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Neal Knox Report Perverting ‘Project Exile’ By Neal Knox WASHINGTON, D.C. (April 1) -- I’ve been pushing for the swift and certain punishment of violent criminals for four decades. But it scares me when someone says: “Enforce the gun laws we’ve got.” Some gun laws, particularly those not involving misuse, shouldn’t be on the books – particularly the Federal lawbooks. For two years Federal and state authorities have been using the draconian Federal gun laws to put away Richmond, VA, criminals caught using or carrying guns. That effort, “Project Exile,” may be responsible for a 41 percent decline in Richmond’s murder rate. NRA challenged anti-gun Mayor Ed Rendell to implement “Project Exile”in Philadelphia, and is helping fund it. Politicians, including Senate Judiciary Chairman Orrin Hatch, are praising it, and last week President Bill Clinton climbed on board during his radio address, saying “Project Exile” should be a national model. What I fear is that the Clinton Administration will pervert “Project Exile,” switching the focus from “zero tolerance” for gun law violations by criminals, to severe prosecution of minor gun law violations by ordinary citizens. In 1963, Congressman Bob Casey (D-Tex.) introduced a Federal bill providing for a mandatory sentence for using a gun in a Federal crime of violence. I supported the Casey Bill despite its major flaw: It treated a murder or robbery committed with a gun as worse than the same crime committed with a knife or club. But if it hadn’t been for the Casey Bill, which shifted the debate from restrictions on guns to restrictions on criminals, we would have seen the Gun Control Act of 1968 pass much earlier, and probably in an even-worse form. In those days the anti-gun crowd openly opposed severe punishment of criminals, and particularly mandatory sentences. (Now they’re smarter. They say they support stiffer sentences for criminal misuse -- but are careful not to impose them, which is why Federal gun law prosecutions are down 48 percent under the Clinton Administration.) The anti-gunners soon perverted the Casey Bill (which became part of the Gun Control Act) by demanding mandatory sentences for violating gun laws – such as the Massachusetts licensing law. (The first person convicted was an older woman, a welfare worker who possessed an air gun!) Over the years, Congress has passed a series of ever-stiffer mandatory sentencing laws for criminal misuse, or for possession of a firearm while possessing an illegal drug. But U.S. Attorneys rarely bring such prosecutions, particularly the Clinton Justice Department. In hearings before Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) last week, Eastern Virginia U.S. Attorney Helen Fahey said authorities in Richmond had indicted 438 individuals, held three-fourths of arrested suspects without bail and sentenced 215 to an average prison term of 4 1/2 years. The number of Richmond homicides dropped from 160 to 94. But just last year a Deputy Attorney General scoffed at a suggestion that Project Exile was responsible for Richmond's declining crime rate. And BATF Assistant Director Andrew L. Vita said: "I`m concerned about using (Project Exile) as a cookie-cutter response to crime in other cities.” Only two days before, Vita’s boss, President Clinton, ordered Attorney General Reno and BATF Director John Magaw to develop a plan for expanding “Project Exile” nationwide. From what he has said, Clinton intends to pervert “Project Exile” to make it fit his anti-gun policies. Instead of using Federal laws against active violent criminals, his targets are people with old income tax violations and others who are no threat to public safety. What Clinton calls “gun trafficking,” you and I call gun trading – particularly if it occurs at a gun show. Punishing street criminals who misuse guns, while it may be a useful demonstration project, is not job for the Federal government – which is one reason so many judges are opposing “Project Exile.” The Tenth Amendment, just as sacred as the Second or the First, reserves police powers to the states. That’s why, in U.S. v. Lopez, the Supreme Court struck down the Federal law banning firearms within 1,000 feet of schools. (Congress, which doesn’t like being told what it can’t do – which is why we have a Constitution -- promptly reinstated it, for the moment.) Laws against criminal misuse of firearms work, as Project Exile has
shown. The Virginia legislature is enacting legislation to eliminate the disparity
between Federal and state sentencing laws, and that’s the Constitutional solution. |
