U.S. Prosecutors to Be More Aggressive on Gun Violations : Crime: New data showing a decline in federal cases fuel critics’ charges that existing laws aren’t being enforced.

Federal prosecutors in Los Angeles are changing their internal policies to allow them to prosecute more gun crimes, including some lesser firearms violations that in recent years sometimes went unpunished, officials said Wednesday.

The more aggressive stance on gun crimes comes amid new data showing that federal weapons cases have dropped by more than a third in recent years, with California lagging far behind the rest of the nation. Such data are fueling criticism from gun control opponents that existing laws are not enforced effectively enough--a charge that federal authorities dispute even as they make changes to prosecute more gun offenders.

“Firearms violations are a top priority,” said U.S. Atty. Alejandro N. Mayorkas, who heads the Los Angeles office. “We have altered our guidelines to ensure those crimes are prosecuted as vigorously as possible. . . . We hope to see results quickly.”

Mayorkas said he is changing internal guidelines to expand the types of weapons cases his office accepts for prosecution as part of an overall strategy to reduce gun violence, an initiative launched by President Clinton in March. Other local officials, spurred in part by the recent attack on a Jewish community center, have unveiled an array of ideas for curtailing guns and violence.

Justice Department officials in Washington expect to receive plans in coming weeks from Mayorkas and other federal prosecutors nationwide detailing ways in which they can improve cooperation with local authorities and “make sure we’re doing smart, effective enforcement,” said one department official who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Federal prosecutors are being given wide latitude in discussing ways to toughen their policies, and officials in Washington are encouraging them to tailor the reforms to the needs of their own communities. Mayorkas has already begun toughening the local standards and making other changes.

One example cited by Clinton in launching the initiative in March was a program called Project Exile in Richmond, Va. Endorsed by the NRA, the program has allowed local police to move more aggressively to keep guns out of the hands of felons--denying bail to gun offenders, for instance. Authorities say that it has cut homicides substantially.

Prosecutors might also consider new ways of targeting gang members or expanding the types of weapons cases they decide to pursue in federal court.

“Certainly we can’t take every case into the federal system, but there’s always room for change within the guidelines,” the official said. “The concept here is [federal authorities] working together with your state and local counterparts.”

Mayorkas said his prosecutors are seeking to take a larger role in gun cases than they have in the past.

In part, that will now mean looking for opportunities to go after felons and illegal immigrants who possess guns as well as prosecuting people who make false statements in the acquisition of firearms--crimes that were not always vigorously prosecuted at the federal level.

Federal charges for false statements in acquisition of a firearm, for example, made up less than 10% of all weapons cases in the nation last year, compared with 20% in 1992, a recent study found.

Mayorkas refused to discuss specific details of the new guidelines. He said that each crime is judged on its own merits and that the guidelines are not hard and fast rules. Mayorkas’ reluctance to be specific is commonly shared among prosecutors, who decline to reveal their standards for considering criminal charges so that criminals will not be able to operate just below those standards and thus avoid prosecution.

“Our goal is that all firearms cases get prosecuted,” Mayorkas said, adding that in some instances state courts might be more appropriate venues.

Mayorkas said the plan he will send to his superiors in Washington will include a comprehensive anti-violence initiative, beyond the guideline changes, that will involve other law enforcement agencies. He declined to elaborate, saying that the details will become public in a few weeks.

Federal prosecutors have been criticized repeatedly by the NRA and other gun control opponents for allegedly failing to enforce many of the gun laws already on the books--a charge that received some support from data released last week in a Syracuse University study. That study also found that criminals convicted on federal weapon-related charges are serving shorter prison sentences than in previous years.

Federal officials, however, say that the data are misleading.

“We’re not going to measure our success by counting cases--we think our success comes in bringing the level of gun violence down,” a trend prosecutors have already begun to see, the official said.

“We’re not trying to reinvent [gun violence policy]. We’re trying to reinvigorate it. We’re trying to make sure no one becomes complacent,” the official said.

Other officials said the statistical decline reported by Syracuse researchers does not take into account a number of factors such as understaffing and a shift in investigative priorities.

Officials at the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, which referred 53% fewer California weapons cases to prosecutors in the last six years, say that they made a decision to rein in illegal gun kingpins responsible for large-scale interstate trafficking, instead of bringing smaller cases that boosted their statistics but had little effect on the illicit gun trade.

Also, officials said, ATF agents have to be more selective in the cases they pursue because they could inundate the U.S. attorney with filings.

In Los Angeles, for example, the U.S. attorney’s office staff includes about 165 prosecutors with a jurisdiction of more than 17 million people. Mayorkas said there are so many cases presented to his office that the entire staff could work on crimes of violence and gun violations. That would leave no prosecutors for such far-flung areas as civil rights, fraud, drugs and other law enforcement priorities.

“We have to balance our resources,” he said, “and aggressively respond to all the crime problems in our district.”