Page 4 - Florida Sentinel 11-15-19

Politics
New Program Designed To Reduce Gun Violence
The Initiative empha- sizes enforcing gun pro- hibitions based on domestic violence con- victions and mental health denials
Attorney General William P. Barr an- nounced the launch of Proj- ect Guardian, a new initiative designed to reduce gun vio- lence and enforce federal firearms laws across the country. Specifically, Project Guardian focuses on investi- gating, prosecuting, and pre- venting gun crimes.
“Gun crime remains a pervasive problem in too many communities across America. The Department of Justice is redoubling its com- mitment to tackling this issue through the launch of Project Guardian.
“Building on the success of past programs like Trig- gerlock, Project Guardian will strengthen our efforts to reduce gun violence by allow- ing the federal government and our state and local part- ners to better target offend- ers who use guns in crimes and those who try to buy guns illegally,” Attorney
General Barr said.
“For years, the Middle
District has applied a holistic approach to reducing violent crime and improving the quality of life in neighbor- hoods. With Project Guardian, we will continue to coordinate resources among various stakeholders and cre- ate a comprehensive strategy that prevents illegal access to firearms, deters the use of guns in resolving conflicts, and provides additional sup- port to our communities,” U. S. Attorney Maria Chapa Lopez, for the Middle Dis- trict of Florida said.
Project Guardian’s imple- mentation is based on five principles: coordinated pros- ecution, enforcing the back- ground check system, improving information shar- ing, coordinated response to mental health denials, and crime gun intelligence coor- dination.
For more information on Project Guardian, see the At- torney General’s memoran- dum at: https://www.justice.gov/ag/ project-guardian-memo- 2019/download.
Deval Patrick Launching 2020 Presidential Bid In N.H. Today: ‘I Feel I Have Something To Offer’
Former Massachusetts governor Deval Patrick launched a late-stage bid for the White House. SUZANNE KREITER/FILE 2015/GLOBE STAFF
Deval Patrick, who rose from child- hood poverty on Chicago’s South Side to the upper echelons of corporate and govern- ment power, will launch a late-stage bid for the White House Thursday, emphasizing themes of hope and unification that lifted him to two terms as Massachusetts gover- nor.
“I don’t think that we need to, or ought to, trade unity for dealing with big, en- trenched serious problems,” Patrick said in a Globe interview Wednesday night. “I think we have to set a tone that says we don’t have to agree on everything to work together on anything.”
The 63-year-old Democrat will kick off his campaign in New Hampshire and said he’s plunging into the crammed field “clear- eyed,” less than a year after he first consid- ered, but decided against, running for president. He begins roughly 80 days before the official starting gun of the Democratic primary race, the Feb. 3 Iowa caucuses, and less than four months until ballots are cast in more than a dozen states on Super Tues- day.
“I recognize running for president is a Hail Mary under any circumstances. This is a Hail Mary from two stadiums over,” Patrick quipped.
But he also views the electorate as far from settled, and pointing to his record as a twice-elected state chief executive, believes he can offer broad appeal to a divided coun- try.
His entrance comes at a time in the race when some party elites are worried about the shakiness of former vice president Joe Biden, the early front-runner, and concern that his liberal rivals, Senators Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, lean too far to the left to beat President Trump.
“If I felt like the voters had settled or folks had made up their minds or that there wasn’t a way to put together the resources in terms of talent and money at this stage, I wouldn’t do it,” Patrick said. “It’s been daunting all along about how you break through in a field this big and this talented without being a celebrity or being sensa- tional.
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