or two."


Newsom supported identification cards when Board of Supervisors approved the program in 2007. But he put the program on hold last summer following a series of Chronicle articles about how the city was (5) shielding youth in the country illegally from deportation after they were found guilty of committing felonies.


That practice was stopped (6), and Newsom said he wanted to ensure the identification cards complied with state and federal laws before going forward.


The Immigration Reform Law Institute of Washington sued to block the cards on behalf of four San Francisco residents who said the program would aid illegal immigration. San Francisco Superior Court Judge Peter Busch tossed the suit in October(7).


Ira Mehlman, media director for the Federation for American Immigration Reform - a national group that wants immigration laws enforced more strongly - said it's ridiculous to create a program to attract more illegal immigrants when most U.S. cities are struggling financially.


"Maybe San Francisco is the exception to the rule, and they have money to burn - who knows?" Mehlman said.


City Administrator Ed Lee said the machinery to produce the cards cost $700,000 and staffing will cost $150,000 annually.


Supporters said the program isn't just for illegal immigrants. Homeless people often have trouble obtaining ID cards because they have no fixed address. And transgender people are sometimes stigmatized if they show a driver's license that indicates their legal sex is different from how they appear; the city cards have no sex designation (8).


About San Francisco's ID cards


To get a card, make an appointment up to 30 days in advance at the County Clerk's office, room 168 in City Hall, from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. or by calling (415) 554-4950.


At the appointment, you will fill out an application, show proof of identity (like a driver's license or foreign passport) and proof of city residency (like a utility bill), pay $5 to $15, get a picture taken and receive the card within 20 minutes.


The card is good at some banks and credit unions, some participating businesses(9) offering discounts to cardholders, libraries, to reserve park space and at all city departments and other groups receiving city money.


The cards are not a license to drive, not intended to be used as proof of legal age to buy alcohol or cigarettes, and not accepted by federal agencies.




Translation:

(1) "advocates of stricter immigration laws" is the usual PC-speak used to define anyone who is against open borders. "Opponents of immigration anarchy" or "opponents of governmental dereliction in enforcing immigration law" would be a bit closer to the truth.

(2) Wow. Big surprise there. Sort of puts yet another hole in the "not just for illegals" argument (see 8).

(3) Already making plans for the future....

(4) Actually, it is quite a bit more lenient than that...

Anyone wanting an illegal alien ID merely has to submit one of the following (which must include a picture and birth date)...


  • US or Foreign Passport:
  • US Driver's License
  • US State ID
  • US Permanent Resident Card (Green Card)
  • Consular Identification (CID) - including Mexican Matricuala Consular
  • Photo ID Card issued by another Country to its citizens or nationals that meets the requirements of San Francisco Administrative Code 95.1(a)
  • Certified Copy of US or Foreign Birth Certificate
  • Social Security Card
  • National ID Card with photo, name, address, date of birth, and expiration date
  • Foreign Driver's License
  • US or Foreign Military Identification Card
  • Current Visa issued by a government agency
  • US Individual Taxpayer Identification Number (ITIN) authorization letter
  • California Educational Institution Identification Card: elementary, middle, secondary and post secondary schools

For those 13 and under, there is virtually no proof needed. All you need is a "parent or guardian" to vouch for you. No picture. No birthday. No fucking nothing. Welcome MS-13 Gangbangers!

In addition to this ultra-lenient I.D. requirement is an even more lenient residency requirement, where you must also submit one of the following....


