Cook County's Newest Attack on Guns: Prosecutors have quietly started asking grand juries to approve charges in illegal gun possession cases instead of going before judges.

The Chicago Sun-Times reports:

Cook County State’s Attorney Anita Alvarez recently ordered a major shift in strategy to win approval for gun charges even though her prosecutors have rarely lost that battle in the past.

Prosecutors have quietly started asking grand juries to approve charges in illegal gun possession cases instead of going before judges.

The goal is to make sure gun cases aren’t dismissed before trial. But judges weren’t tossing out many of those cases before trial anyway, according to court statistics.

Over the past year and a half, judges found probable cause existed for illegal gun possession cases to move to trial about 95 percent of the time. Only 150 of 3,352 illegal gun possession cases resulted in a finding of no probable cause in preliminary hearings before judges, according to statistics provided by the state’s attorney’s office.

Asked why she’s steering clear of judges at the beginning stage of gun possession cases when the number of dismissals was already low, Alvarez said: “If we can save one child’s life, we are doing our job.”

Fabio Valentini, the head of criminal prosecutions for Alvarez, elaborated: “Even if just one of them (suspects) went out and committed a violent crime as a result of a finding of no probable cause (by a judge) when they should have been locked up, that’s one life saved.”

This is the same Anita Alvarez that thinks no one should own a handgun.