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Bush Launches Initiative Against Gun Violence
US President George W. Bush launched a new initiative against gun violence in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on Monday, pledging to "involve an unprecedented partnership between all levels of government."
"We're going to reduce gun violence in America, and those who commit crimes with guns will find a determined adversary in my administration," Bush, who used National Police Week to announce his plan, said in a ceremony.
According to Bush's new plan, the U.S. will hire 113 new assistant U.S. attorneys and 600 new state and local prosecutors to handle gun cases.
The program, called Project Safe Neighborhoods, would cost more than 550 million U.S. dollars over two years, including some 75 million dollars to fund new gun prosecutors, 44 million dollars to improve criminal record-keeping and 19 million dollars for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms for a youth gun interdiction initiative.
Though the violent crime rate dropped 20 percent between 1989 and 1999, there were 12,658 murders in America in 1999, two-thirds of which were shooting deaths.
Bush, while opposing gun control, promoted enforcing gun crimes and called for preventing juveniles from obtaining guns.
During his presidential campaign, Bush launched two programs, Project Exile and Project Childsafe, to deter gun violence.
The program Bush announced on Monday is based on Project Exile, which originated in Richmond, Virginia, in 1997 and has spread statewide as well as to Colorado, Pennsylvania, South Carolina and Texas, Bush's home state, and to about a dozen local communities, including Philadelphia.
Project Exile focuses on punishing criminals with stiff mandatory sentences without parole when convicted of a crime involving a gun.
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