  • Utility bill dated within the last 30 days
  • Local property tax statement or mortgage payment receipt dated within the last 30 days
  • Bank account statement dated within the last 30 days
  • Proof of a minor currently enrolled in a San Francisco school
  • Current San Francisco Golf Resident Card
  • Employment pay stub dated within the last 30 days
  • Written ruling, order or notice from the Residential Rent Stabilization and Arbitration Board dated within the last 30 days
  • Jury summons or court order issued by a state or federal court and dated within the last 30 days
  • Federal or state income tax or refund statement dated within the last 30 days
  • Insurance bill (homeowner’s, renter’s, health, life or automobile insurance) dated within the last 30 days
  • Written verification issued by a homeless shelter that receives City funding confirming at least 15 days residency within the last 30 days
  • Written verification issued by a hospital, health clinic or social services agency that receives City funding confirming at least 15 days residency within the last 30 days
  • If a certified copy of a marriage certificate is presented at the time of application, an applicant may prove residency using documents bearing the name of his/her spouse.
(5) ... and by most accounts, still is...

(6) ... again, little evidence of that. Not that the US Atty's office is going out of its way to check. One of the most shameful parts of this whole mess is how the US Atty's office, after several threats to settle S.F.'s hash, has done ABSOLUTELY NOTHING.

(7) Judge Busch was apparently stupid enough to buy the "it's not just for illegals" argument (see 8).

(8) "It's not just for illegal aliens" - the big, steaming pile of out-and-out bullshit propaganda that is repeated again and again in EVERY article you read about the I.D. program. Especially suspect is the whole transgender argument - clearly put there to pander to the gay community - all the more suspect because there is no where on the application that allows you to set up an alias.

(9) Here's a list of those participating business to patronize if you're an illegal alien invader, or, perhaps, to BOYCOTT if you're not an Anti-American, open-borders anarchist...

***HEY KIDS!

YOU TOO CAN BE AN ILLEGAL ALIEN IN YOUR OWN COUNTRY!!!


CLICK HERE TO GET YOUR ILLEGAL ALIEN I.D.!!!

SOON TO BE MANDATORY SO GET YOURS NOW!

Time To Re-think Those Vacation Plans?

"U.S. military report warns 'sudden collapse' of Mexico is possible"


EL PASO - Mexico is one of two countries that "bear consideration for a rapid and sudden collapse," according to a report by the U.S. Joint Forces Command on worldwide security threats.


The command's "Joint Operating Environment (JOE 2008)" report, which contains projections of global threats and potential next wars, puts Pakistan on the same level as Mexico. "In terms of worse-case scenarios for the Joint Force and indeed the world, two large and important states bear consideration for a rapid and sudden collapse: Pakistan and Mexico.


"The Mexican possibility may seem less likely, but the government, its politicians, police and judicial infrastructure are all under sustained assault and press by criminal gangs and drug cartels. How that internal conflict turns out over the next several years will have a major impact on the stability of the Mexican state. Any descent by Mexico into chaos would demand an American response based on the serious implications for homeland security alone."


The U.S. Joint Forces Command, based in Norfolk, Va., is one of the Defense Departments combat commands that includes members of the different military service branches, active and reserves, as well as civilian and contract employees. One of its key roles is to help transform the U.S. military's capabilities.


In the foreword, Marine Gen. J.N. Mattis, the USJFC commander, said "Predictions about the future are always risky ... Regardless, if we do not try to forecast the future, there is no doubt that we will be caught off guard as we strive to protect this experiment in democracy that we call America."


The report is one in a series focusing on Mexico's internal security problems, mostly stemming from drug violence and drug corruption. In recent weeks, the Department of Homeland Security and former U.S. drug czar Barry McCaffrey issued similar alerts about Mexico.


Despite such reports, El Pasoan Veronica Callaghan, a border business leader, said she keeps running into people in the region who "are in denial about what is happening in Mexico."


Last week, Mexican President Felipe Calderon instructed his embassy and consular officials to promote a positive image of Mexico.


From: El Paso Times



Related stories....

2,000 fresh troops sent to Juarez as violence continues

Juarez vigilante group claims it will kill one criminal every 24 hours

Please Take Action

CAPS (Californians for Population Stabilization) has several urgent action alerts going that need your support. By clicking here, you can fax or email your elected representatives - for free! - and tell them to...

Pressure Bush to pardon our imprisoned border guards (Last Chance!)

