McCollum said the bill combined the proven approaches of enforcing gun laws already on the books and ensuring mandatory minimum sentences for criminals who break them.  The model for the bill is Project Exile, a gun crime mandatory sentencing program in Richmond that supporters say is responsible, since its inception in 1997, of significantly reducing violent crime in a city that had one of the highest crime rates in the country.

Virginia’s Republican Gov. James Gilmore, who last July signed into law a statewide “Virginia Exile” program, told a hearing of the crime subcommittee that the McCollum bill, if enacted would show “how valuable Exile can be in assisting them in breaking the link between guns, drugs and violent crime.”
Currently six states, including Virginia, Texas, Florida, Louisiana, South Carolina and Colorado, would qualify for the funding.

The many Republicans, and some Democrats, who opposes stricter gun control laws contend that there are plenty of laws on the books already and blame the administration for being lax in prosecuting violators.
U.S. Attorney Walter Holton, representing the Justice Department, disputed that, saying federal prosecution of gun bills is up since 1992.

Holton, U.S. Attorney in North Carolina, said the department supports the goals of the McCollum bill but said it falls far short of the $280 million sought by the administration for next year alone to boost firearms enforcement.   Democrats on the panel were more critical: Rep. Robert Scott, D-Va., said mandatory
sentencing discriminated against minorities and there was no empirical evidence it was effective
in reducing crime.  Rep. John Conyers of Michigan, top Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, said “we shouldn’t be tricked by the false choice” of enforcement versus gun control.  He asked why the committee wasn’t considering a more comprehensive bill he is sponsoring with Rep. Carolyn McCarthy, D-N.Y.,
that would provide funds for more federal gun agents and prosecutors, improve gun tracing, fund smart gun technologies and close gun law loopholes.

Congress has been deadlocked since last year over a juvenile crime bill that contains provisions to tighten gun controls, particularly on sales at gun shows. House Democratic leader Dick Gephardt of Missouri said at a news conference Thursday that “everybody is for enforcing gun laws, but the issue we’ve got to also deal with is the gun laws themselves. The Brady loophole, the gun show loophole, is the major way that lots of guns are flooding into our major cities.”  The two parties did come together Thursday on proposed legislation under which the federal government would provide matching grants for school safety programs such as the installation of metal detectors and training of security personnel.

The bill, offered by Rep. Steve Rothman, D-N.J., is backed by Conyers and House Judiciary Committee Chairman Henry Hyde, R-Ill.  The bill number is H.R. 4051.