Justice Department officials contend that the work of Project Safe Neighborhoods will continue even though Congress is eliminating the specific appropriation for it, reports The Tennessean in Nashville. Through April federal gun prosecutions in middle Tennessee were up 154 percent over 2001. Even though Congress has appropriated $220 million toward gun-crime efforts generally, the absence of direct funding for the specific program is unsettling, said a gun-policy group in Washington. “The (Justice) department line is that all the money is there, but it’s in different pods,” said Americans for Gun Safety spokesman John Lacey. “And that doesn’t fly – because that was the value of Project Safe Neighborhoods, that it was able to tie together gun prosecutions across the board, under one single strategy. And without having the direct funding allowing to do that, it turns gun prosecutions and gun policy into a piecemeal activity.”
Justice Department spokesman John Nowacki contended that, “The enforcement efforts to enforce gun laws will not be adversely affected. Congress provided funding for most elements of Project Safe Neighborhoods, including things such as federal prosecutors and investigators who are dedicated to fighting gun crime.”
Link: http://www.tennessean.com/local/archives/04/11/62451495.shtml?Element_ID=62451495