Oppose Sen. Reid's latest amnesty push

Amend the healthcare bill to remove S-CHIP

... and tell incoming President Barack Obama that we do not want - and will never accept - amnesty and open borders!

Friday, January 16, 2009

Harry Reid Pushing For Amnesty... Again


It was only a matter of time before traitorous human-boil Sen. Harry Reid of Nevada once again ignored the will of the people and submitted his umpteenth proposal to erase the border and America's national sovereignty. This time it comes in the form of just-filed Senate Bill 9 - the hilariously named "Stronger Economies, Stronger Borders Act of 2009."

Michelle Malkin says it well...


"Of all the stupid ideas that have been floated in Washington, the idea of killing the building of the fence, awarding residency to law breakers and providing a shortcut to citizenship all the while pushing good immigrants to the back of the line has to take the cake! Merging our borders with Mexico means beheadings, murder, drug crime, kidnappings, beatings and the list goes on and on.


Crime will become our chief import!


The confused amnesty plan gives U.S. amnesty to every illegal alien, no questions asked! What Reid and his commie buddies are asking the American people to do, is lay down our sovereignty so the One-World masters can rule America making your families nothing more than illegal aliens in your own land!


Reid's fat idea is: "And I believe we would be wise to reconsider the effectiveness and cost of a wall along our southern border, which has adversely affected the fragile environment and vibrant cross-border culture of an entire region. Such a wall stands as a symbol of fear and intolerance. This is not what America is about and we can do better." Famous quote from Harry Reid.


Reid of course needs amnesty because his bosses - the Las Vegas developers and contractors - need the steady flow of slave labor into Nevada.

Here's the deal... eternal vigilance is not only the price of freedom, but it is the price of our culture, heritage, and sovereignty as well. We stopped this son-of-a-bitch and his pro-amnesty sleazebags in 2006, in 2007, and we can do it again in 2009! Why? Because the will of the people is overwhelmingly behind us! The American People - in every poll in every paper - have said that they do not want and will not accept the destruction of our borders by avaricious pusbags like Harry Reid.

Friday, January 9, 2009

A (snicker) "New Era" Dawns

A "new era" is being ushered in as the San Francisco Board of Supervisors opens its new season of "Lord of the Flies," featuring an "incredibly diverse" lineup of batshit liberals.

Funny... I don't feel any different.

The multi-cultist bean counters are nearing orgasm now, with the current lineup of...


...three Chinese Americans, including a woman; two gay men, including a Latino who arrived in the United States as an undocumented immigrant from Guatemala; another Latino; an African American woman; a disabled woman; and a Persian man.

Just two straight, white men now serve on the board.

...Which is probably an over-representation... just ask any straight, white woman! You can also pad the multi-cultist cred with the caveat that one of the straight, white males is severely mentally ill.

Already, the promises are flying that things will truly be different this time...

Mayor Gavin Newsom told reporters after the meeting, "I look forward to working with him. This is a fresh era."

Chiu also expressed a desire to work with the mayor, saying that all of the new supervisors have "committed over and over again to bringing a new tone of civility, of unity and of cooperation" to City Hall.


"Fresh era?" "New tone of civility?" Gee, I wonder what they mean by that?

We're even seeing plans about some of the new "differences..."


(Vincent Pan, executive director of Chinese for Affirmative Action) said his group is pushing this board to have an on-call pool of interpreters available so people who speak a language other than English can meet with City Hall officials any time.


He also wants to ensure Chinese Americans get their fair share of construction jobs and training expected to come under the pending federal economic stimulus plan.


Haha! Idiot! Doesn't he know that those jobs are reserved for ILLEGAL ALIENS?



Thursday, January 8, 2009

Ho Hum... Just Another Day In the Bay Area

Welp, the utterly predictable is transpiring... the thugs are rioting in Oakland in response to a shooting death involving a Bart Officer.

Some snippets from the SFGate piece...

The roving mob expressed fury at police and frustration over society's racial injustice. Yet the demonstrators were often indiscriminate, frequently targeting the businesses and prized possessions of people of color.

