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Posted on 10/12/2003 5:19:05 PM PDT by Brian S
By ERICKA SCHENCK SMITH The Missoulian
MISSOULA – There are some people who just shouldn’t have guns. It’s the law.
And Montana’s federal prosecutors, along with their colleagues nationwide, are doing their darndest to get those people charged, convicted and locked up in federal prison. But to do this, they need the help of local law enforcement officers, who say they are more than willing to do their part.
Nationwide, this effort is dubbed “Project Safe Neighborhoods.” It’s U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft’s second-highest priority – just behind terrorism and just ahead of drug trafficking.
In Montana, it’s called “Catch and No Release.”
“It’s the best name that a government program has ever had,” said Bill Mercer, U.S. Attorney for Montana.
The idea, Mercer said, is to find the unlawful gun owners and get them off the streets.
Because these weapons violations are federal crimes, they carry federal sentences. And federal sentences are tough: Judges are bound by strict sentencing guidelines set by Congress, and there is no parole. A 10-year sentence to federal prison will last a full 10 years.
“I think it’s wonderful,” Missoula County Sheriff Mike McMeekin said.
“When we have someone who is a legitimate threat,” he added, “we have a much greater possibility of getting them off the streets.”
McMeekin, a Democrat, sees no politics in the program so heavily touted by a Republican administration.
“I don’t see this as a partisan political issue in any way, shape or form – nor have I ever,” he said. “It has nothing to do with legitimate gun ownership or legitimate gun use.”
The National Rifle Association also backs such attempts to enforce laws already on the books. The organization’s 2003 fact sheet states unequivocally: “Rather than imposing additional laws that restrict the rights of law-abiding people, existing laws should be strictly enforced against violent armed criminals.”
Mercer says “vigorous enforcement” of existing laws means “we don’t need to ban handguns; we don’t need to extend gun control.”
So who are the people targeted by the current law? An abbreviated list includes:
illegal drug users, addicts and dealers;
convicted felons (you’re off the hook once you’ve done your time for a Montana crime, but other states bar you from ever owning guns again);
illegal aliens;
people who have renounced their U.S. citizenship;
“mental defectives” or people committed to mental institutions;
people who are under court order to give up their guns;
anyone convicted of domestic violence, misdemeanor or felony;
anyone under a restraining order because of alleged stalking or violence.
Other federal gun laws ban machine guns, sawed-off shotguns and guns with obliterated serial numbers.
And the list does go on.
An example of how the laws work? On July 25, a 40-year-old Missoula man, a drug user with a municipal court protective order, pleaded guilty to two federal felonies as part of a Catch and No Release prosecution. For each count, Roy Howard Foote faces a potential 10 years in federal prison. Sentencing is set for Nov. 12.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Kris McLean said he charged two other Missoula men more recently after the Missoula police contacted his office. Both men, 20-year-old Joshua T. Cors and 21-year-old August W. Huebner, have been charged as drug users in possession of firearms.
By now, just about every urban law enforcement officer in the state has been trained in the federal law through Mercer’s office, and Mercer is distributing training videos to all the rural counties.
McMeekin said his crew has lists of federal offenses, and checklists of the elements needed to make a case that an offense was committed. The idea is that the local deputies should have the groundwork done before the case is presented to a prosecutor or passed on to the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives for further investigation.
Mercer said this kind of cooperation from the local authorities is crucial. It is also crucial that each community define its own biggest problem.
In Missoula County, McMeekin said, the local High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area taskforce has done much of the Catch and No Release detective work. The team of city, county, state and federal officers seeks out the area’s major drug dealers and manufacturers. And much of its work so far has involved methamphetamine, a highly addictive drug with a nasty tendency to make users both paranoid and violent.
McMeekin said it seemed like a perfect fit, and the framework for cooperation between various agencies was already there.
And Mercer said he is particularly concerned about the meth-gun combination.
“We are really worried that if a person is trafficking that drug or addicted to that drug, then the probability of violent behavior is going to go way up,” he said.
At the city Police Department, Assistant Chief Rusty Wickman said he sees Catch and No Release as a new tool for his officers, a way to raise the bar on persistent violent offenders.
If a person already has a significant criminal record, the penalties start out at several years, just to start, McLean said. The more convictions a person has, the longer the sentence dictated by the federal guidelines.
McLean, who is handling most of the Missoula-area cases – with the help of another Assistant U.S. Attorney in Helena – said he wants law enforcement to bring in people he calls “hard targets ... bad actors, the problem children that are continuously causing problems in the community.”
“Let’s catch them on guns,” he said.
Of the last 20 or so cases filed in Missoula’s U.S. District Court, just under half involve weapons. The cases are coming in from all over western Montana.
“We’re just getting case after case after case now,” McLean said.
Not all of those cases are necessarily the result of the new focus on illegal weapons use, but the effect is the same.
One of the newer files involves an illegal Slovakian immigrant living in Sanders County. Sheriff Gene Arnold said he had reports of trespassing and criminal mischief involving 51-year-old Josef Vadina – and also of weapons. So he called in the ATF.
A search turned up a sawed-off shotgun and 8,000 rounds of ammunition, federal court records said. On top of that, Vadina admitted to re-entering the United States illegally, after being deported in 1995. He was also convicted of similar weapons charges in 1995.
Vadina’s attorney, federal public defender Melissa Harrison, is arguing the search was illegal.
Arnold said he hasn’t yet received the Catch and No Release training; he was just doing his job.
Mercer said he expects to see about 100 gun-related cases filed in Montana’s federal courts this year, the majority of them related to stepped-up efforts to prosecute gun crimes. That will be about double what the state saw in recent years.
And he hopes a series of public service announcements produced by Montana PBS will help get the word out about the program. He’s looking for the television ads to bring in a few tips from law-abiding citizens, but he’s particularly interested in making sure criminals know the consequences.
“I am certainly a believer in the principle of deterrence,” he said.
Said McLean: “The convicted felons know they’re not allowed to have guns. ... The drug users, I think, are learning the hard way.”
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Reporter Ericka Schenck Smith can be reached at 523-5259 or esmith@missoulian.com.
Sunday, October 12, 2003
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FreeRepublic , LLC PO BOX 9771 FRESNO, CA 93794
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Note that just shouting at a spouse could result in a call to the cops and allegations or CHARGES of abuse. And ALLEGATIONS is all that is necessary for a judge to take away your firearms.
Project Exile is a bad idea because it fails to differentiate between the few good laws punishing violent criminals and the thousands of bad laws which punish violations of onerous regulations.
Without gun control there would be no need of an organization to fight it.
Stay Safe !
(This is the one where hangar is spelled with 2 a's, and GS-16s are in in the SES.)
Are you comparing our leader Dubya to a facist like Hitler? Shame on you!!!! Attorney General Ashcroft needs to declare you an enemy combatant and lock you up permanent without a trial. We have no use for traitors!
Not just "domestic" violence. Lots of them have problems with every other kind of violence, but they get away with it because they are agents of the government. Pigs have more rights than humans.
I really hope Ashcroft resighns or is canned for Bush's second term. Definitely the biggest disappointment of Bush's cabinet.
Are you serious?
Maybe I need to be locked up without trial also for even asking that question.
The RAT politicians (Klinton, Lautenburg) expand the list of "banned gunowners".
Then the GOP politicians (Bush, Ashcroft) expand the enforcement apparatus.
Next, I expect to see an increase in the number of "banned gunowners". They are already in the process of expanding it to anyone with a mental disorder of any kind, and anyone with any type of restraining order (not just domestic partners).
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