RESOLUTION ADOPTED BY LOUISIANA WILD LIFE & FISHERIES COMMISSION AT ITS REGULAR MEETING HELD APRIL 27, 1965 Whereas the great outdoor sport of hunting and recreational shooting in Louisiana is being threatened by the introduction of an antifirearms bill in Congress, S. 1592 sponsored by Senator Dodd, of Connecticut, and companion measures, H.R. 6628 and H.R. 6723; and Whereas this bill, if enacted, will increase the cost as well as make it extremely difficult for Louisiana's 300,000 sportsmen to legally acquire, transport, use, and repair shotguns and rifles essential for hunting purposes; and Whereas this proposed legislation poses a direct threat to the continuation of this traditional form of outdoor recreation and calls for further infringement of the right of Americans to keep and bear arms as guaranteed by the Bill of Rights and the second amendment of the Constitution; and Whereas this may lead to total gun registration followed by confiscation and the disarming of the sportsmen of this country at a time when all agencies of the Government should be encouraging its citizens to use and acquire a working knowledge of the use of rifles and shotguns in the interest of national security as well as outdoor recreation: Therefore be it Resolved, That the Louisiana Wildlife & Fisheries Commission does hereby go on record as being vigorously opposed to S. 1592 and its companion measure, H.R. 6228, to be considered soon in Congress, and that each member of the Louisiana congressional delegation be requested and urged to take whatever steps necessary to see that these bills are not enacted; and be it further Resolved, That representatives of this commission be authorized to attend and testify at any congressional committee hearings on these bills as may be deemed necessary. This is to certify that the above and foregoing is a true and correct excerpt from the minutes of the meeting of the Louisiana Wildlife & Fisheries Commission held in New Orleans, La., on Tuesday, April 27, 1965. J. D. HAIR, Jr., Director. DEPARTMENT OF INLAND FISHERIES & GAME, Mr. LEO H. IRWIN, Chief Counsel, House Committee on Ways and Means, DEAR Mr. IRWIN: I regret that prior commitments will prevent me from testifying before the Committee on Ways and Means at the hearings on pending firearm proposals, scheduled to begin on Monday, July 12, 1965. I wish to register opposition by the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries & Game to H.R. 6628 and H.R. 6783. We object strenuously to all such regulations designed to restrict or control the private ownership of guns. It is our firm belief that these measures not only infringe on the constitutional rights of U.S. citizens, but would result in inestimable damage to our wildlife conservation programs, would effect a further invasion of Federal authority into rights reserved to the States, would seriously retard the operation of this department by reducing our income, and would have a tremendously adverse effect on the economy of our State by the eventual decrease in number of sportsmen who would continue to own guns and hunt in Maine. We wish to register our support of H.R. 5642, and H.R. 7472, which appear to us to be aimed at the crux of the problems involved in misuse of firearms by criminals. Very truly yours, RONALD T. SPEERS, Commissioner. BISMARCK, N. DAK., July 14, 1965. Hon. WILBUR MILLS, Chairman, House Ways and Means Committee, H.R. 6628 seeks to abolish all mail-order sales and restrict over-the-counter purchase of rifles, shotguns, and handguns by sportsmen. This bill is identical to S. 1592, and it is the opinion of the North Dakota Game & Fish Department that its passage would work an extreme hardship on the lawabiding sportsmen of the United States. RUSSELL W. STUART, Commissioner, North Dakota Game & Fish Department. 51-635-65-pt. 2-18 COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA, PENNSYLVANIA GAME COMMISSION, Hon. WILBUR D. MILLS, Chairman, Committee on Ways and Means, DEAR REPRESENTATIVE MILLS: The Pennsylvania Game Commission desires that this letter be entered into the record in opposition to H.R. 6628 and H.R. 6723, as presently written and considered. The commission feels that unnecessary inconvenience and hardship would be imposed on law-abiding citizens and sportsmen. Much-needed funds for conservation work, benefiting many citizens other than hunters, could be lost by discouraging persons from seeking wholesome outdoor recreation and enjoyment through hunting. While adequate control of availability of surplus military devices such as bazookas, etc., is desirable, along with more strict enforcement of existing regulations and additional desirable controls concerning concealable weapons, sporting arms such as rifles and shotguns should be excluded from further regulation. These proposals, H.R. 6628, H.R. 6723, and S. 1592 give much too broad and unrestricted authority to the Treasury Department. Regulations which might be considered meaningful by this Department could be incompatible with the thinking of Congress and instituted without regard to realism, practicality, necessity, or to the intended results. Authority on such important features should not be delegated singularly to the Secretary of the Treasury or any like office or official. The Pennsylvania Game Commission will not object to further realistic regulations on concealable weapons and surplus military arms or devices. But the Pennsylvania Game Commission is unalterably opposed to the inclusion of rifles and shotguns and ammunition for these sporting arms in the proposals under consideration. Very truly yours, M. J. GOLDEN, Executive Director. CONNECTICUT STATE RIFLE & REVOLVER ASSOCIATION, INC., Glenbrook, Conn., July 15, 1965. Hon. WILBUR D. MILLS, Chairman, House Committee on Ways and Means, Washington, D.C. DEAR CONGRESSMAN MILLS: I wish