In promoting itself, The Washington Post advertises that, “If you don’t get it … you don’t get it.”
On its front-page masthead, the Post declares: “Democracy Dies in Darkness.”
These violent predators don’t care about laws that are not enforced. But enforcement of tough existing laws will make our cities and neighborhoods safer.
While both phrases are catchy, both point to the blatant hypocrisy of the Post and are indicative of a national news media that not only don’t get the truth, but also often fail to report the truth.
Just a few weeks ago, the Post ran an editorial in which it derided the rise of homicides and violent crimes committed with the use of a firearm.
The Post noted that the District of Columbia recorded 160 homicides in 2018, an increase of almost 40 percent over the previous year. The Post also acknowledged that about 40 percent of known homicide offenders in our nation’s capital city have had prior gun arrests. The D.C. chief of police is cited as explaining that criminals have concluded that carrying a firearm is not a serious offense.
But rather than urge city officials to increase law enforcement and prosecution efforts to remove these known, violent criminals carrying guns, the Post instead lauded an $8.2 million “Neighborhood Engagement Achieves Results Act” to identify and address root causes of crime.
Here is a clue the Post doesn’t get and won’t tell its readers. Violent crimes are caused by violent criminals, and a significant number of those violent criminals are repeat offenders that have been in and out of the revolving-door criminal justice system.
These violent predators don’t care about laws that are not enforced. But enforcement of tough existing laws will make our cities and neighborhoods safer.
Imagine This Scenario
Imagine one of the most violent cities in the nation. Now think about the seemingly impossible. Imagine that in one year’s time:
• 327 persons were indicted for federal gun violations;
• 440 illegally possessed firearms were taken off the streets;
• 300 persons were arrested or held in state custody;
• 222 arrestees (more than 74 percent) were held without bond;
• 247 criminals were convicted; and
• 196 criminals were sentenced to an average of 55 months of imprisonment.
Now think about the result of such an effort.
Homicides in this city declined 33 percent, the lowest since 1987, and armed robberies dropped 30 percent. In 1999, homicides dropped another 21 percent. By 2007, homicides were reduced by more than half of what they were in the year before the program was implemented.
Except you don’t have to imagine any of it. It happened two decades ago under a program called “Project Exile.” In 1997, a tough federal prosecutor launched the program to prosecute under existing federal law every felon, drug dealer and violent criminal caught carrying an illegal firearm. The program was named “Project Exile” because federal sentencing sent the bad guys out of state to a federal prison for an extended period of mandatory time.
The National Rifle Association was an early and ardent supporter of the program and its results were remarkable … and a true crime-fighting effort.
The Washington Post doesn’t have to imagine it, either, because all of this crime-fighting success occurred in Richmond, Va.—just a two-hour drive south of The Washington Post headquarters.
But the success of “Project Exile” and other tough law enforcement efforts don’t fit the agenda of media outlets like The Washington Post. The truth doesn’t advance their agenda to enact every gun and ammunition ban they can think of, impose every imaginable restriction on the law-abiding they can conjure, and destroy every personal Second Amendment freedom you and I stand for and fight to preserve.
The Post doesn’t get it. But members of the NRA, and the majority of Americans, agree that the only crime-fighting measure that works is throwing the book at the bad guys and removing repeat violent criminals from our streets.
That, and leave the rest of us—the law-abiding good citizens—leave us alone with our constitutional Second Amendment freedom to protect ourselves, our families and our communities. To protect that God-given freedom, the NRA will never waver.
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