U.S. DOJ asks for stiff sentences for straw gun consumers, regardless of racial disparities By Reuters

By Nate Raymond

(Reuters) – A U.S. Division of Justice official on Tuesday urged a panel to swiftly adjust to a congressional directive to extend jail sentences for so-called straw purchasers of weapons, regardless of issues that doing so may disproportionately affect Black individuals.

Gary Restaino, the highest federal prosecutor in Arizona, informed a bipartisan panel in Washington, D.C., that rising penalties for straw purchasers – individuals who purchase weapons for people barred from proudly owning them or for individuals who don’t need to be tracked – would “replicate the hazard their conduct poses to public security.”

The U.S. Sentencing Fee is obliged to extend sentences for these defendants beneath a provision of the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, the main gun security measure that President Joe Biden signed into legislation in June.

“We expect the time is correct to do it now to handle the rising drawback of gun violence, significantly in lots of communities throughout America,” Restaino testified on behalf of the division.

The invoice got here collectively simply weeks after two mass shootings, one in Uvalde, Texas, that killed 19 kids at an elementary college and one other racist assault concentrating on Black individuals in Buffalo, New York, that killed 10.

The fee, which has seven voting members, in January proposed two choices to extend penalties, by both permitting judges to boost sentences for straw purchasers or amending the federal sentencing pointers to extend the beginning, or base, vary for sentences.

Restaino, who served briefly final yr as interim director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives, spoke in favor of the latter choice however argued the panel’s present proposal doesn’t go far sufficient in stiffening sentences.

He argued that beneath the fee’s proposal, straw purchasers, who by definition don’t have any earlier prison historical past, would usually face a sentencing vary that on the low finish was only one month longer than they may get beneath present coverage.

However Leslie Scott, an legal professional with the Federal Public and Neighborhood Defenders’ Sentencing Useful resource Counsel undertaking, urged the fee to “take a pause” and conduct additional examine earlier than implementing modifications that would exacerbate racial disparities in sentencing.

“A knee jerk response to the directive within the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act is not going to make us safer,” she mentioned in an affidavit on the listening to, arguing coverage makers ought to gather knowledge first earlier than adopting any measure.

She added rushed modifications to the rules would disproportionately affect Black communities. The fee in a report final yr discovered that greater than half of individuals sentenced in 2021 beneath the primary firearms sentencing guideline have been Black.

The panel faces a Might 1 deadline to submit any amendments to the rules to Congress.