to express my personal opposition and that of our organization, to the administration bills concerning the commerce of firearms in the United States. The basis of our opposition to the proposals designed to control such traffic in firearms is that the bills are unworkable, burdensome to the honest citizen, and totally without effect in controlling the criminal miuses of firearms. It is the latter which must be controlled. The history of the National Firearms Act and the Federal firearms law shows that the intent of Congress-to keep so-called gangster weapons out of the hand of the criminal-has been abused, and that the enforcement of these two laws has principally been against the citizen who has unknowingly violated that law while engaged in otherwise lawful activities such as collecting. You will be amazed to find from Federal records, as was I, that criminal prosecutions for violations of the two laws which the administration bills seek to enlarge have largely been in the area of "dewat" machineguns and the like, as well as for "other weapons" violations for which local laws already provided a remedy. I know of no successful prosecutions of gangsters under these laws, either for possession without payment of a tax or for illegal use of the proscribed weapons. I do know of numerous instances of abuse by Treasury agents by harassment of legitimate dealers, collectors, and merchants who deal in the welded-up and useless ornaments known as dewats. The history of harassment, embarrassment and senseless criminal and civil prosecutions of these people reads like a chapter from the numerous books on tyranny and its successful imposition. The said fact of our communal life is that criminals are undeterred by laws prohibiting them from the possession of weapons, and even in States like New York manage to obtain weapons for their aggressions from illegitimate sources always ready to make a quick dollar at the society's expense. The only effective means of controlling criminal behavior is that which our society developed after hundreds of years of experience—good laws, effectively enforced, and punishments meted out in accordance with the severity of the crime. That is not only the traditional system, but it is also the workable system which enabled the Anglo-Saxon forms to develop without infringing on the liberties of free peoples. The attempt to control crime by prohibiting weapons must fail in two aspects: the criminal will not obey the law and will obtain weapons; the honest citizen will obey the law, disarm himself and become an even easier prey for the hoodlum, thug, and rapist. At least, that has been the pattern to emerge in those States like New York which have tried a prohibitory law. Prohibition did not work with alcohol, and is not working with drugs: How then can we expect it to work with fireams, since in each of these areas, despite the dissimilarity of the instrumentality, we are essentially seeking to control human behavior? If the patterns of human behavior could so easily be controlled, simply by a passage of a law, would not the sociologists and criminologists so long concerned with society's problems have found this simple solution? And history itself shows is that laws against murder, rape, arson, and numerous other crimes have not been effective without adequate enforcement and swift and certain punishment. The approach which we would urge upon your committee, and the approach which would have the sincere and earnest backing of every citizen, is to enact legislation such as that urged by Congressman Casey to provide additional penalties for the use of arms in the commission of a crime. That legislation would impinge only on the criminal element in our country, would destroy no rights of the honest citizen, and would give society real protection if adequately enforced. With the help of the courts in imposing realistic sentences under the law, our streets would very soon be safer. In addition, such laws would be enforced within the framework of existing police agencies without increasing the workload and without additional expense to the taxpayers. To adopt Senator Dodd's suggestion would impose severe burdens of investigation of the Treasury Department, would require a substantial increase in its budget, and for the most part would be money spent on investigating honest citizens from whom society has nothing to fear. This can avail us nothing but increased expense, bureaucratic harassment and a diminution of our liberties. There are approximately 40 million owners of firearms in the United States, who are for the largest part responsible, decent people who use their arms for lawful purposes. A much smaller number, a fraction of a hundredth of 1 percent, use their arms for unlawful purposes. It offends my sense of justice to penalize that large group of lawful citizens for the transgression of a few criminals whom our courts have coddled and protected for too long. I say this as a practising lawyer who does criminal work and who is sickened at the soul by the overweaning solicitude of our judicial agencies for hoodlums and gangsters. If your committee should decide that some sort of law is necessary, and that the law should follow the lines of the Dodd approach, then I commend to you the duty of the Congress to enact legislation which is specific in its intent, and explicit in its terms. It is frequently "easier" to delegate authority to the executive department than it is to draw good legislation, but the subject matter of firearms legislation is too important to depend on administrative law for its functioning. The delegation of power without limit to the Secretary of the Treasury can only result in the abuse of that power, by the very nature of man and bureaucracy. The right to keep and bear arms, no matter how strongly ridiculed and attacked today, is