With this for background, it is not reasonable to suppose that the confidential or secret meeting between representatives of the Secretary of the Treasury, the National Rifle Association, and the Shooting Sports Foundation held Thursday or Wednesday of last week reflected the principle of "open covenants openly arrived at." The story which has been brought to us, and which your honorable committee must in justice to the people examine, is a story of threat and intimidation by the executive branch of the Government for the purposes of allowing it later to cow the legislative branch. These appear to be the facts: Mr. Franklin Orth and the representative of the Shooting Sports Foundation were told by the administration spokesmen that they had about 5 minutes to make up their minds; they could either accept the whole package of Dodd bills rammed down their throats, or they could sit back and accept a modified S. 14 with notification to police departments of handgun sales interstate and also accept the cessation of imported military surplus without opposition. It did not take 5 minutes for the SSF and NRA people to decide they would lie down and accept this seeming lesser of evils. It is indignantly submitted that this is an evil method of government, if such a meeting did take place. It is imperative in justice to Government, and to the people, that the committee should find out and bare the truth about this or any similar meetings. As a loyal NRA supporter since 1943, it seems to this petitioner to be very doubtful if the membership of the NRA at large would ever ratify this action of Mr. Orth's, if such agreement did in fact occur. While this petitioner does not have ESP or other faculties of extraordinary means for information gathering, it is considered significant that this story was told to him by a usually reliable source the day following the occurrence, and that it traveled from the Atlantic to the Pacific coast in an evening. This is but one of many, many instances in which the fallibility of the NRA and its actual failures to represent the shooters of the Nation had occurred. Time does not permit that full elaboration of all relevant facts which the importance of the subject demands. But the Dodd bills in detail and in whole are injurious to the national welfare. Enacted to shut off imports, they will give special privilege to domestic makers beyond their just dues. After all, there is nothing special about buying guns in the world market: Winchester could buy and deal in surplus like any other honest man, instead of hiding behind the petticoats of embargo and boycott. By levying undue and burdensome restrictions upon small merchants, mailorder dealers, and on interstate gun collectors, they will tend to restrict the gun trade as a matter of privilege to the commercial channels built up over the years through which domestic industry distributes their products. The effect of this will not be (as they fondly suppose) any increase in their own business; the effect will be to discourage further the popular healthy and useful interest in the firearms hobby sports. By diverting the time of the Congress from useful work, needed legislation is sidetracked while time is wasted in the fruitless pastime of firearms legislation. Commercial envy and private greed are more important motivations of antifirearms laws than objective public good. Continued injury to the national defense will occur. The Machine Gun Act of 1934 (National Firearms Act) destroyed the American genius for building superior automatic weapons, and therefore contributed directly to the deaths in combat where tactical conditions caused it, of American soldiers equipped with indifferent arms. Did he need more ammo? His Colt .45 held but seven rounds. Was the firefight hot? His Browning machinegun jumped out of headspace, tore the case head off, and jammed as his post was overrun. The tale is long, but its finale includes the M-14 swindle ("A swindle upon the public," said Fred A. Roff, president of Colt's to the petitioner in 1959), the delays in adopting the AR-10/15 series, the adoption of a German machinegun as our standard gun it being so superior (1944, the MG-42 adopted and prototyped as substitute standard), and innumerable errors which a judicious appraisal of the influence of our bad antigun legislation has on ordnance technology would reveal as avoidable. The latest joker in the Dodd bill package is S. 1591, which says that you are a bad kid if you have a rocket, and that the dealer has to pay $1,000 license fee. The criminal stupidity of this piece of legislation, should it become law, is revealed by a brief look at the state of weapons technology today. The small rocket bullet is the development of the future. The purpose of the Dodd bill is to destroy the ability of the natural genius of the American people to put their sagacious talents onto the development of this important new field of small arms. The attached folder of the MB Associates of San Ramon, Calif., is but one form of "caseless cartridge" which would be put out of business if the S. 1591 type of bill becomes law. The proprietors of MBA at present do not have a heavy capital in their work, and they flippantly replied to this petitioner's warning, that if S. 1591 became law, "we will just have to find another business." While this may be acceptable for the MBA people, from a personal