They smashed a hair salon, a pharmacy and several restaurants. Police in riot gear tried to control the crowd, but some people retreated along 14th Street and bashed cars along the way.


The mob smashed the windows at Creative African Braids on 14th Street, and a woman walked out of the shop holding a baby in her arms.

"This is our business," shouted Leemu Topka, the black owner of the salon she started four years ago. "This is our shop. This is what you call a protest?"


"I feel like the night is going great," said Nia Sykes, 24, of San Francisco, one of the demonstrators. "I feel like Oakland should make some noise. This is how we need to fight back. It's for the murder of a black male."


Sykes, who is black, had little sympathy for the owner of Creative African Braids.


"She should be glad she just lost her business and not her life," Sykes said. She added that she did have one worry for the night: "I just hope nobody gets shot or killed." (Yeah... I'll bet she's REAL worried that cops and white people DON'T get shot tonight!)


Near 14th and Alice streets, Myron Bell was taking dance lessons in "step," a form of dance popular among African Americans, when he looked out the window and saw people jumping on his Lexus sedan.


Bell, 42, came out to find that almost all of the car's windows, including the front and back had been smashed and it appeared that someone had tried to set the car on fire.


"I'm for the cause," said Bell, who is black. "But I'm against the violence and destruction."


Nearby, Godhuli Bose stood near her smashed Toyota Corolla as a man walked by, repeatedly called her a misogynist slur and then added, "F- your car."

Link

Bose, a high school teacher, said: "I can't afford this."


Mandingo Hayes (himself an "activist," criminal, and all around piece of shit), who is black, said he participated in the protest because "we're tired of all these police agencies getting away with shooting unarmed black and Latino males."


(Like the four fine, upstanding Latino males charged in a gang rape of a Lesbian in Richmond? The Bart shooting may have been an accident, clearly NOT the case here. A possibly negligent shooting of a black man trumps a brutal premeditated gang-rape of a white woman any day!)

And this... apparently for laughs...


The core group of the mob appeared to be about 40 people, several of whom were with Revolution Books, a Berkeley bookstore. A man distributed the "Revolution" newspaper - whose tagline is "voice of the Revolutionary Communist Party, U.S.A." - as he shouted "This whole damn system is guilty!"


The BART police department has had problems in the past, mainly because of what they have to deal with. And obviously the officer in question should be tried for murder, if murder is actually what happened.

But, seriously... as far as rioting against the violence perpetrated against blacks by whites... can we cut the bullshit and get real for a second?

If killers in this society have a face, then that face is black. Blacks commit far and away most of the crime in this and every other city. A white person killing a black person in this society is news because it is so rare, hardly the case the other way around. White on black rape is virtually non-existent, occurring approximately 1,000 TIMES less often than the other way around.

But don't try telling that to the thugs in Oakland. They believe everything is a racist conspiracy. THEY HAVE TO. Because the alternative is to take responsibility for their own damn lives. To work. To stop leeching off of society. To actually marry the woman they knock up. To raise their kids not to be thug scum.

Blacks kill whites every day in this country and there are no riots. Any white person who even dares to bring up black criminality is immediately branded a racist or worse. But it is the truth, and everyone knows it's the truth.

No justice? No peace? No honesty! No respect!

Friday, January 2, 2009

As Homicide Rate Soars, S.F. Feigns Confusion

Another year has come and gone, and sadly there is no evidence that San Francisco's growing crime problem is improving. Particularly "confusing" to the liberal sentiment... S.F.'s minority homicide rate.

San Francisco police said Thursday that they recorded 97 homicides in 2008 after reclassifying one case that they said did not fit the definition of a homicide. The Chronicle's count of 98 includes the discovery of a body on Ocean Beach that is being handled by U.S. Park Service police. (The blog San Francisco Crime - which has done an excellent job of chronicling the rising homicide rate over the last two years - has put the actual number at 105.)

