Twenty-three Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee did an unusual thing on Friday morning. It was barely mentioned in the mainstream press for obvious reasons.
The group all sent letters to President Barack Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder requesting (actually demanding) they enforce existing gun laws on the books to be enforced before dreaming up new limitations while the present laws go basically ignored.
These congressmen represent the committee that held several meetings in the past few weeks centering on how to prevent gun violence. Hardly mentioned in the meetings was the little known statistic indicating a dramatic drop in federal prosecutions of weapons cases in the past decade.
Is anybody out there outraged?
Part of their research included a Syracuse University study indicating weapons prosecutions peaked at 11,015 in 2004 under President George W. Bush. Last year, under President Obama, the number had swindled to 7.774 prosecutions.
Ironically, the congressmen cited President Obama’s home town, Chicago, specifically the Northern District of Illinois, which includes Chicago, as one of the lowest of all federal court districts prosecuting gun-related violence despite a major surge in violent crime using a weapon.
No statement was forthcoming from Chicago’s mayor, and former White House Chief of Staff under President Obama, Rahm Emanuel.
Chicago had a record 506 gun-related murders last year. The U.S. attorney’s office in that district prosecuted just 25 such cases in 2011.
Furthermore, out of 76,142 gun permit requests that were denied following background checks by federally-licensed firearms dealers, a mere 4,732 were prosecuted – only 62 being successful.
Letters sent to the president and attorney general came from Reps. Jim Sensenbrenner (Wis.), Trent Franks (Ariz.), Howard Coble (N.C.), Lamar Smith (Texas), Steve Chabot (Ohio), Spencer Bachus (Ala.), Darrell Issa (Calif.), Randy Forbes (Va.), Steve King (Iowa), Louie Gohmert (Texas), Jim Jordan (Ohio), Ted Poe (Texas), Jason Chaffetz (Utah), Steve Marino (Pa.), Trey Gowdy (S.C.), Mark Amodei (Nev.), Raul Labrador (Idaho), Blake Farenthold (Texas), George Holding (N.C.), Doug Collins (Ga.), Ron DeSantis (Fla.) and Keith Rothfus (Pa.).
There has been no comment from the White House or The Department of Justice.
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