still essential to liberty. It would be fatal to place so precious a right in a position where unscrupulous or ignorant men could surround its exercise with such harassments and redtape as effectually to deny it to us. It has been urged by Senator Dodd and others, that this is the only civilized nation in the world where there is unrestricted commerce in firearms, and that we should follow the lead of other nations like Japan, Germany, and Italy, and Franco-Spain in our firearms laws. In addition to the factual inaccuracy— there are more than 20,000 laws in the United States governing traffic in firearmsI find myself philosophically appalled that the United States is demeaned for the very liberty that brought us so many thousands and millions of our citizen from those countries less free. I feel no need to apologize for our freedoms, and in fact would die for them if called upon again to serve our Nation. I certainly would not compare our traditions of responsible self-government to the systems of the other so-called civilized nations. Perhaps this is chauvinism, but I believe that our Nation was indeed conceived under divine protection and guidance, and that our system of government is founded on a realistic appreciation of man's true nature. Our people have earned their freedom by their willingness to fight for freedom, and to die in its defense even for less fortunate people. I believe that is what I was doing in World War II, and what our people have done in all of the wars we have fought. I do not know of any other nation where the people have earned the right to their freedoms as we have here in this great Nation, with the possible exception of Switzerland, whose citizens also enjoy a guaranteed right to keep and to bear arms. I trust that your committee will be convinced of the ill-conceived nature of the legislation it is considering. It is important to our Nation, but also to the world, that we refuse to give up any of our freedoms in an age where we are still the only hope of enslaved peoples who aspire for freedom. Our Bill of Rights has stood firm for nearly 200 years, despite other attacks on it, only because we have refused to chip away at this foundcation of freedom piece by piece. But the very moment we denigrate the value of any one of its amendments, we begin the process by which the whole structure may be brought down. If the rights guaranteed by the second amendment and the numerous State constitutions no longer have validity, then let the Constitution be amended in the proper manner, not by the destruction of its protection through the imposition of unwarranted and unjustified and unrestricted regulation of the executive department, against which it was design to protect. We wish to express our appreciation of the public hearings which your committee is conducting, and the fair hearing you are giving to this problem. It is gratifying to know that we are being heard, and are being given consideration in a forum where the facts will be found. We do not fear the facts, but welcome them, for the truth, undistorted by the emotional approach of the proponents of the firearms laws, vindicates firearms and points to the source of society's trouble the criminal. Very truly yours, JAMES E. MURRAY III, Legislative Chairman. A STUDY OF THE ADMINISTRATION OF CHICAGO'S Prepared by the Illinois State Rifle Association, Inc. The Great Controversy Over Firearms Legislation Every session of the Illinois legislature bears witness to the introduction of one or more Bills designed to provide stricter, more restrictive controls over the puchase, possession and use of firearms by private citizens. Such Bills are ostensibly intended to reduce the accessibility of firearms to those classes of persons who are by reason. of either criminal or psychotic propensities generally regarded as unfit to possess firearms. The rationale accompanying such legislative proposals customarily resembles the following: (1) Everyone agrees that it is desirable to keep deadly weapons out of the hands of convicted criminals, fugitives from justice, persons under indictment, drug addicts, mental incompetents and minors. (2) Persons wishing to purchase a firearm should first be thoroughly investigated and cleared by the police from their area of residence before being allowed to complete their purchase. (3) Law-abiding citizens should certainly have no objections to the relatively minor inconveniences attendant to a police investigation, considering the resulting social value in keeping firearms out of the possession of undesirables. The persuasiveness of the former propositions have been continually assailed by many persons who contend that while logically reasonable they do not correspond with the hard facts of reality. Recognizing that academic exchanges of opinion are of little practical utility in evaluating or accurately predicting the actual effect of various types of proposed firearms legislation in Illinois, and in the interests of providing, once and for all time, a definitive answer to this highly controversial issue, the Illinois State Rifle Associaion conducted a careful and detailed study of the patterns and techniques employed in the administration of Chicago's pistol purchase permit law. The results of that study appear below and, more clearly than all the pious pronouncements to the contrary, establish the nature of that administration. Introduction and Background As of the time this report is written, there exists NO state law in Illinois which requires prior police permission in order for a law-abiding citizen of good repute to purchase a pistol or revolver. Under the Illinois law, any person who is not a minor, a narcotics addict, or an ex-felon within a five year period of release from the penitentiary, is entitled to buy a handgun within Illinois without police inter |