I'm sure pretty much everybody as heard about how the Democrats who are in charge of such places as New York, both State and City, as well as Chicago, continue to make the claim that if only we had stricter gun laws, we could finally rid ourselves of senseless gun violence. Well, a funny thing. Because as it urns out the very districts that contain Chicago, Los Angeles and New York City happen to be ranked dead last, no pun intended, in terms of federal gun law enforcement in 2012. And that would be according to a new report from someplace called the Syracuse University's Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC), which tracks federal data. Plus we also know that since Barry "Almighty" first stepped foot in the Oval Office, prosecution of gun crimes on the federal level is down more than 40 percent from that of his predecessor.
Federal gun crimes include illegal possession of a firearm in a school zone, illegal sale of a firearm to a juvenile, felon, or drug addict, and illegal transport of a firearm across state lines. In Chicago, where there were over 500 gun related homicides last year, the majority of gun charges last year were for firearms violations. The districts of Eastern New York, Central California, and Northern Illinois ranked 88th, 89th and 90th, respectively, out of 90 districts, in prosecutions of federal weapons crimes per capita last year, but it wasn't always this way. All three districts fell lower on the list than they had been in years past. In 2010, for example, Chicago was 78th in federal weapons prosecutions. These cities also have some of the nation's most restrictive gun laws, and at the same time some of the most active mayors in championing stricter gun control.
And another funny thing is that New York Mayor Michael "Nanny Mike" Bloomberg, Chicago Mayor Rahm "Dead Fish" Emanuel and Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa are all proud members of the national Mayors Against Illegal Guns campaign. Washington D.C., which also has tough gun laws, was in the lower half of the list in 2012, coming in at 78th. In 2011, D.C. prosecuted a higher number of gun crimes, coming in at number 49. National Rifle Association (NRA) chief Wayne LaPierre first pointed to the report on 'Meet the Press', when he essentially demanded to know why it is that the national press corps wasn't asking the White House or state attorneys general to explain their obvious lax federal enforcement of gun laws. But of course, no one's interested in doing that, least of all any of our faux journalists employed anywhere in our state-controlled media.
And apparently Mr. LaPierre's comments didn't sit all that well with many gun control zealots, in particular the nutty little group that calls itself, Moms Demand Action For Gun Sense In America. "It's like, 'don't look at us, look at gun enforcement'," said the group's screwball founder, Shannon Watts. "But the NRA works to block gun prosecutions all the time." I think that the esteemed Ms. Watts has been drinking just a bit too much of her own Kool-Aid. But that's the way these gun control nuts do, they think they can get away with spewing all manner of untruths because no one in the media is going to call them on it. Of course we need to look at enforcement, or the lack of it, as being at the very least a significant contributing factor to what's going on in these cities. What sense does it make to create more laws if the ones currently on the books aren't even being enforced? DUH!
And let's face it, who's surprised by the fact that requests for comment from the U.S. Attorney's offices in both New York and California were not immediately returned. But, and this would be really funny if it weren't so tragic, the U.S. attorney's office in the Northern District of Illinois maintains that federal weapons law enforcement is among the top priorities of their office. "We have a number of different methods of attacking gangs, guns, drugs and violent crime," says spokesmoron Randall Sanborn, who notes that many gun arrests are reviewed to determine whether the arrest should stay with the county or be brought to the federal level. "We look at which court the defendant is likely to get a substantially greater sentence... More cases that used to be brought federally are now staying in state courts because [they are] now able to get a sentence equally great or greater," he says.
The TRAC report notes that many more gun arrests happen at the state and local level than happen at the federal level, and that it's difficult to assess how many prosecutions happen overall. While the districts that ranked lowest last year for federal gun crime prosecutions all contained major cities, the districts at the top of the list for its enforcement were almost exclusively rural. The districts of Southern Alaska, Kansas and Western Tennessee ranked first, second and third in prosecutions of federal weapons laws per capita last year. Oddly enough, Susan Long, a statistician and co-director of TRAC, said the data revealed a stronger federal enforcement presence in rural areas than urban ones. That struck me as being rather odd. Could it be because that's where folks are perceived as having a tendency to cling to their guns or religion? No, I'm sure it's all just a coincidence, right?
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