Levin: Criticisms on gun prosecutions ‘unfair’

By Andrew Shepperson

Joel Levin, acting U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Illinois (Photo: U.S. attorney’s office)
Joel Levin, acting U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Illinois, has called out the Chicago Sun-Times for ‘unfairly’ criticizing former U.S. Attorney Zach Fardon for not prosecuting as many gun traffickers as other districts.
In a letter to the editor, Levin argues the recent article — in which the Sun-Times posited a relatively low number of gun traffickers were prosecuted in Chicago as compared to other cities — was overly simplistic and did not paint an accurate picture of an office Levin says “continues to be proactive and aggressive in its approach to the surge of violence in Chicago.”
According to Levin, the Sun-Times accurately reported that the office opened 105 weapons cases in fiscal year 2016, a 44 percent increase from the year before. Approximately 23 percent of all cases in the Chicago office, Levin notes, are related to guns.
Levin argues that when comparing Chicago’s number of gun crime prosecutions to that of other federal districts, the Sun-Times did not factor in penalties that vary from state to state, which can affect the number of federal prosecutions.
As an example, Levin notes that sometimes it can be more advantageous to

Source: Guns.com