Senator YARBOROUGH. In order to compete in the events? Thank you very much.

Mr. SARGENT. Thank you very much.

Senator YARBOROUGH. The next witness is A. L. Schmeig, chief of police, Highland Park, Ill. Is Mr. Schmeig present?

(No response.)

Senator YARBOROUGH. The next witness is David J. Steinberg, Alexandria, Va. Come around, Mr. Steinberg. Do you have a prepared statement?

Mr. STEINBERG. No, sir. I want to apologize to the chairman and the committee for not having a prepared statement. What I have written out, which I was working on until very late last night, will not be very long and if I may get through it, I hope it might be of some value to the committee.

Senator YARBOROUGH. Fine. Proceed.

STATEMENT OF DAVID J. STEINBERG, ALEXANDRIA, VA.

Mr. STEINBERG. Mr. Chairman, I appear before the committee as a private individual who has been concerned with the subject under discussion here this morning for over a year, ever since the tragic death, or, rather, the tragic murder, of a 17-year-old boy in Falls Church, which you may recall took place in September of 1962. Senator YARBOROUGH. That was the boy murdered in the yard of his home?

Mr. STEINBERG. That is correct. It was this tragedy that unfortunately got me interested in this subject. I appear before your committee today to support the principle behind S. 1975, to endorse the bill as far as it goes, and to state that the bill does not go far enough in the direction of insuring the development of a sound, forward looking Federal law in the field of firearms control.

In presenting these observations, I want the committee to know that I understand fully the principles of the second amendment to the Constitution regarding the right to bear arms. In fact, I am a former instructor in the American constitutional system at the university level and I know a little bit about this.

I submit without qualification that even the stronger bill I would prefer to see adopted is fully consistent with that constitutional provision. The time has long since passed when the firearms control laws of the Federal Government and each of the States need to be tightened and given the kind of effectiveness demanded by rapid and in many respects frightening changes in population shifts, urban expansion, and explosive social situations.

Existing laws dealing with criminal conduct should be vigorously enforced and penalties imposed that match the enormity of the violation. I agree fully with a similar point that was made by the previous witness from Texas. Such action may well dampen criminal activity, but society can no longer afford to witness in many respects the anarchic proliferation of guns of all kinds.

The argument has been made before your committee and earlier before the House District Committee and in debates on this issue at all levels of government that tighter controls seriously inconvenience the law-abiding citizen, some say even disarming him, without having

much effect on the criminal who has no qualms about breaking the law.

This, in my judgment, is not only an exaggeration of the effect which tighter controls would have on the law abiding citizenry. It is a laissez faire view which countenances the widespread proliferation of guns of all kinds in the hands of undesirables and in the hands of the emotionally and technically incompetent.

It is argued that guns don't commit crimes, it is the people using those guns. Controlling access to guns, it is said, would only hurt the legitimate user; so let us direct our attention to the objectionable users. But how this is to be done consistent with the needs of public safety does not come through with clarity and consistency. There can be no disagreement that the economic and social cancers in our society must be eradicated, and that the depressed standards of social responsibility in so many areas must be raised to a level demanded by the imperatives of law and order in the respective cities and States and by the national interest as a whole. But the gun problem which committees of the Congress have studied so closely in the past year cannot be left to resolve itself in the natural course of events.

The major organizations whose supporters have resisted tighter controls in every forum where these have been proposed have cooperated with the congressional committees in the development of the bill now before your committee. They are to be commended for their efforts, but there are at least two serious deficiencies in their position:

One, the bill they support will not have adequate teeth, a shortcoming of the existing firearms legislation which they helped draft many years ago and which could not cope with the problem the country now faces in this field.

Secondly, the supporters of these organizations around the country continue to oppose the efforts being made to bring the firearms. controls of the Nation up to date and give the American people assurance that a serious problem of law and order is under control. Some of these local efforts, as in Fairfax County, Va., over a year ago, are little better than innocuous, yet they have invited strong opposition on Constitution and national security grounds, which often look like a smokescreen to hide the personal objections of the misinformed protagonists. The objections are so homogeneous that the national headquarters of these organizations must be their fountainhead.