standpoint, this petitioner's very comprehensive view of history and the development of weapons technology suggests to him the view that the purpose of government is to encourage the development by the people of useful arts and sciences, and not the destruction of an entire field of technology before it has a chance to get started. Commercially, it is not in the interests of Olin-Mathieson for the MB Associates to achieve a good business and thus found the new industry which lies inherent in this novel approach to weaponry, but it is equally not the business of the Congress to pass laws tending to the destruction of one branch of American industry for the personal and private benefit of another. Regulating competition, not destroying either competition or incentive, is the only just role for the Congress. It is hoped that these few thoughts of many which could be set down, will be enough to direct your honorable committee to a most piercing examination of the underlying motives of the charges and countercharges which will come before your body for examination. It is equally hoped these few ideas may serve to illuminate points perhaps before held obscure. Your petitioner will be willing to present himself for further questioning on any aspect of the domestic or international small arms trade which his intimate connection since 1947 might permit him to elucidate, at the committee's behest, early in October when at present planning he expects to attend the meeting of the American Ordnance Association at Aberdeen, and so could come to Washington. Your petitioner prays that the Dodd bills be killed in committee, but that the bills aimed at repressing the unlawful use of guns be well considered in the light of their inherent practicability and enforcibility, such as Representative Casey's bill. STATEMENT OF E. DEXTER GALLOWAY, HUTCHINSON, KANS. Gentlemen, I wish to thank you for giving me this opportunity to present this statement, expressing my feelings and opinion on this proposed legislation. Senator Dodd's initial bill was designed to regulate mail-order sale of guns. However, Senate bill 1592 goes far beyond this. This bill would give the Secretary of the Treasury unlimited power to impose arbitrary and burdensome regulations and restrictions on the sales of all guns. These restrictions would apply to law-abiding citizens who wish to order sporting firearms, and would in effect make it virtually impossible for those law-abiding citizens to have sporting firearms who do not have convenient access to licensed dealers for over-the-counter sales. The licensing requirements for the sale of ammunition would virtually eliminate the small retail hardware, gas station, and grocery store sales, and the manufacturers' license would apparently apply to clubs engaged in reloading for members, which would virtually eliminate this phase of sporting firearms activity. The language of the bill, which would arbitrarily grant the Treasury Department the right to refuse a license to an applicant, is so vague and indefinite as to really be incapable of adequate interpretation. The importation of a new firearm would be prohibited unless the Secretary found that it "would not be contrary to public interest." This, too, is vague and indefinite and would be a delegation of legislative authority to an appointed bureaucrat who is not responsible to the electorate as a whole. The transportation of a sporting firearm across State lines, for hunting, is very commonplace, but the power to impose burdensome restrictions and regulations on such transportation could virtually eliminate the out-of-State hunter. The sale of nonresident hunting licenses is important in many States, as, of course, are the dollars which hunters spend while in the State and en route. Administrative decisions are possible under the broad power given in this bill, which could conceivably lead to the elimination of the private ownership of all guns. A bill which would impose stringest penalties on the misuse of firearms would be proper, but the firearm itself is not a proper object of legislation. Congressman Casey's bill, H.R. 5642, in the 89th Congress, calling for imprisonment for anyone using a gun transported across a State line in a commission of a felony, is an excellent approach, and is a bill regulating the misuse of a firearm. Legislation cannot keep a criminal, a juvenile, an addict or other undesirable person from getting a gun if he really wants it; but this bill imposes no penalties upon a criminal for having acquired it. The right of citizens to own and bear arms is an important part of our heritage. Legislate against misuse of the firearm, but not against the firearm itself. GREAT BEND, KANS., May 17, 1965. Representative Bов DOLE, DEAR REPRESENTATIVE DOLE: I am writing to you in protest to bills S. 14 and S. 1592. The purpose of the two bills, it seems, is to curtail the availability of firearms to the criminal element and at the same time defranchise every American citizen of his constitutional right to own or bear firearms for the protection of his home and family or for shooting pleasure as millions of Americans now enjoy. In the volumes of published information I have read, there appears to be three outstanding objectives in the antifirearms legislative proposals. Although their intentions in part have merit, I cannot help but feel there are ulterior motives in their method as the end does not justify the means they propose. The outstanding objective of the antigun proponents, apparently, is to restrict the criminal in procuring firearms to facilitate his illegal endeavors. Their argument is that if the availability of firearms is curtailed then crime will diminish or subside. What an illogical reasoning, for the gangsters, robbers and murderers will have no scruples about obeying a prohibitive gun law when the gravity of murder, assassination and commission of violence and the penalties for such is far greater than the violation of any antigun law. The second objective of the antigun legislation is to outlaw the mail order of firearms. The reasoning here is that if the criminal cannot procure a gun easily he won't have one to use in his vicious trade. There is a fallacy in such reasoning as the seasoned and professional criminal will merely resort to burglary to acquire the instruments he desires for his illegal practice, whether they be guns, acid, dynamite, or long-blade knives. At present, the average cunning criminal won't stupidly order a gun by mail and then use it to commit a crime. Yes, it has been done by 1 in 180 million people, and there are an equal number of ways to procure a gun with which to commit violence, mail order excluded. Their third objective will, if successful, eventually and completely disarm the American people by registration. Once our guns are registered it would be a simple matter at a later date to declare them illegal and have them all confiscated. Once the gun bigots "get their foot in the door" it will subsequently open wider to complete disarmament of every American citizen despite the fact that our Constitution at present says we have the right to own and bear firearms. In further reasoning, I wish to remind you that in event of a nuclear war there must necessarily be an army of occupation to complete the job of taking over our country. If our guns were registered all the invaders would have to do is check up the registration list, go out and pick up our guns. However, if by antigun legislation we are disarmed in advance, there would be nothing with which to fight the enemy with but rubber hoses, pick handles, and broken beer bottles. Now, I wish to take issue with the subject in question from an economic point of view. Any informed person knows there are literally thousands of small businesses across the land including manufacturers, sporting goods stores and gunsmiths who make their living selling, trading, and repairing firearms of all vintages. There are also the directly related companies such as the manufacturers of gunstocks, telescope sights, and tools for the handcrafters, of which there are too many to enumerate. There are the manufacturers of component parts and tools for the millions who love to shoot and reload their own shells and cartridges. We must not overlook the indirectly related enterprises such as the sporting magazines, with their thousands of staff members and millions of printed words for the pleasure of our gun-loving, freedom-loving America. The printing bills are tremendous and the ink alone could run into thousands of dollars per year. This is big business. It is all a part of the mail-order business and to curtail it or completely eliminate it by law would create a serious economic situation in which a billion or so dollars could be taken out of circulation per annum. The final and strongest point I desire to make against the restriction of owning or procuring firearms is this: Anyone who has knowledge of the prohibition era of the twenties should be well informed of those lawless years in which crime, black marketing, and bootlegging in whiskey and alcohol reached unprecedented heights. Prohibition was decreed a failure and eventually repealed. If gun ownership is prohibited, which appears to be the concerted effort behind this antigun legislation, then history could well repeat itself by the bootlegging, black marketing, and smuggling of firearms. This is crime in itself and could well reach fantastic proportions. I hereby reason that the gun bigots, along with the well-meaning antigun proponents and legislators, if they achieve victory, are unwittingly "setting the stage" for increased lawlessness and disorder. There are other and more deterring methods of reducing crime, not by taking it out on innocent Americans. Again I say, the end does not justify their means. Sincerely, TOMMY KNOBLOCH. A B C DRUG CO., Hays, Kans., July 24, 1965. WAYS AND MEANS COMMITTEE, The passage of "antigun" legislation is certain to accomplish one thing. It will establish and maintain a lucrative racket for the underworld who will bootleg guns just as booze was bootlegged during prohibition, and just as narcotics are peddled now. M. W. KRAEMER. (The following letter to the editor of the Garden City (Kans.) Telegram, written by James McWilliams, was forwarded by the Honorable Robert Dole, Member of Congress from Kansas, for inclusion in the record of the hearings :) OPPOSED TO DODD BILL Many well meaning but thoroughly misinformed people throughout the country are clamoring for passage of the Dood bill (S. 1592) which they seem to think will bring all crime to an immediate and grinding halt. I am opposed to the Dodd bill for many reasons, three of which I would like to mention. First: It is unconstitutional. Second: So