Thinking of a move from CA or OR...

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My wife's parents are going to be moving to Oregon in the next year or so and want my wife and I to follow. I visited the state last weekend and I am impressed. I have a couple of questions I am hoping you all can answer.

If I move, how long do I have to wait before I can get a CCW? Is it a hard thing to obtain?

How are the laws there? Are they pretty strict, or do they get it?

How is the hunting and how strict are the game laws? Will it be a hard transition going from CA to OR?

I do have more non-gun question, but I don't want to ask on forum so I can keep this post gun related. If you all are willing, can you please PM me so I can ask a few non gun question relaiting to the economy and such. Links will be a great help. Thanks!!!
-Mike
 
Most of Oregon is Great

30/06,

If you like to shoot and enjoy the outdoors in general you will do fine in Oregon. While we do have our less than gun-loving liberals they, for the most part, hang out in Portland, Salem and Eugene. Where I live on the Coast, Coos County, Fishing, Hunting and Shooting are all popular pastimes. Within an hours drive from my home I can hunt deer, elk, bear and cougar. Salmon and Steelhead fishing is very available OH.. and we also have the Pacific Ocean.

Firearms Restiction are few compared to CA. --- 15 min. insta-check to buy a gun, no assault weapons ban, no magazine restrictions, class III friendly and easy shall-issue CHL. Just don't go around telling folks your from Kaliforia-HA HA.

E-mail if you have a specific Question. Good Luck

Frosty 52
 
It'll be an adjustment.

When driving, think of what the speed limit would be in California and subtract 15. If coming from Idaho, subtract 20. If from Montana, put a governor on your car. OTOH Oregon speed limits and town approaches are very well signed; you just won't believe what's on the signs when you first see it.:)

You can carry a concealed handgun, but you can't pump your own gas and it can seem nearly impossible to buy a bottle of booze in some places.

The numerous scenic roadside picnic spots are really cool. You can have a dog on a State Park trail up there, not a horse (opposite of CA). I like that because I have dogs, not horses.

Oregon's at least as weird as CA, but really different in many ways, and the gun laws are far better. My wife's an Oregonian and a Duck. (She doesn't want to move back for various reasons, but not because she wants to stay here forever either.)

Make sure that, if you buy land, you're allowed to put a cabin on it... Or anything else...

The laws are made in So Lame by people from Stumptown and Huge Jeans, not by outdoorsmen in Coos County, unfortunately. That said, things can be good up there. Just WAY different.

If you like good quality or rare label alcoholic beverages, have your friends mail the bottles to you from California.
 
I have lived a bunch in Ca some in Or and Wa in and now well over 25 years in Idaho where I was born. If I had to choose one of the four the the Golden state would be the last on my list. Maybe if this was 75 or 100 years ago, 30 million less people, and a host of less laws I might choose different but not in todays world.

Wa. and Or are like two different states in one. One is wet, never seems to get real hot or cold and one dry and can be quite hot or cold depending on which side of the Cascades you choose. Gun laws are pretty good to excellent so is outdoor activities including fishing and hunting.
 
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Oregon is a pretty nice place if you can stand the weather. Starting now, it will be rainy and around 50 degrees until June. But all that water makes everything green and beautiful. Gun laws are pretty easy to deal with. No sales tax!

One thing though - stay the hell away from Portland. It's a nice place to visit for the day but living there would be horrible. Liberals are everywhere, taxes are ridiculous, real estate is absurdly overpriced, and the police are very, very bad. It's the least gun friendly area of the state.
 
All I was saying is that it's easy to get so frustrated with California, its laws, the cost of living, taxes, utility costs, gun restrictions, etc., etc. that one can lose sight of something: there are some good things that you take for granted in California that aren't as good in Oregon. Make sure you go wherever you go with both eyes open. God knows that California's mystique has blinded a lot of people, too, over the years. Most recently, they were buying houses they couldn't afford, using irresponsible mortgages, in undesirable places, with ridiculous commutes, just to live in California.

That said, I like Oregon a lot. There's a lot of beautiful country and still not too many people. If you could take the Portlanders and exile them to Boston, and keep the U of O and everyone associated with it behind a ring of barbed wire, the place would be damn near perfect. We even know some people in Portland that we like, but they feel like strangers in a strange land, because they aren't far-left moonbats like damn near everyone they work with, know, or ever talk to. Except in San Francisco proper, you won't feel like that in California, which is largely a libertarian/conservative state with two big left-leaning metro areas that carry the overall vote.

I liked it even better when you could ski Mt. Hood for a few bucks in the evening, but hey, I liked coastal Southern California better when it was half-empty, too. Not 75 years ago. Try 30. Orange County felt a lot like the Boise area does now, in my memory. Cowboys on horseback were herding cattle in the hills just east of Newport Beach when I was a kid.

If anything, try and move somewhere that isn't poised to change as much as Orange County, California, has. If you can.:)
 
If anything, try and move somewhere that isn't poised to change as much as Orange County, California, has. If you can.
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Which is pretty much anywhere that isn't within 50 or so miles of Portland.

