Political Crossfire Forums

[lilwolf]

In my opinion here is a clear cut method that is working and only at criminals and not on law abiding legal gun owners. This the way it is supposed to work and is.


Targeting Criminals, Not Gun Owners


Beginning in 1997, police in Richmond, Va., began carrying a wallet-sized card (above) that outlined the existing law to prosecute felons caught in possession of a gun.
The card also advised police officers:

“Always ask if the suspect used drugs, i.e., cocaine, heroin, marijuana. Most suspects will deny dealing but readily admit using and that’s all we need to make a federal gun case.”

Billboards across Richmond carried a stark and simple warning:

“An illegal gun gets you five years in federal prison.”

It’s a message--and a sentence--that criminals literally got.

Striking Fear in the Heart of a Killer It was called Project Exile, the brainchild of then-Assistant u.s. Attorney David Schiller, an aggressive effort to arrest, indict, incarcerate, prosecute and sentence every armed felon in Richmond.

It’s precisely what nra has preached for 20 years. So nra immediately made a $100,000 donation and launched a campaign for public support.

Project Exile meant zero tolerance for criminal gun use. No deals. No plea-bargains. No bail. No exceptions. Commit a crime with a gun and you’re done.

It worked like this: A police officer arrests a suspect carrying a gun. He asks the suspect the questions on the card. If the suspect answers “yes”--bang--he’s nailed on a federal gun crime. Conviction meant a mandatory five years in federal prison. No questions asked

Did it work?

According to police, drug dealers would commonly throw down their guns before running to avoid the punishment they knew Project Exile delivered.

Many criminals stopped carrying a gun when Project Exile was instituted. A Richmond police sergeant reported that when he stopped and searched one suspect, “Right out of his mouth, he goes, ‘Exile will give you five years. I’d be an old man when I got out.’” The man was unarmed.

The bigger picture was much more dramatic:

» In less than two years, Exile had taken 350 armed felons off the streets. Most of those it sent to prison for 4½ years.

» It broke apart a violent gang and helped solve several murders.

» It cut the “gun carry” rate among arrested suspects by more than half.

» All told, it cut Richmond’s murder rate by 62 percent.

So it’s not surprising that in Rochester, Philadelphia, Fort Worth, San Francisco, Birmingham and beyond, one city and state after another has adopted Richmond’s Project Exile model.

Project Exile said with merciless certainty that guns are for the law-abiding, and it’s proof of what nra has been saying for decades: Get tough on criminals, not on our right to own guns, and crime will disappear.

Exiling Armed Felons Nationwide In May 2001, President George Bush introduced a new national effort--Project Safe Neighborhoods--and he pointed to Project Exile as inspiration for the program.
Project Safe Neighborhoods is a nationwide commitment to reduce gun crime by networking existing local programs that target gun crime and providing those programs with additional tools necessary to be successful. The Bush administration committed over $1 billion to this effort in its first four years to put federal muscle behind state and local gun-crime prosecutions.

A companion program is Operation CeaseFire, a joint local, state and federal initiative to aggressively prosecute individuals who unlawfully use, possess or transfer firearms.

Thanks to nra support, prosecution of criminals--not banishment of guns--is the new and effective theme for law enforcement and jurisprudence nationwide.

http://www.nrapvf.org/News/Article.aspx?ID=202

[Abner Doon]

hmm...sounds like the good solution we've all been waiting for.

[The Newb]

Abner Doon wrote: hmm...sounds like the good solution we've all been waiting for.
here here

[Mrcrowley]

I think I posted this as a idea in another post I guess someone beat me to it ... I think we should push this with our congressman and post it on ever gun control site.

[private_citizen]

I love it!

[lilwolf]

private_citizen wrote: I love it!


This very policy has been brought on line here in Idaho and it is working apparently quite well so far. The results are to early to really have real accurate numbers but there has been a great deal of positive damage done to the bad guys.

[Rankor and Pissing]

But that requires changing peoples minds that guns are some inanimate evil object from hell. That takes some doing... :lol:

[lilwolf]

Rankor and Pissing wrote: But that requires changing peoples minds that guns are some inanimate evil object from hell. That takes some doing... :lol:


Yes it does but the very thought of getting busted and going into a cell with an 8' hairy guy named Bubba that says with the James Earl JOnes voice " I like you, come on over here and snuggle" seems to me might be working as well. If that were not enough the whole concept that he might want to tatoo boobs on the felons shoulder blades is somehow frightening to me :lol: :lol:

[Jefferson]

I have seen this before. It makes sense.

But you know what?

Anti-gunners will look at this and go, 'Yeah it works. Yeah I understand. Yeah criminal need to get prosecuted. But we still need to get the guns"

At this point you slap your forehead and go, 'DOOOOOH I give up????'

[lilwolf]

Jefferson wrote: I have seen this before. It makes sense.

But you know what?

Anti-gunners will look at this and go, 'Yeah it works. Yeah I understand. Yeah criminal need to get prosecuted. But we still need to get the guns"

At this point you slap your forehead and go, 'DOOOOOH I give up????'


That is where I am going to tell them that this is what they remind me of in their ignorance: