And I sincerely believe this, when they start interferring with the right of the American citizen to have, keep, and bear arms and infringe. That means to me like interfere.

That isn't in the statement, but that is what I believe.

Secondly, it is said that this amendment is to keep guns out of the hands of criminals and undesirable. This kind of person is unaffected by such laws. Furthermore, I want to say that if our country is invaded by the enemy, I hope the National Rifle Association is right in its estimation that there are 50 million armed Americans.

So, gentlemen, if it is a decrease in the crime rate which we want, then I urge more serious penalties for such crimes as are committed with guns.

Senator YARBOROUGH. Mr. Gibson, I don't desire to argue with you, but the idea that the country, in the event of invasion would be defended by private arms in the hands of private citizens better than by the Armed Forces of the country, or they would be the main defendents, I believe, is militarily impractical.

Mr. GIBSON. I didn't say anything about-this country needs its military forces as much as any other country. But it also needs the armed American citizen.

Do you think that-No, I don't want to

Senator YARBOROUGH. I was on the staff of an infantry division and I saw the invasion of Germany. Hitler called on every German to die in his home, at his post, and the first time a sniper fired in a town at an Allied soldier, they learned. These men were trying to be nice to the civilians and the snipers fired and after that, the towns were simply sawed down. And pretty soon there was a total surrender.

As we advanced in Germany, not only towns surrendered but every house; they put bed sheets out the windows; rolled bolts of cloth out; the whole street was a waving series of white flags, from the length of a bolt of cloth to a pillowcase, every window, each house would put a white surrender pillowcase in every single window of a house to keep it from being fired at. It didn't take but knocking down three or four towns until they realized this idea of civilians sniping at soldiers is obsolete that it is not feasible, simply because firepower is so great in modern armies, artillery fire is so great.

You just look at military tactics; this just won't work in a civilized country. The only place where this kind of thing might work is in a people that are impoverished, as in the swamps of South Vietnam, who have nothing to defend.

It doesn't work in a civilized country, with modern technology and modern cities. You are not going to have a defense force out there that is going to defeat an invading army, unless you do it with trained military forces, with tremendous firepower and superior weapons.

So the idea that this is an effort to get guns to make this country indefensible I think is militarily insupportable.

I respect you gentleman for traveling 2,500 miles to air your views; they are in the record. But there are somethings so fallacious militarily, they shouldn't go without comment.

We will consider your testimony, but we have broad-based testimony across the country. If we thought this was the best way to defend the United States, to disband the Army and let every man have a scope-sight rifle, that would be so much cheaper, there wouldn't be

any point in spending $50 billion a year to defend this country with intercontinental ballistic missiles and Polaris submarines armed with nuclear warheads and the many other expensive devices and satellites in the sky to spy on the other powers, and the tremenduously expensive technological equipment required in modern warfare. Only an industrialized nation can really sustain prolonged modern warfare. And that is by highly trained, highly skilled forces of highly motivated men.

Now, your first statement says the gun is the standard of freedom

in the United States of America. I challenge that. I think ideals are the standard of freedom, and the kind of ideals that are in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution are the reflection of those ideals. It is the feelings that people have in their hearts, it is the spirit that man has to maintain freedom that is the surest standard of freedom; it is the will to be free.

We see all around this world, we furnish people with guns and they don't desire to fight. They are not as interested in that freedom as we are. It may be rice for their family or something else.

The gun doesn't maintain freedom; it is the hopes and ideals of people that are the surest safeguards of liberty in this world. We are spending a lot of money, tax money, to carry out those ideals in this country and around the world, and we spend about $50 billion a year. The taxes are high on all of us, but the gun doesn't preserve the freedom-it is our desire for freedom and our will to heavily tax ourselves to preserve our liberties and help other people, if they will to be free, help them preserve their freedom.

But this isn't to limit your right of expression. I think your views as well as Senator Dodd's views ought to be in the record here.

Mr. GIBSON. Senator, I have a letter here from a Mr. Keith Petitjean, chairman of the Math-Science Department of Bagdad High School, Bagdad, Ariz., that I would like to have entered into the

record.

Senator YARBOROUGH. Without objection, it will be done. (The referred to letter follows:)

BAGDAD, ARIZ., January 24, 1964.

