President Joe Biden has led Democrats in recent weeks in pushing for more gun restrictions
, even as some Democratic-controlled jurisdictions fail to enforce laws already on the books.
Fresh calls for an assault-style weapons ban
, expanded background checks, and other measures followed a recent spate of high-profile shooting incidents, including one at a Christian school in Nashville and another involving a teenager who was shot by a homeowner when he showed up to the wrong house.
GREEN ENERGY AND EQUITY EFFORTS: WHERE ARE INFRASTRUCTURE DOLLARS GOING?
Ban assault weapons.
Require safe storage of firearms.
Require background checks for all gun sales.
Eliminate gun manufacturers’ immunity from liability.We can and must do these things now.
— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) April 17, 2023
But Democrats, in some places, are not pursuing criminal penalties for violations of the gun laws they already have — including some restrictions Democrats recently championed.
For example, Biden signed an executive order last year cracking down on so-called ghost guns, untraceable firearms that can be bought online and assembled at home, while some liberal prosecutors are letting suspects caught with those types of guns serve light or no sentences.
Police in many cities have continued arresting people caught with illegal guns, sometimes repeatedly, while progressive prosecutors drop the cases and release offenders back on the streets.
In Philadelphia, for example, arrests for gun possession have soared in recent years as convictions for gun possession have fallen.
Gun possession arrests increased by more than 100% between 2015 and 2020, according to a report published last year by the city’s controller.
But the conviction rate for illegal gun possession cases fell from 65% to 42% over that same time frame. The decrease occurred both because the city’s district attorney withdrew more cases and because judges dismissed more.
The Philadelphia Police Department noted in an analysis last year that nonviolent gun-related offenses have led to shorter sentences and less frequent incarceration in recent years.
Philadelphia’s clearance rate, the percentage of reported shootings that result in an arrest, also fell since 2015, with violence on the rise.
The clearance rate for fatal shootings in 2020 was 36.7%, according to the Philadelphia Office of the Controller.
The clearance rate for non-fatal shootings was even lower at 18.9%.
That means the overwhelmed Philadelphia Police Department was solving less than half of gun homicides and less than a fifth of shootings.
The city’s liberal district attorney has said he doesn’t believe focusing on illegal gun possession should be a priority for law enforcement.
District Attorney Larry Krasner’s office argued in an analysis that “the current intense focus on illegal gun possession without a license is having no effect on the gun violence crisis and distracts from successfully investigating shootings.”
Krasner’s office also suggested the enforcement of illegal gun possession laws in the city is “obviously racist” because the offense is a felony in Philadelphia but a misdemeanor elsewhere in Pennsylvania.
In Washington, D.C., police have recovered thousands of illegal guns off the streets as violence has increased over the past several years.
But not every illegal gun recovery results in an arrest, and not every arrest for a gun offense leads to a successful prosecution.
During the first week of March, for example, Washington police recovered 58 illegal guns from the streets.
Police arrested 33 people for illegal gun offenses that week; many of the guns were recovered without any arrests.
But even some of the offenders arrested for illegal gun possession avoided any meaningful consequences.
A 21-year-old arrested with an illegal Glock handgun and charged with possession of unregistered ammunition and possession of an unregistered firearm on March 4 appeared to walk free with one year’s probation after he pleaded guilty and had his sentence waived under the Youth Rehabilitation Act, court records show,
The next day, a 29-year-old was arrested with an illegal ghost gun and a large-capacity ammunition feeding device. The man was released two days later when a judge dismissed his case.
Prosecutors in the nation’s capital declined to advance criminal cases in 67% of arrests last year, according to the Substack DC Crime Facts
.
City leaders who align closely with the Democrats who advocate stricter gun laws preside over some of the worst violent crime hot spots in the country.
That dynamic could threaten to undermine Democrats’ credibility on their argument for adding to a set of laws that already don’t get enforced aggressively, if at all.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg has downgraded most felonies to misdemeanors on his watch. Chicago, with strict gun controls in place, continues to experience consistently high levels of gun violence.
And in California, with some of the strictest gun laws in the country, several large cities, including San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Oakland, continue to experience violent crime rates high enough to drive some residents away in search of better public safety.
