Gee just like confiscating Inter Ord gun parts.
" We need a national strategy to assure that every community is attacking gun violence with focus and intensity. I'm here today to announce a national initiative to help cities like Philadelphia fight gun violence. The program I propose we call Project Safe Neighborhoods will establish a network of law enforcement and community initiatives targeted at gun violence. I will involve -- it will involve an unprecedented partnership between all levels of government. It will increase accountability within our systems. And it will send an unmistakable message: if you use a gun illegally, you will do hard time.
This nation must enforce the gun laws which exist on the books. Project Safe Neighborhoods incorporates and builds upon the success of existing programs. In Richmond, Virginia, for example, during the first year of what's called Project Exile, homicides were reduced by 40 percent; and armed robberies were reduced by 30 percent, in the first year alone. And thanks to Boston's Operation Cease-fire, in almost two years, no one under the age of 17 was shot.
These are tremendous success stories, and ones that are worth duplicating around our nation. My administration is proposing to devote more than $550 million on Project Safe Neighborhoods over the next two years. (Applause.) The funding will be used to hire new federal and state prosecutors, to support investigators, to provide training and develop and promote community outreach efforts. All newly appointed United States Attorneys will be directed to certify to the Attorney General that the new comprehensive gun violence program has been implemented in their districts. (Applause.)
We're going to reduce gun violence in America, and those who commit crimes with guns will find a determined adversary in my administration. Domestic tranquility is a phrase made famous in this city. Project Safe Neighborhoods is one step, and an important step, to making that a reality.
And now to explain the program is a fine American, a great Attorney General, John Ashcroft."- [url=www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2001/05/20010514-1.html]Remarks by the President on Project Safe Neighborhoods Pennsylvania Convention Center Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, May 14 2001[/url]
[url=www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa-440es.html]There Goes the Neighborhood: The Bush-Ashcroft Plan to "Help" Localities Fight Gun Crime[/url]
by Gene Healy
Gene Healy is an attorney and senior editor at the Cato Institute.
Executive Summary
The centerpiece of President Bush's crimefighting program is an initiative called Project Safe Neighborhoods. That initiative calls for the hiring of some 700 lawyers who will be dedicated to prosecuting firearm offenses, such as the unlawful possession of a gun by a drug user or a convicted felon. The basic idea is to divert firearm offenses from state court, where they would ordinarily be prosecuted, to federal court, where tougher prison sentences will be meted out. Project Safe Neighborhoods will also provide funding to escalate gun prosecutions at the state level.
Praise for Project Safe Neighborhoods comes from quarters as diverse as Handgun Control, Inc. and the National Rifle Association. Unfortunately, those disparate parties have united in support of a singularly bad idea. Project Safe Neighborhoods is an affront to the constitutional principle of federalism. The initiative flouts the Tenth Amendment by relying on federal statutes that have no genuine constitutional basis. Moreover, the program will very likely lead to overenforcement of gun laws and open the door to prosecutorial mischief affecting the racial composition of juries. As the constitutional and policy implications of Project Safe Neighborhoods become more apparent, the Bush initiative looks less like a commonsense solution to crime and more like a political gimmick with pernicious unintended consequences. If the "respect for federalism" he has repeatedly professed is sincere, President Bush must reconsider his support for Project Safe Neighborhoods.