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Mr. Sessions is putting into action his own long-held views on criminal justice, forged as a United States attorney in Alabama during the drug war. They reflect a philosophy popular among conservatives and long backed by the gun lobby: that the effective enforcement of existing laws can reduce crime without resorting to the passage of additional legislation.
“I believe very strongly in enforcing gun laws,” Mr. Sessions said in an interview with the far-right Breitbart News this year. “I believe there’s no value in having them on the books if they’re not prosecuted.”
But possessing a firearm under disability IS a crime, and cops don't have x-ray vision so you must have been doing something else for you to be caught with it in your posession.“Sometimes it appears they’re just looking for numbers,” his lawyer, Thomas Thornton, said of federal prosecutors, who denied the accusation.
“Our efforts are not about numbers,” said David Freed, the United States attorney for the Middle District of Pennsylvania. “We are focused on reducing violent crime and protecting law-abiding citizens.”
But few law enforcement officials want to make a priority of prosecuting low-level offenders, one said, describing simmering concern that the pressure from Mr. Sessions will lead prosecutors to prioritize conviction totals over their impact on crime.