My parents grew up in McMinnville, which is about 40 or so miles out of Portland. It used to be a small farming town, even within my memory (and I'm only 21), but its getting much larger as people move there from Portland and commute to work.
 
I grew up in Huntington Beach, California. When I was a kid, our back fence bordered fields, and we walked to the corner to buy produce from the farmer. The post office was miles away, an old stone building in a tiny downtown.

That was in the late '60s and early '70s, so not too long ago. Think about that if you go and look at the place now.

Been to Meridian, Idaho lately? It developed about like that, where there's a little downtown, surrounded by tracts of houses that were fields until a few days ago.

OTOH, there are some great restaurants in my hometown now, and a lot of other amenities. But if someone moved there originally to get away from the concrete, he'd be really disappointed. Depends what you want.
 
Ditto on staying out of Portland. We call it Moscow on the Willamette here. In fact, you might do well to stay out of Multnomah Co. in general.

That being said, as a Midwest transplant, My family loves it out here. Don't let the rain talk scare ya. It ain't that bad. If you happen to also be a fly fisherman, the Deschutes and Metolius rivers offer some of the best in the country.

Not sure how long it takes to establish residency, but once you do it will take 60-90 days to get your CHL.

Welcome in advance.:)
 
I grew up in Huntington Beach, California.
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I remember when you could use the fire circles there for weenie bakes at night and no worries about crime or curfews. Or watching guys shoot handguns and rifles off the end of New Port pier, not now. In fact from what I hear you can't even go out in the hills and shoot in So Cal anymore. The blimp hangers in east Orange Co. and all the fields now rooftops and concrete. Around Disney was almost like boonies when they built the place, but that was yesterday and yesterday is gone my friend.

Meridian is like the So Cal area? It's like comparing apples to Oranges. The two are not even in the same ball park much less comparable. Population out grown the streets yes but,,,
I have shot elk less than a hours drive from Meridian, but then I have killed deer in the San Bernardino Natl Forest too. Times and places change. It is changing here but it is still escapable within a few minutes drive. I live less than a hour from the Treasure Valley (Meridian area) and can in 30 seconds count 6 rivers within 50 miles of me, Usta could shoot deer off the porch but that is about a 15 minute drive now. and on and on...

I guess a guy could argue weather but I find I like having all 4 seasons.

Calif. is over 36 million
Idaho is less than 1 1/5 million
According to 2005 statistics

This is a gun fourn so I will add a tad about guns. Think of Ca 30 to 50 years ago and that is kinda how the gun situation is here now. I own a 3 screw Single-Six I bought face to face in So Cal when it was legal to do so, and have a shotgun I bought out of the Green Sheet F2F there too. All that is still legal here, no waits etc. Apples to Oranges buddy. I miss a few things of course, but If I was a youngin I would move in NY minute again no matter the financial cost.
 
While property value is plummeting around the nation, up and down the I-5 corridor, especially around Spewgene and Dorkland, the housing market is largely unchanged. This is because there is a LARGE number of Californians moving here which keep the property value in demand. There are many rural areas to enjoy that are less that 15 minutes from an urban area.

If you can stand the rain, then maybe Oregon is for you. BTW, the more gun packing Californians we get the better, becasue we need to supplant all the liberal wack jobs that seem to have entrenched themselves in Multnoma county.
 
If you can stand the rain, then maybe Oregon is for you.
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OR (pun intended), you could just move EAST of the cascades. You know, where the REST of Oregon is, where its not quite as green. You remember us, right? :p
 
I moved to Oregon from the SF Bay Area in December of 2004. It was like moving to a different planet. A wonderful planet, but different.
I love it here. There are some minor inconveniences, but there is not enough money to get me to move back to CA. Rain? wait 15 minutes, it'll change.
 
If 60 inches of rain along the coast is to much, try Central Oregon. Our average yearly rainfall is 13 inches.
 
Not all of Oregon is rainy, we took this in Eastern Oregon about a month ago.

knifeastoria011.jpg
Mountain ridge in the center was just rock, rugged as heck and beautiful. The picture does not do the view Justice
LeslieGulch008.jpg
 
Central Oregon

is the more beautiful are IMHO surrounded by snow cap mountains, summers in the mid 80's winters around mid 20's. 4 distinct seasons, plenty of BLM land to hunt, fish, camp, or just to go plinkin on.

I grew up the first 20 years of my life there and have missed it very much. I lived in Redmond and within just 30 miles any direction you have mountains, high desert, lakes, pine forests with beautiful running creeks and meadows, just unbelievable views.

Not much for an economy around there they but it's only an hour and a half to Portland area when the pass is clear. It's a great retirement area (just don't say you are from Cali!)

My best friend is a local sheriff in the area and many of my old high school chums still survive around there. Mostly it's a very conservative area but that is changing just like the rest of the states.

I'd love to go back if I could find a job that pays a hoot and convince the wife.
 
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