far as I can ascertain it contains no provisions for the prosecution of criminals. Third: It would tend to disarm the law-abiding citizen who is trying to follow obedience of the law to the letter, while the criminal could and would get all the guns he wanted by either stealing or buying them on the black market which this bill would be sure to create. The antigun group seems to think crime cannot be committed without guns while the facts are that guns are used in less than 15 percent of the total number of aggravated assaults while knives are used in over 40 percent of the total number of aggravated assaults committed in the United States. It would be interesting to know what this group would propose to do with knives, clubs, chains, ice picks, or lead pipes, any one of which would kill a person just as dead as any gun could. New York's Sullivan law is considered by many to be the most stringent gun control law in the United States; yet, there are 25 other States which have a lower per capita murder rate than New York has. In my opinion the Sullivan law does one thing-it assures the criminal that his law-abiding victim will be unarmed and therefore unable to defend himself. (I believe the following paragraph which I am quoting from Life Line; vol. 7, No. 24, of Feb. 24, 1965, proves this statement :) "Two dectectives on patrol watched two suspicious characters who appeared to be sizing up a bar and grill. These two experienced detectives recognized the signs; there was little doubt that the two men were preparing to hold up the bar. They searched the men, found loaded and concealed guns on each, and took the men to jail. The judge ruled that the policemen had no evidence the suspects were about to commit a crime and could not have had any reason to be searching for concealed weapons. Thereupon, the men were set free. The district attorney went into a superior court under the Sullivan Act which provides serious punishment for carrying a concealed weapon. But, here again, the court held that search of a citizen prior to the existence of probable cause is both illegal and unreasonable. Evidence obtained under those conditions was ruled as not admissible. Despite the fact that the defendant had carried a concealed weapon without a license, the law set him free." SALMON, IDAHO, July 9, 1965. Hon. WILBUR MILLS, Chairman, Ways and Means Committee, U.S. House of Representatives, Washington, D.C. DEAR CONGRESSMAN MILLS: I herewith submit a brief against S. 1592 and its House equivalent. I will not include a synopsis. I shall make this paper concise. (1) Tough antigun laws have been in existence in parts of this country for many years. There is not one iota of statistical evidence to show that they have prevented crime as compared with less restricted States. I admit that liberal gun laws cannot be given all the credit but during the 59 years that I have lived in Lemhi County, Idaho, there has not been a holdup at gunpoint or a forcible rape committed. I think this fact is entitled to your consideration. In all probability there are as many pistols in this county as there are people and three times as many privately owned firearms of all kinds. (2) Restrictive gun laws make their own contribution to crime. Nothing encourages the professional criminal as much as savagely enforced antigun (anti-self-defense) laws that assure him that his proposed victim will be unable to defend himself. According to Senator John McClellan the crime rate in 1964 was 11 percent higher than in 1963 and 75 percent higher than in 1954. It does not appear, from these figures that the rough laws against personal defensive weapons, which are almost universal in the eastern half of this country, is decreasing crime. It also indicates that no police force, no matter how efficient, can protect everyone all the time. (3) The right of self-defense is the first law of nature. It has existed since animate life first existed on earth. It cannot be denied to good citizens without eventual disaster. Every increase in criminal activity makes that fact more obvious. (4) Senator Dodd called Thomas Siatos, publisher of Guns & Ammo magazine (quoted from the Los Angeles Herald-Examiner) a liar for an editorial statement as follows: "*** if for any reason they do not like your looks, your politics, your religion, or anything else you may not be allowed a license." Senator Dodd said that there was no such clause in the bill. Naturally there isn't but Siatos told the exact truth. It is the sum and substance of the whole bill. There are about 10 places in it where the Secretary is given final authority as follows: "in such manner as the Secretary shall by regulation prescribe." Also this bill will be enforced by fallible human beings who may be stupid, prejudiced, dishonest, or motivated by subversive intent. Laws of this type, giving executive officers the right to make rules and regulations are bad. The present official may be wise and reasonable but no one, in Congress or elsewhere, knows what sort of a person his successor may be. This is a prime fault in Senator Dodd's bill. It is a sloppy bill. One very good reason is that if a (5) Gun law should be left to the States. citizen becomes sufficiently disgusted with State law he can move to a jurisdiction that suits him better but if the law comes from Washington, he can only let it corrode his respect for his country. |