mitted with guns before this, they have a plus 2 or x plus 3 now, but they have a geometric progression every year.

Mr. Hoover has constantly put out statistics which appall most of us when we see the tremendous increase in the crime rate, and particularly the crime rate where violence and firearms are used.

One of the startling statistics is that the incidence of injury to victims of a robbery, of a crime, when a firearm is used is, and I have forgotten the figures, many, many times the incidence of injury when a firearm is not used.

Mr. BATTIN. I presume that you gave us the information you did concerning England to dramatize what was happening in that country.

At the same time are the figures that you are giving me now again on a geometric progression in this country? Is that also weighted for our increase in population? Is the number of crimes based upon population?

Mr. COHEN. Oh, our crime rate based on population is just about as astronomical as it is in the absolute sense. Our population is only rising I think at about 12 or 2 percent a year, and the crime rate has doubled in the last 5 or 6 years.

Mr. BATTIN. Let's get back on this side of the Atlantic for a minute. You also in your testimony mentioned that there were several thousand guns shipped into the Chicago area in contravention of local law. There is presently in section 902 (c) of the Federal Firearms Act a penalty for the manufacturer or the dealer shipping to an individual a gun in violation of a State or local law.

Mr. COHEN. The Chicago area has a law; that is, the city law. The regulation we apply is a statewide regulation. Since there is no intrastate law there is no violation of Federal statute here, and of course one of the problems here is that these incidents are always after the fact and the local police in that instance or the police were powerless to know about these weapons. We ran a concerted campaign to help identify these things, but with the limitations of manpower and so forth and the fact that we have absentee records makes it much, much more difficult, much more time-consuming on our part and on the local police part, to try to determine these facts.

Mr. BATTIN. How about New York with the Sullivan law?

Mr. COHEN. The interesting thing about New York with its Sullivan law and with all the maligning of the New York crime rate is the incidence of crime or violence committed by guns percentagewise is less than many other places because of the Sullivan law, and the Sullivan law, of course, is not effective because people in New York can cross States lines to go to Maryland, to go to other States, where the rules are less stringent, and this, of course, makes the Sullivan law less than effective.

Mr. BATTIN. You have been able to supply us figures and I would appreciate if you could in this instance, because there should be very accurate records kept of legitimate dealers in the State of New York on how many weapons have been sold in the State of New York. Mr. COHEN. We will see if we can get those for you. (The information referred to follows:)

I was asked to supply information with respect to firearms sales within the State of New York. Inquiry by the New York field office of our Alcohol and Tobacco Tax Division failed to obtain complete figures in this regard. It was determined, however, that New York State firearms wholesalers purchased 28,306

handguns in 1963, 30,103 in 1964, and 16.938 in the first 6 months of 1965. This information was obtained through the New York State excise tax records. No comparable figures were obtainable for purchases of rifles or shotguns.

Mr. BATTIN. This, I believe, is the only way we can make more than a guess as to numbers of weapons that we are talking about.

Mr. COHEN. The New York officials, of course, can tell you how many guns have been confiscated as a result of crime because under the Sullivan law those guns are taken, and I am sure they have accurate records and I am sure that the police officials in the State of New York and the city of New York can supply you with pretty accurate records in that regard.

Mr. BATTIN. On page 11 of your testimony you are speaking of numbers of weapons. You seem to have adopted testimony that was given on S. 1592 concerning the amount of firearms that were brought into the country during the years 1963 and 1964.

Do you have the figures or the compilation that brought you to the figure of 2,167,629 firearms?

Mr. COHEN. I believe those figures were the compilation of the subcommittee study of this subject and come from a variety of sources, and we did use those figures, sir.

Mr. BATTIN. But you have no independent justification of them from your office?

Mr. COHEN. We don't maintain figures in our office. We have nothing to do with that particular aspect of this thing. As I understand it from Mr. Ritter, he indicated to me that Senator Dodd indicated those figures came from the Bureau of the Customs and munitions control authorities.

Mr. BATTIN. This is what bothers me because the only information that I have been able to run down on it is from the U.S. Department of Commerce, the Bureau of the Census, dealing with U.S. imports, merchandise for consumption, commodity and country of origin, and as far as rifles are concerned, military rifles, which is part of this, during 1963, 156,064 rifles came in and in 1964 there were 93,859, and pistols during 1963-64 totaled 476,318, so we are far, far removed from this figure of 2 million.

