Gun-control report shot down

Maine’s U.S. Attorney is taking sharp issue with a Washington-based gun control group that charged federal gun statutes are not being enforced in the state.

U.S. Attorney Paula Silsby disputed the report this week, pointing out that prosecutions of gun violators account for almost 15 percent of her office’s annual caseload.

Americans for Gun Safety issued a report Wednesday that examined the raw data on the prosecutions of the 22 major federal gun laws during fiscal years 2000-2002. The report includes a “fact sheet” listing the number of prosecutions in several categories for every state, including Maine.

According to its Web site, AGSF supports the rights of individuals to own firearms, but also seeks to educate Americans on existing gun laws and new policy options for reducing access to guns by criminals and children and promotes responsible gun ownership.

“The federal statistics show clearly that ‘enforce the gun laws on the books’ is a slogan, not a policy,” AGSF Research and Policy Director Jim Kessler said Wednesday in a press release. He noted that federal prosecutors filed only 25,002 federal gun cases during a period in which there were well over 1 million federal gun crimes, according to statistics compiled by the FBI.

The 2-year-old not-for-profit organization charged in its report that nationally 85 percent of the cases prosecuted fell under two statutes – possession of a firearm by a prohibited person and using or carrying a firearm during a federal crime of violence or federal drug trafficking crime.

The report stated that there were 118 such prosecutions in Maine. There were an estimated 1,100 violent crimes with a firearm in the state during the report period.

AGSF statistics reported that in Maine there were four or fewer prosecutions each for possession of a firearm in a school zone, possession of a stolen firearm, illegal gun trafficking, possession of a firearm with an obliterated serial number, selling a firearm to a minor and corrupt firearm dealers. There were 27 prosecutions for lying on the background check form, according to the report.

Silsby disputed the method used to compile the statistics, saying that they needed to be placed in context. She said that her office, in consultation with state and local law enforcement officials, had placed a priority on prosecuting people in possession of a firearm who have been convicted of a domestic violence crime.

“We are successfully addressing what we’ve identified as Maine’s gun crime problem – violence against women,” Silsby said in a telephone interview late Wednesday. “Maine led the country in calendar year 2002 in [gun violation] prosecutions against prohibited persons who’d been convicted of domestic violence crimes.”

Matthew Bennett, an AGSF spokesman, said that the organization applauded Silsby’s efforts at “targeting domestic violence criminals who are arming themselves and applauded the U.S. Attorney’s work with local law enforcement. What’s happening in Maine should be a model for the rest of county,” he said.

Silsby said in February that convictions on federal weapons charges increased from 29 in 2001 to 49 in 2002. She credited the Project Safe Neighborhoods Task Force, formed in September 2002, for allowing the state to contour a federally funded program to Maine’s unique gun problems.

The AGSF study does not take that into account, Silsby said Wednesday. She called the rankings compiled by the organization “meaningless.”

Bennett conceded Thursday that AGSF’s statistical data “doesn’t go to the core point that Maine may be doing a better job than other places. On a national level, however, federal prosecution of gun laws is inadequate. … The Bush administration has increased prosecutions by one-tenth of 1 percent over the Clinton administration. … There is no state where federal firearms enforcement could be called vigorous compared to the number of gun crimes committed.”

The AGSF’s complete report can be accessed at its Web site, www.agsfoundation.org.