In the wake of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting Dec. 14, House Speaker John Boehner said the House committees of jurisdiction would conduct reviews of the nation’s gun laws before determining whether any new measures or changes to current laws are appropriate.
Now, members of the House Judiciary GOP have banded together, bashing the president and attorney general for lack of enforcement, citing a slowing trend of federal weapons prosecutions during his presidency.
The letter points to a study conducted by Syracuse University that found a 30 percent decline in prosecutions compared with the peak year of the Bush presidency. In 2004, there were 11,015 prosecutions, but data shows that by the final year of President Obama’s first term in 2012, just 7,774 cases were prosecuted.
“Before the President demands that Congress push through legislation to stifle the rights of law abiding citizens, he should take care to enforce the laws that are already on the books,” Rep. Bob Goodlatte, the chairman of the committee, wrote in a statement today. “We must all be looking for ways to prevent senseless acts of violence and the taking of innocent life but the best place to start would be enforcing the laws that Congress has already enacted.”
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