Opinion by David Freddoso • Yesterday 3:03 PM
In New Orleans, a former Innocence Project lawyer named Emily Maw is currently serving as an assistant district attorney. And it is going about as well as you would expect.
No point passing gun control if you don’t prosecute gun crimes.© Provided by Washington Examiner
Maw is now the focus of controversy for declining to press charges in at least 15 gun crimes that occurred over the Mardi Gras season. These crimes included at least one egregious case in which the defendant was carrying around a machine gun — a federal crime that carries a lengthy prison sentence. That particular defendant also had prior convictions, according to local news reports.
Yet instead of prosecuting these crimes, Maw let these defendants off the hook, on the condition that they surrender their guns.
There’s a big problem with this approach. You remember that old saw about how guns don’t kill people, people kill people? Well, it’s not just some NRA talking point. It’s actually true.
When someone waves a gun around in public, it is not just about the gun. It is about the person’s character. People who do things like that are dangerous. They need to suffer consequences in order to learn that human life has value and that they can’t just go around putting people in danger like that.
Maw might think she’s accomplished something by getting a gun off the street, but in fact, she hasn’t because those guns didn’t commit crimes — the defendants did. There are more privately owned guns in this country than there are people. What Maw has done is guarantee that dangerous, careless, or even wicked people to whom she could have taught a lesson will once again get their hands on guns and do something perhaps much worse next time.
Reckless behavior with guns is no laughing matter. Even where long prison sentences would not be appropriate as punishments, the suspension of a defendant’s gun rights might be. Never forget that the Michigan State mass shooter was at liberty to kill, and able to pass a background check and buy a gun legally only because some bleeding-heart prosecutor pleaded him down to a misdemeanor for his earlier felony gun crime.
Most red states with relaxed gun laws don’t have serious gun problems, despite what Democrats say. For example, FBI data show that you are almost twice as likely to be murdered with a gun and four times as likely to be robbed with a gun in Rhode Island as you are in Idaho, where even the hippies open-carry.
But Louisiana is one of those red states that does have a very serious gun homicide problem — the worst of any state in the country, in fact. Under those circumstances, there is no excuse for failing to throw the book at anyone who breaks existing gun laws.
You remember that other old saw, about enforcing the laws on the books before you pass new gun control? That’s not just a talking point, either. If you don’t go after people who commit such crimes — who make straw purchases or wave guns around at public pre-Lenten celebrations — you can’t pretend to be taking the issue of gun violence seriously. Liberals love to hold attention-seeking press conferences where they call for useless, irrelevant new laws that won’t stop gun violence or mass shootings (but will harass law-abiding gun owners). But they are strangely squeamish when it comes to prosecuting people who flagrantly break existing gun laws, as in this case.
Prosecutors like Maw — the kind who view themselves as advocates for the defendants instead of representatives of the state — just need to be fired anyway, irrespective of the gun issue. But the more important problem in Louisiana is that someone needs to crack down on violations of existing gun laws.
It is one thing to show mercy to small-time defendants when their crimes put no one in danger. But messing around with guns is no joke. It is not the job of the prosecutor to let people off the hook for careless actions that show they have little regard for the lives and safety of the people around them.
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Tags: Beltway Confidential, Opinion
Original Author: David Freddoso
Original Location: No point passing gun control if you don’t prosecute gun crimes.