Mr. COHEN. One of the problems here, sir, is the problem that much of the surplus military weapons from abroad comes in as scrap. They don't come in as weapons. Therefore, the Commerce figures may be somewhat erroneous in that regard.

We have been checking with Commerce to determine whether they are aware of some of these problems and as of yesterday we could not come to any firm understanding that their figures were absolutely accurate.

As I understand, Senator Dodd analyzed these figures very painstakingly by checking many, many sources in addition to those Commerce sources, and I am sure that he can supply you with the method of his derivation of those figures.

Mr. BATTIN. Basically on the figure you are just adopting the testimony that was given in the Senate?

Mr. COHEN. Yes, sir.

Mr. BATTIN. Again on page 11 of your testimony you say that some of these military weapons and other firearms are not particularly suitable for lawful sporting purposes. Are you thinking there of

antitank guns, bazookas, and mortars, or are you thinking of figures that I give here of rifles and pistols?

Mr. COHEN. Both factors and, of course, even the figures of the Commerce Department show about a half million pistols and revolvers, many of those of questionable quality.

Mr. BATTIN. This again brings me into an area. Are you acquainted with H. P. White Laboratories that do a great deal of testing of weapons?

Mr. COHEN. I personally am not acquainted with them, sir.

Mr. BATTIN. All major countries, including our own, have testing facilities for weapons to make sure that they are safe, and they operate generally by putting a heavier load of powder in the cartridge to be fired to make sure that the back pressure and the gas will not explode the chamber, and many of the weapons that come into this country have been from England and France and Italy.

Strangely enough, they are more rigid in their inspection of each weapon than is the United States, and I don't see the justification for your testimony that these are not fitted or could be dangerous or couldn't be used for some lawful purpose.

Mr. COHEN. I can only cite you, sir, the statements of the National Rifle Association which in this regard agree with us. As I indicated in my statement, the National Rifle Association has made its own. independent studies of many of these weapons and I believe Mr. Orth testified to the fact that many of these weapons are not good quality and are dangerous to the user.

Mr. BATTIN. What I am thinking of specifically is the great bulk of weapons that come in are military.

Mr. COHEN. There is no question of the quality of military weapons. They met whatever rigid military specifications were drawn in England, France, or Italy, or wherever they might come from.

Mr. BATTIN. I think we have to put the word "military" in quotes because some of the best game rifles in the country today are ex-military weapons, rifles in particular.

With the Springfield 30-06 you don't have to make any modification of the rifle. You can load it and go out and hunt deer, elk, or any other big game.

Mr. COHEN. You have me at a disadvantage here, sir. I am not a big-game hunter, but I have been informed in most cases those guns are remodeled to some extent.

Mr. BATTIN. I hunt and I have been accused of not being a biggame hunter either.

Mr. COHEN. Even a small-game hunter, sir.

Mr. BATTIN. Did the State Department testify before the Senate committee?

Mr. COHEN. I think the Munitions Control Board aspect of the State Department did, sir.

Mr. BATTIN. The reason I ask is that under present law, if my recol lection serves me correctly, as far as foreign imports of weapons are concerned there would be no difficulty in just not granting an import license into this country for weapons, and I think we are getting into a question here where if you don't know I would like to ask the chairman before the hearings conclude that we have some testimony from the State Department concerning whether or not we aren't in

fact creating some problems with our allies relative to the sale of their surplus and obsolete weapons.

Mr. COHEN. We have checked this with the State Department, sir, and it is my understanding that the only controls that they have now deal with the aspect of neutrality insofar as it is concerned with dealing with our foreign friends, that we shan't interfere with providing weapons in that regard.

It is my understanding that the aspects of control here do not go as far in this field as limiting these types of weapons from coming into this country and they feel that they have no authority to recommend the withholding of or any licensing of the importation of these weapons, and in this regard, not only in regard to this control, but in many of the aspects of this bill, the analogy that might be used is, to use the example of the Montana farmer, we are using a plow made of wood to handle a problem that today must be handled by a tractor with modern devices.

