Maine aims at weapons violators

The U.S. Department of Justice is stepping up efforts to prosecute people who violate federal weapons laws in an effort to continue the decrease in gun violence that began 10 years ago.

Maine’s U.S. Attorney Paula D. Silsby and 10 others earlier this month attended a nationwide Project Safe Neighborhoods meeting in Philadelphia. The conference brought together more than 1,300 law enforcement and community leaders to coordinate efforts to reduce and prosecute gun violence.

Gun violence decreased from 12 percent of all nonlethal violent crime in 1993 to 9 percent in 2002. Homicides were not included in the statistics. About two-thirds of all firearms crimes were committed by repeat offenders last year, according to the Justice Department.

On a national level, federal gun prosecutions increased 32 percent from 2001 to 2002. More than 10,600 defendants were charged with violating federal firearms statutes, and 93 percent received prison sentences.

Convictions on federal weapons charges increased even more substantially in Maine. In 2001, 29 people were convicted of gun violations, according to Silsby. That number increased to 49 the next year. She estimated that in 2002, 15 percent of the cases her office handled included weapons charges.

“This is not an anti-gun campaign,” said Silsby. “This is a new and expanded partnership to crack down on criminals with guns. Maine’s Project Safe Neighborhoods Task Force, formed in September 2002, is not a one-size-fits-all federal program. Rather, it is a program that will be contoured to fit Maine’s unique gun problems.”

Maine received $320,000 of the more than $117 million in grants awarded through the Safe Neighborhoods program. The money will be used for the compilation of statistical data and outreach, she said, but the focus will differ from that in more populous states.

“Various projects were developed as prototypes that can be used as prototypes,” said Silsby. “But urban models don’t really reflect the nature of Maine’s problems. Here, people are relatively safe from random acts of anonymous gun violence, but that does not necessarily mean we are safe in our homes. Some of us may feel safer in the streets than at home. How we come to grips with that is the struggle a lot of rural districts are engaged in.”

Local law enforcement officers often are the first to come upon illegal activity involving a firearm, she said. They refer cases to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, which allows for a cooperative review by state and federal prosecutors.

“If the offense is possession after a misdemeanor conviction for domestic violence, the only place the offender can be prosecuted is in federal court,” said James McCarthy, assistant U.S. attorney based in Bangor. “If, for example, the person in possession is a fugitive, he or she can only be prosecuted in federal court. There is no equivalent state crime.”

Other federal weapons violations that can’t be prosecuted on the state level include possession by a person who is addicted to an illegal substance; is committed involuntarily to a mental institution; or is residing in the United States illegally or unlawfully. People who lie about their criminal records on applications to purchase firearms also may be prosecuted only in federal court, and possession of a sawed-off shotgun is a federal, but not a state, crime.

Federal, state, county and municipal law enforcement officials have been cooperating since 1995 on Violent Crimes Task Forces around the state. McCarthy attributed the increase in the conviction rate for firearms violations to the good communication that now exists among agencies. County prosecutors often refer cases of weapons violations that could be prosecuted in state courts to the U.S. Attorney’s Office because federal sentences are stiffer.

For example, federal sentencing guidelines require judges to add a mandatory five years to sentences in drug convictions. That time must be served consecutively, not concurrently, with the drug sentence and cannot be reduced at a judge’s discretion. Sentences for felons found in possession of firearms also are stiffer in federal than state court. Maximum sentences range from five to 10 years, said McCarthy.

Three prison sentences imposed by Judge George Singal last year ranged from 24 months for possession of a sawed-off shotgun to six months for the unlawful transport of firearms to seven days for the possession of firearms by a person convicted of domestic violence.