Continuously serving Kosciusko County since 1854
Bill and I agree on something.
There have been a few policies from the Clinton White House that I have embraced, and his most recent take on guns sounds pretty good to me.
Bill says his new package of gun proposals is designed with one message in mind:
'If you commit crimes with guns or violate gun laws, you will pay a heavy price.'
Bingo.
I am cautiously optimistic. For years - no, decades - I have been saying just that.
I have been a proponent of things like mandatory federal sentences for people who commit crimes with guns. While Bill isn't going quite that far, he is talking about enforcement, and that, to me, is a vast improvement over talking about smart guns and gun registration.
You see, Bill has finally improved his target acquisition. He's finally aiming at criminals instead of law-abiding citizens.
Most gun laws up to this point - waiting periods, instant checks, registration, triggerlocks, bans on this gun or that, bans on high-capacity magazines - do little more than inconvenience law-abiding gun owners and gun buyers.
Those laws did nothing to reduce crime. They did nothing to keep guns out of the hands of criminals.
We heard a lot about Brady stops - instances where criminals were denied the opportunity to buy a handgun from a licensed dealer.
But did the Brady Bill keep those same criminals from buying guns on the street?
Nah.
Here's something else to consider. Every criminal who tried to buy a gun and was stopped by by the Brady law committed several federal felonies in the process.
In all those thousands of Brady stops, there was only a handful of arrests.
Maybe now things will be different. Maybe Bill will get it right this time. Maybe we will actually start prosecuting people who violate gun laws.
He is asking for 500 new Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms agents and creation of a program to track guns through ballistics testing.
He's also asking for 1,000 more federal, state and local prosecutors to focus on gun-related crimes.
He'll seek to expand an existing gun-tracing program from 38 to 51 cities and ask for $30 million to create a ballistics information network to track ballistics data on guns used in crimes.
By maintaining records of unique markings each gun barrel leaves on bullets, investigators could track firearms used in crimes to their purchasers, even if that person had passed the weapon to another individual.
This, to me, is good stuff.
It has been proven time and time again that enforcement of existing gun laws is the best way to reduce gun violence.
Take Project Exile, for example.
Federal prosecutors in Richmond, Va., simply started prosecuting felons in possession of handguns. They started this in 1997. At that time, Richmond had the second highest murder rate per capita in the nation. Second only to Gary, Ind.
When they started the program, the feds also did a little marketing. They put up billboards that said if you get caught with an illegal gun you go to a federal prison far, far away. Period. (Hence the name, "Exile.")
Local officials put fliers out all over town, especially in the bad parts of town where the targets of the program would see them.
The National Rifle Association helped pay for the marketing.
Next, the local cops started busing people. Day-to-day arrests in Richmond that involved federal firearms violations were turned over to the BATF. U.S. attorneys started prosecuting the violators.
Pretty soon, criminals in Richmond started noticing that their buddies were disappearing, being "exiled" to federal prisons.
Sure, this took a little effort by local law enforcement and the feds, but the effect on crime in Richmond was no less than stunning.
The overall crime rate went down 65 percent. Homicides dropped 65 percent, armed robbery was down 30 percent and the number of criminals caught with firearms dropped 60 percent. All of this happened in one year. One year.
Now, if we get those kinds of results nationwide, we'd really be taking a bite out of crime.
I wish Bill success in his efforts to pass legislation to help enforce existing federal gun laws.
I think it's the right thing to do.
