7 Steven Raphael

Unlike gun control, enhanced prison penalties for gun crimes enjoy widespread support from all sides of the U.S. gun policy debate. Prison sentence enhancements have the potential to reduce gun violence by incapacitating individuals who have been convicted of gun crimes and deterring such crimes in the future. Moreover, such a policy does not affect the ability of law-abiding adults to keep guns for self-defense or recreation. Given this conceptual and political appeal, the Bush administration has made enhanced prison penalties a centerpiece of its efforts to address gun violence. With a proposed budget of $550 million over two years, one important objective of the administration's Project Safe Neighborhoods is to enhance the penalties for gun crime by diverting those who have committed federal firearm offenses into federal court, where prison sentences are typically more severe than the ones found in most state systems.