Northwest Indiana Discussion

Here is a fact for you: it is in no one's best interest to follow the advice of a University of Chicago graduate who has never made it out of Hammond, Indiana.

I have to laugh when this board's mildly retarded racist checks in with a bit of stupidity.

Despite his calls for greater gun control, including a new assault weapons ban that extends to handguns, President Obama’s administration has turned away from enforcing gun laws, cutting weapons prosecutions some 40 percent since a high of about 11,000 under former President Bush.

In the wake of the horrific mass killing at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., Democratic lawmakers have begun preparing a new collection of anti-gun laws, including renewing the assault weapons ban, banning the purchase of high-capacity clips that spring bullets into guns, and tightening rules on who can buy weapons.

Figures collected by Syracuse University’s TRAC project, the authority on prosecutions from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, shows that the administration has reduced the focus on gun crimes and instead steered prosecutors and investigators to drug crimes.

Gun prosecutions peaked at 10,937 under Bush in 2004. A current TRAC report shows that the Obama administration is prosecuting about 6,000 weapons cases.

Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel on Tuesday didn’t deny telling the Justice Department that Attorney General Eric Holder needed to “shut the f—k up” about gun control in 2009.

Emanuel, who was then White House chief of staff, issued the warning to Justice in February after Holder said at a press conference the administration wanted to reinstate the assault weapon ban. The incident is recounted in Daniel Klaidman’s book, “Kill or Capture.”

“Let me say this,” Emanuel, whose use of profanity is legendary, said on CBS’s “This Morning” when asked about the report. “President [Barack] Obama always stood for getting this done, No. 1. No. 2, I passed the Brady Bill with the assault weapon ban. It is very, very important that we do that. The fact is, in 2009 the president and the entire government was very clear to say this, as the attorney general knows, in getting all the president’s legislation done and working with Congress to do that.”

Pressed further about the message to Holder, Emanuel suggested the White House was more concerned with dealing with other issues in early 2009, when the economy was still in the throes of the Great Recession. He also suggested funding for the Justice Department may have been threatened.

Here is a fact for you: it is in no one's best interest to follow the advice of a University of Chicago graduate who has never made it out of Hammond, Indiana.