Durbin: D.C.’s New Crime Bill Offers ‘a Balanced Approach’

Wednesday’ on MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell Reports, Senate Majority Whip Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) stated that the District of Columbia’s criminal code takes “a balanced approach” to crime and that he opposes Congress invalidating the code.

Durbin said, “There are many parts of this new criminal code in D.C. that I would jump at if we could put them into the state of Illinois or on a federal basis. Crime guns, for example. Gun violence is one of the leading causes of death in America and the leading cause of death for those under the age of 18. D.C., in this version of their criminal code, is moving forward to try to control these crime guns. I salute that. Some of the penalties are increasing and some are going down. It’s back and forth. It seems to me to be a balanced approach. And for Congress to pre-empt any local government, including the District of Columbia, is, in this situation, I think, unwise.”

So far in 2023 there has a 76% increase in carjackings, a 24% increase in property crimes and a 17% increase in homicides in Washington D.C. Maybe taking a “balanced approach” to crime isn’t going to cut it. Neither is increased gun control, which only ever punishes law-abiding gun owners.