HONORABLE GENTLEMEN: I wish to take this opportunity to express my opposition to any law that would restrict in any way the right of any adult U.S. citizen to own or bear firearms.

My major objections are:

1. It is impossible for me to believe that any person planning to commit a crime, which required the use of a firearm, would first register that firearm before committing the crime.

2. The above person might steal my firearm-which would have been registered-with which to commit the crime and I would have quite a time persuading the authorities that I was not in possession of the firearm when it was used to commit the crime.

3. Even if I were able to convince the authorities of my innocence, I would be out much time, trouble, doubt, finance, and would have been subject to much severe emotional distress.

4. If a person were inclined to commit criminal acts, the lack of a firearm would not be a deterrent. Witness, switch blades, homemade bombs, shivs, ad infinitum.

5. The law would bring into being another Federal agency which would further restrict the freedoms of American citizens-another bureaucracy.

6. If the Americans of 1776 had not had the free use and right to bear firearms, the United States of America would probably not be an independent nation today.

7. The Constitution of the United States leaves police duties to the States.

8. History is full of tales of nations which fell to a conqueror, one of the reasons for which was the conqueror knew who had what weapons-witness, Holland and Belgium, 1914 and 1939.

9. As a U.S. marine in World War II (Vella La Vella, Guam, Okinawa) I risked my life a number of times for the freedom that is the United States of America. I believe each bit of freedom is worth whatever life it may cost, even though one of those lives might be mine I shall be and am willing to take that risk.

Sincerely,

KEITH PETITJEAN, Chairman, Math-Science Department, Bagdad High School, Bagdad, Ariz.

Senator YARBOROUGH. Mr. William Gibson.

STATEMENT OF WILLIAM G. GIBSON, BAGDAD, ARIZ.

Mr. W. GIBSON. First of all, I object to any legislation which is against the Constitution of the United States and our rights as free Americans. Our Constitution and Bill of Rights have been sufficient since 1791, so why amend any of them—not just gun legislation, but any law that is contrary to any part of our Constitution.

The second amendment to the Bill of Rights says in part, "The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed." This bill, S. 1975, would be an infringement, I believe.

I am against crime as much as anyone can be, but I am for freedom, too. This is my God-given right, and our country was founded on it. I will fight to keep these rights and freedoms as long as I can.

This freedom was hard won and has cost a tremendous price in human lives up to this time. Why open the last door for Communists to walk in? It is not as easy to take an armed country as it is an unarmed country.

The Sullivan Act of New York City is similar to this bill. Records prove it has not been effective in stopping crime and murders in any way. Other States have similar laws also, with no decrease in crime. These State laws should be enough of an example to prove you won't hurt the criminal by passing such a law. A criminal has no respect for law of any kind, unless it is something to use to help him, like the fifth amendment. This bill, if passed, would just put more burden on an already overworked and understaffed law enforcement throughout the Nation. The people of the West are very much concerned about such legislation, especially our law enforcement officers.

The best solution to the use of guns in crime is to make the penalties stiffer-without parole for crimes performed at gunpoint, not to infringe the rights of the law-abiding citizens.

Honorable sirs, I beg of you to think as honest free Americans and to weigh the facts most carefully.

Senator YARBOROUGH. Thank you, Mr. Gibson.

Mr. W. GIBSON. I have a letter from our deputy sheriff. Would it be all right to present that?

Senator YARBOROUGH. Yes. Do you want to read it or file it in the record and have it printed.

Mr. W. GIBSON. Both, if I can.
Senator YARBOROUGH. All right.

Mr. W. GIBSON (reading):

To the Commerce Committee of Washington, D.C.:

There has been much discussion pro and con concerning the gun registration law. Who will benefit by this law? Not the law-abiding citizen, who keeps a firearm for sport or his own protection.

The criminal will be the one to benefit, if this bill is passed. The one thing that makes them hesitate is fear of violence or their own safety. It is a wellknown fact that a criminal will hesitate to hit a place where the owner is armed. Do not disarm or create a hardship on the honest citizen. But create more severe penalties for ones committing a crime of violence with a firearm.

In our own State of Arizona, where the population is widely scattered, their chief protection is their firearms.

