NRA's Wayne LaPierre targets Chicago on federal gun law enforcement

WAYNE LAPIERRE: I mean, let me give you the real sad thing though. Let me hold up a mirror right now to the whole national news media and the White House. I just got the TRAC data from Syracuse University of enforcement of federal gun laws. Last time I was here, I brought it from 2011; it just came out from 2012. Do you know where Chicago ranks in terms of enforcement of the federal gun laws? Out of 90 jurisdictions in the country, they ranked 90th. Why doesn’t NBC News start with, Shocking news on Chicago. Of all the jurisdictions in the country, Chicago’s dead last on enforcement of the federal gun laws? Why doesn’t the national press corps, when they’re sitting down there with Jay Carney and the president and the vice president, why don’t they say, Why is Chicago dead last in enforcement of the gun laws against gangs with guns, felons with guns, drug dealers with guns? DAVID GREGORY, HOST: And you support those as felonies, being charged as felonies? LAPIERRE: Absolutely. And we want them taken off the street. I mean, if you’re the president and the vice president, and the attorney general, and your job is to enforce these laws against the– I’m talking about drug dealers, gangs, and felons that are walking around with guns in the street, and you don’t do it? You bear some responsibility. It is a tragedy.

Looking at just the last decade, the records show that from FY 2002 to FY 2004 prosecutions jumped from 7,948 to 11,015, up by more than a third (38.6%). From the 2004 high, however, prosecutions declined to 7,465 in FY 2011, down by 32.2 percent. Then, in just the last year, prosecutions increased up to 7,774, or 4.1 percent higher than in the previous year. But examined over the last quarter century, a somewhat different picture emerges. Despite the recent ups and downs, federal prosecutions today are a great deal higher than in the pre-9/11 era. Figure 1 shows that the volume of federal gun prosecutions has in fact had two distinct peaks of activity. The earlier peak occurred precisely twenty years ago, in FY 1992.

Compared to five years ago when there were 117,651, the number of FY 2012 prosecutions of this type is up 42.4 percent. Prosecutions over the past year are much higher than they were ten years ago. Overall, the data show that prosecutions of this type are up 77.9 percent from the level of 94,132 reported in 2002 and up 118 percent from the level of 76,818 reported in 1992.