We are dealing with archaic laws designed for another day.

Mr. BATTIN. What I am trying to get at is that certainly if I as an individual want to import 10,000 rifles made in England which are surplus equipment there, before I can get them into this country either the Department of Commerce, or the Munitions Board, or somebody has to approve the license for the importation of that product, not just limiting it to that end, and I am wondering—and I am just seeking information because I am not fully acquainted here as to whether or not they would have any right to deny me that import license if they determined it was not in the best interest of the United States.

Mr. COHEN. I am not certain of that, sir, so I best not stray in someone else's area.

Mr. BATTIN. Let's go to the next question of supply and demand. Certainly if because of new developments in weapons-I am thinking of rifles and guns that can be fired easily from the shoulderif a change takes place that makes obsolete the military weapons of another country in the free world, and they have now a great surplus they have been using the United States and other countries to dispose of these weapons to be put to use by sportsmen and othersif they can't sell them to us they are very apt to sell them to revolutionaries around the world-which would be best then when we get down to this question of either/or?

Mr. COHEN. I am not expert enough to answer that either/or question, sir. I think that it would be very bad for this country to accept foreign arms distributed to minors, distributed to mentally defectives, distributed to potential criminals, only for that purpose of keeping them from revolutionaries.

I think that our State Department, our Government, is sufficiently ingenious to devise other methods to keep our friends from supplying these arms to potential enemies.

Mr. BATTIN. Do you have a copy of the bill there with you?
Mr. COHEN. I am sure there is one around here somewhere.

bill are you talking about, sir; H.R. 6628?

Mr. BATTIN. Well, they are all identical. I have S. 1591.
Mr. COHEN. I have several of them in front of me.

Which

Mr. BATTIN. Anyway, in the definition of "destructive device," page 2, section (c) (3)

Mr. COHEN. This is the amendment to the national act?

Mr. BATTIN. Yes.

Mr. COHEN. I am sorry. I am looking in the other act. Yes, sir; you remember that we have proposed an amendment to that language, sir?

Mr. BATTIN. Yes.

Mr. COHEN. I think it has been supplied.

Mr. BATTIN. Under the section as it stands now with the definition of "destructive device" and the use of "explosive or incendiary," this could cover any rifle of a military caliber, for example the .30-06 8 millimeter Mauser, .303 British, 7 millimeter Mauser, and 7.62 NATO calibers.

Mr. COHEN. Those are for big game hunting I understand. We have taken those out, an exception over in the amendments that we supplied yesterday, sir.

Mr. BATTIN. Again you are going to take out this language of "explosive or incendiary"?

Mr. COHEN. No, sir; no, sir. I mean if we are talking about an explosive bomb or an incendiary bomb, I think we want to very tightly control who might have access to that type weapon.

Mr. BATTIN. This is the very point because all of these rifles, a caliber similar to this, can fire incendiary and explosive cartridges and do as a practical matter. This is again an ammunition definition that you are getting in here.

Mr. COHEN. The definition of the ammunition, the lawful and justifiable ammunition for such a weapon, would be entirely exempted, as would the weapon.

However, the unlawful type ammunition would not be exempted. Mr. BATTIN. How about the definition of a missile? What do you visualize as a missile? Certainly a projectile coming out the end of a rifle is a missile.

Mr. COHEN. I think the ammunition definition here is sufficient to exempt that. I am certain that both the staff of this committee and our staff are sufficiently skilled in drafting so that I think there is no problem in that regard.

Certainly the congressional intent here is clear and we would not I think have any problems with that particular area.

Mr. COHEN. If these are intended and compounded as weapons, then they would be controlled, but if they are not compounded as weapons, if they are intended for lawful use and designed for lawful use, there is no problem here.

In yesterday's draft that we sent on page 10, a device which is not designed or redesigned or used or intended for use as a weapon is exempted.

Mr. BATTIN. On these weapons I am talking about, the .30-06, et cetera, how about a device that can be used to launch a grenade? Mr. COHEN. A grenade launcher I believe is covered.

Mr. BATTIN. Covered?

Mr. COHEN. Yes, sir.

Mr. BATTIN. This again is one of the problems that comes up because there are grenade launchers that fit onto a rifle.