The killings have put pressure on leaders including Mayor Gavin Newsom, who said in 2004 that critics should try to recall him if an upswing of homicides continued. The number of slayings in the city that year was 88, up from 69 the year before.


This is obviously a serious problem. But just how does a batshit liberal government (speaking through a batshit liberal newspaper) deal with the inconvenient truth of the grisly murder epidemic (perpetrated by... and claiming the lives of... minorities) in their city?

Easy. Blame the guns.

...Police have theories, pointing to the ubiquity of guns on the street and to cavalier attitudes toward violence.

..."Nothing that I have tried to resolve has been more frustrating and vexing than solving the issue of why a 14-year-old would take the life of a 15-year-old with a weapon of war."

...Deputy Police Chief David Shinn said younger and younger people are toting guns. Often they use military-style rifles; it's common, he said, for officers to find 30 or 40 spent shells after a shooting.

..."What you're seeing here is an outgrowth of chronic problems," Zimring said. "We never solved the problems - chronic unemployment, gun availability, community disorganization.

...Russ Giuntini, the city's chief assistant district attorney, said San Francisco has the desire - but not the power - to regulate guns. "Until we have a meaningful national gun policy," he said, "we can be as well intentioned as we want to be."

... and on and on and on.

You see, according to liberals, if we just get rid of all the guns, then the gangs will be forced to resolve their disputes in choreographed dance-offs a la "West Side Story."

Tourists, of course, can breath easy... the murder epidemic in San Francisco is not a widespread phenomenon. A cursory look at S.F.'s homicide map will reveal a pretty damn obvious pattern. You can actually replace the words "homicide map" with "guide to street dealers and gang territory," and it will be just as true. The vast majority of the city is murder-free.

If all this is confusing to the pols, the commenters on the SFGate piece have a few ideas...

"Here's an example of dopey poitics. "Russ Giuntini, the city's chief assistant district attorney, said San Francisco has the desire - but not the power - to regulate guns." It is NOT a case of needing MORE gun control, Mr. Giuntini. There are plenty of gun control laws on the books right now. It is a matter of prosecuting recidivists and criminals who use guns. For years, the DA's office has been dropping the ball on this, making deals and dismissing cases that required more work on their part. They protect their politically all important win / loss ration by dismissing charges and making plea deals that take the teeth out of current laws, especially juvenile laws. Of course this is just part of the problem, but Mr. Giuntini is absolutely wrong and typical of an uberliberal civil servant pointing fingers at laws instead of people."

"Nearly half the victims were black, even though African Americans make up less than 7 percent of the city's population." And at least half if not higher of the perpetrators are also black. This city has virtually no black middle class anymore. Its crazy. The 2010 census should be eye opening. Projects are like another world in this city that has changed so much over the last few decades . A permanent government sponsored underclass of dysfunctional people."

"Yes, bullets "don't have no eyes", but the shooter of the gun sure has eyes... the shooter of the gun sure has a brain, the shooter of the gun sure has a finger that pulled the trigger..."

"Insanity! Reduce crime by stop catering to all the illegal aliens, and stop welcoming the nations homeless. The prosecute with no mercy people who assault, rape, rob, and murder. The message that SF sends is that there is no greater way to live than to be a self-absorbed egotistical individual so forget accountability, ethics, etc. The city culture is based on do your own thing. For most people that is not violence, but for some it is violence. Gavinboy, stop blaming firearms. All police officers know that the presence of firearms in homes is a major deterrent to even more crime. Nationally, about 2.5 million times yearly, Americans pull-out a firearm that keeps a violent person from going further. Get real!"

"99 murders, the highest total since 1995? What a proud legacy for Chief Heather Fong, who leaves the City and the SFPD in worse shape than she found them."

"One idea for combating the violence is to require all people living in public housing to surrender some rights, so that every one of these residences can be searched for weapons and drugs at random times without a warrant. If public-housing residents don't find this acceptable, they can stop having babies they aren't able to support, get an education beyond the elementary school level, and find employment that will enable them to pay for private homes."