| Federal Weapons Enforcement: A Moving Target |
| (13 Feb 2013)
The number of federal prosecutions for weapons violations in FY 2012 was almost exactly the same as it was a decade earlier.
But within the FY 2002 - FY 2012 period there were several dramatic enforcement shifts, both up and down, as documented in a new report released by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC). The report also makes available recent prosecution numbers under each of 75 individual federal weapons statutes.
These and many other insights about the federal enforcement of the gun laws have emerged from an analysis of hundreds of thousands of government records as President Obama, the National Rifle Association, Congress and the American people debate whether and how to change the federal role in gun enforcement. The dispute intensified in December after the killing of 20 children and six adults in an elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut. TRAC undertook the analysis of weapons cases on the basis of very detailed information obtained from the Justice Department and other sources under the Freedom of Information Act during the last two decades. For this new and timely report on weapons enforcement, go to: http://trac.syr.edu/tracreports/crim/307/In addition to reporting on weapons prosecutions, TRAC offers free, detailed reporting on an array of program categories including immigration, drugs, white collar crime, terrorism and civil rights. TRAC's reports also cover the enforcement activities of selected government agencies such as DHS, FBI, IRS and ATF. For the latest information on prosecutions and convictions through the first month of FY 2013, go to: http://trac.syr.edu/tracreports/bulletins/Even more detailed criminal enforcement information for the period from FY 1986 through October 2012 is available to TRACFed subscribers via the Express and Going Deeper tools. Go to http://tracfed.syr.edu for more information. Customized reports for a specific agency, district, program, lead charge or judge are available via the TRAC Data Interpreter, either as part of a TRACFed subscription or on a per-report basis. Go to http://trac.syr.edu/interpreter/ to start. To keep up with TRAC, follow us on Twitter @tracreports or like us on Facebook: http://facebook.com/tracreports/TRAC is self-supporting and depends on foundation grants, individual contributions and subscription fees for the funding needed to obtain, analyze and publish the data we collect on the activities of the US Federal government. To help support TRAC's ongoing efforts, go to: http://trac.syr.edu/sponsor/ |
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