The need to adopt stricter controls in all States and localities, at least the relatively strict controls found in a mere half-dozen States, is an important dimension of the effort that must be made--and which the bill before you attempts to make-to strengthen Federal controls on the sale of firearms in interstate commerce. Federal controls of this kind are necessary to enhance the effectiveness of local controls of whatever magnitude. On the other hand, since we live in a Federal Union that bars restrictions on the movement of individuals across State lines, a leveling upward of State laws to higher levels of control in this field is needed to insure the effectiveness of the proposed amendment to the Federal Firearms Act, the bill now before the committee."

The National Rifle Association has long contended that guns should be denied to persons convicted of a crime of violence, to fugitives from justice, to mentally incompetents, to drug addicts, and to habitual drunkards. However, the enforcement of such a resolve is left weak and ineffective. This cannot be done, this cannot be enforced, without subjecting all who wish to purchase guns to some form of licensing controls.

In connection with the bill before you, I understand that the National Rifle Association and perhaps others oppose the amendments to S. 1975 proposed by Senator Dodd on November 27 requiring authentication of the applicant's affidavit by the chief law-enforcement officer of the locality in which the applicant lives before the gun purchase transaction may proceed. Yet the association surely knows that an affidavit such as that prescribed in the bill will not deter a criminal or other undesirables from falsifying the information they supply.

Some form of Government authentication is needed if the applicant's answers to questions regarding his past record under the law and the implications of local firearms laws and regulations are to be credible. This omission of enforcement tools is one of the things that sap credibility from the association's position. Its executive vice president told this committee that—

laws which are incapable of enforcement with any degree of success are undesirable because they not only are failures in themselves, but because their failure tends to bring disrespect upon and to break down law and order in organized society.

Yet the association opposes enforcement instrumentalities and thus feeds its own objections to weak legislation. On the other hand, the Federal Firearms Act, which it has favored, is now found by every study of the situation to have failed to meet the gun proliferation problem which has recently burst upon our country. Law breakers will not obtain guns in the prescribed legal manner, but is this sufficient reason to say that nothing should be done?

There is nothing to prevent an unlicensed man, criminally motivated, from getting into a defective automobile and roaring down Pennsylvania Avenue at 75 miles an hour. Does this mean that it is not sound Government policy to require that automobile drivers be licensed and that all cars be inspected every 6 months?

The dangerous proliferation of guns in the hands of criminals, or available for purchase by potential criminals, is a proliferation which Federal law, indispensable to its control, has been unable to reach adequately. This proliferation itself brings disrespect for law at all levels of Government and disrupts law and order in an organized society. This is a serious environmental factor, Mr. Chairman, helpful to the growth of crime. The executive vice president of the National Rifle Association told the Senate Subcommittee on Juvenile Deliquency that there was no question that this was so.

The association is opposed to Government making any decisions as to whether a person who wants a gun should be allowed to buy one. Such a decision, it says, conflicts with the inalienable right to possess arms. This objection to anything resembling licensing is hard to square with the association's basic dedication to the promotion of social welfare, public safety, and law and order. It is hard to square with the inalienable right of the public at large to life, liberty, and

the pursuit of happiness in a world where these must be guarded as never before.

Obviously wherever decisions are made, mistakes will be made too. The objective to be sought should be a sound, sensible balance of all the factors and principles in this highly complex policy issue. I am satisfied that S. 1975, as amended as of November 27, 1963, provides minimum legislation. I do not agree with the contention of the National Wildlife Federation, supported, according to the press, by the National Rifle Association and others, that the discretion of the Secretary of the Treasury in prescribing the form and content of the required affidavit, should be restricted to precise limits to be set forth in the bill.

The reason given by the federation, and from the extensive efforts I have made to understand the NRA's position on this overall issue, the Wildlife Federation probably reflects the association's view as well, is that the information made available to the Government must not include the serial number of the gun. Such information would approximate registration, which these groups regard as anathema. The objection, as the federation executive director stated, is that—

*** this would provide the most effective and convenient way of disarming the private citizen should a subversive power infiltrate our police systems or our enemies occupy our country.