In the past 15 years of law enforcement, I find it is not the average citizen who uses a firearm in an act of violence, but more so, the criminal with a past record.

Respectfully yours,

S. A. DESPAIN, Deputy Sheriff, Bagdad, Ariz.

Senator YARBOROUGH. Yes, did you gentlemen bring this petition with you from Arizona, or you mailed this in?

Mr. MARLEY. I think that came from Prescott.

Senator YARBOROUGH. This petition was mailed to Senator Magnuson from the people of Arizona, opposing the Dodd firearms law and it was mailed to the chairman of the committee, Senator Magnuson.

The staff has noted a number of people from Bagdad signed the petition. Since you gentlemen from Bagdad are testifying at this time, I will file this petition-It is a rather voluminous petition, and shows a great deal of care and a great deal of work. It is the typical American fashion of petitioning Congress for or against any pending

measure.

We will order it filed with the record of this hearing for consideration by the committee, and depending upon the size, it will be up to the chairman as to whether it is to be printed as an exhibit to the record or filed for the information of all of the committee. But it is filed as of this time and it will be noted by the reporter that it has been filed.

(Document referred to is in files of Committee on Commerce:)

Senator YARBOROUGH. Gentlemen, you have come a long way to testify and you have given your testimony. I regret that other members of the committee are not here. I am sure they would have some other questions. I respect your point of view-I can't agree with all of it but I began the practice of law in El Paso, Tex., which is further west than Albuquerque, N. Mex. It is closer to Arizona than the east boundary of New Mexico, and from my residence there for 312 years, visiting with many Arizonans as they came to El Paso in those days, I had a sizable acquaintance in Arizona at that time. I realize the resistance of the people of the West to any kind of governmental order that requires you to register anything except registered cattle, of course, and that is not with the Government that is your own voluntary association.

But I know from my own experience, living in the West, of the views that you share. I know both from that experience and from this petition, that you people represent the viewpoint of many people in the western part of the country.

As the population increases in an area, you have heard witnesseswere you gentlemen here when the law enforcement officers of New York City testified this morning?

You realize, as the population gets more dense, and problems grow, sociological problems, economic problems grow, the necessity for regulation of many things grows, and you will find prevailing opinion in one section of the country where the population is very heavy, might be widely divergent from that in an area of the country where few people have to live in vast expanses and rely largely upon themselves. One historian has said there has never been a time in known human history when one man by himself counted for so much as when the Americans crossed the Mississippi, moved out of the timber, and broke out on the plains, where it was one man on his horse with his gun and he and his horse determined whether-and his gun-determined whether he would survive.

The West is very close to that period. The whole country is, or they wouldn't be looking at TV westerns all of the time. And this historian made a very close study and decided the reason people liked to look at TV westerns so much was this was the one period in known history when one man by himself counted for about everything in his world; and living very close to that pioneer period, I realize your feelings.

Now I think Texas is entitled to some credit for the formation of Arizona. When Arizona was a part of New Mexico, it endeavored to be cut off, it hadn't succeeded, so the Confederate Congress created the Confederate Territory of Arizona, running across the southern part of present New Mexico and Arizona, then populated mainly by Texas cattlemen.

The National Congress retaliated by putting the boundary north and south and putting Arizona out in the West. And I think that initiative by some early day Texans helped you gentlemen get Territorial status and then statehood for Arizona.

Thank you for your testimony.

Senator YARBOROUGH. Mr. Beers, Prescott, Ariz.

STATEMENT OF WILLIAM H. BEERS, PRESCOTT, ARIZ.

Mr. BEERS. Mr. Chairman, with your permission, I would like to enlarge a little bit, if I may, on the introduction that is on your agenda. It lists my particular business, and I would like to tell you the real

reason that I am here.

In addition to my business, I serve as outdoor editor of the Prescott Evening Courier, a newspaper in Prescott, Ariz., and, as such, I edit and produce an outdoor column in that newspaper. Through my column, commenting on the legislation that is presently before Congress, I received a lot of comment and quite a few people requested that I attend this hearing and offer testimony in opposition to the bill presently considered.

Senator YARBOROUGH. Mr. Beers, how far is it from Prescott to Bagdad?

Mr. BEERS. It is about 115 miles, approximately.

Senator YARBOROUGH. Go ahead, sir.