If these groups are really concerned about this eventuality and expect the country to share that concern, we should expect them to have emergency plans to destroy their own files if enemy occupation threatened and to propose that similar plans be in readiness to dispose of the files of gun producers and dealers maintained under existing legislation, as well as the records of all hunting licenses that have been issued.

An efficient army of occupation would probably not take the time and trouble to seize the files of all the police departments and game wardens of the country, but might prefer a quick single step, a quick single trip to 1600 Rhode Island Avenue, Washington, D.C., the headquarters of the National Rifle Association. So I trust that, consistent with the NRA's own argument, that they are making plans to dispose of their files if the country is really threatened.

Senator YARBOROUGH. I might say this, Mr. Steinberg, if a foreign military occupation force ever did conquer America, you wouldn't have any difficulty disarming the people. I have seen military forces, I have been in occupation of Germany and Japan. When you say, "Turn in your arms," and there is a death penalty, they will turn them in, including matchlocks and wheellocks and everything else.

Mr. STEINBERG. I would like at this point to list some of the additional provisions I would like to see considered in some form to the November 27 version of S. 1975. I am still in the process of refining my own thinking on these, but it may be of some value to the committeee if I mention them now.

In the first place, the police authentication of the applicant's affidavit might include police certification that the applicant's purpose is sound and that he shows minimum evidence in his record that he knows how to use firearms. As every veteran of the Armed Forces knows and I presume every person who uses a gun for legitimate

civilian purposes, as well-using a gun should require not only possessing it and firing it, but knowing how to use it, how to maintain it, how to secure its safety. Membership in a gun club or recent honorable discharge from military service or similar experience might be adequate prima facia evidence in this regard.

Senator YARBOROUGH. Mr. Steinberg, could you condense that? We must adjourn at 12 o'clock and there is another witness after you and we are denying him an opportunity to be heard.

Mr. STEINBERG. I would only say, sir, that I think that some of the other provisions that might be considered would include some attention to the type of advertising that disreputable gun dealers have been putting into the pulp magazines. I am not sure that this is a proper province for Government attention. I am aware of the Bill of Rights and freedom of the press, but one of the problems has been, as I read the hearings before congressional committees, that pictures of guns with wild advertising and so forth has tended to excite people who shouldn't be using guns and to incite them to buy guns for illegal purposes.

Senator YARBOROUGH. Of course, we do have a lot of people that don't know how to use guns and who intend to use them legally. Just look at the number of horses and cows shot during the hunting season each year and you will realize that there are a lot of uninformed people possessing guns who are not people who have vicious or illegal temperaments.

Can you condense this?

Mr. STEINBERG. I want to say in conclusion

Senator YARBOROUGH. You are at liberty to write this out.

Mr. STEINBERG. I will and present it for the record. In conclusion, I feel that although there are many problems involved in the administration of such legislation by police departments and so forth, this should not deter us from adopting tighter controls. There are all kinds of imperfections in the operation of a democracy and we will have to suffer them here also.

Senator YARBOROUGH. Thank you for your contribution. We are not cutting you off. You are invited to write this out in full, add your suggestions about advertising and anything you want and file that. We will be glad to receive it.

Mr. STEINBERG. Thank you very much and I apologize for being so long.

Senator YARBOROUGH. Our time is short. It wasn't your length, but the shortness of time.

(Mr. Steinberg's prepared statement follows:)

I appear before your committee today to support the principle behind S. 1975, to endorse the bill as far as it goes, and to state that the bill does not go far enough in the direction of insuring the development of a sound, forward-looking Federal law in the field of firearms control.

In presenting these observations, I want the committee to know that I understand fully the principles of the second amendment to the Constitution regarding the right to bear arms. I submit without qualification that even the stronger bill I would prefer to see adopted is fully consistent with that constitutional provision.

The time has long since passed when the firearms control laws of the Federal Government and each of the States needed to be tightened and given the effectiveness demanded by rapid and substantial population shifts, by the mushrooming growth of urban areas, and by explosive sociological changes. Existing laws dealing with criminal conduct should be vigorously enforced and penalties imposed that adequately match the enormity of the violation.