that the changes they most feared were not in fact in the bills that were before us then or are before you today.

I gathered from the newspapers that the confusion grew worse in the weeks of hearings after my testimony. At least one major opponent of the legislation admitted after speaking about it that he had not read the bill, and there were several charges back and forth of "hypocrisy" and deliberate misrepresentation of the bill's provisions.

Even now, there seems to be some confusion about just what this legislation would do and what it hopes to accomplish. And so I would like to start today by summarizing the legislation as clearly as I can. It would make five fundamental changes in existing law.

First: It would end all interstate commerce in firearms except between licensed importers, manufacturers, and dealers-all licensed by the Department of the Treasury. A dealer in one State could not ship a gun to a buyer in another State unless the buyer were also licensed. The purpose of this provision is to end the unarguably damaging evils of mail-order traffic in guns.

Under the law as it now stands, the large mail-order traffic in guns seriously hampers the administration of State laws which attempt to control the sale and use of guns.

A young man in any Eastern State, let us say, can write to a large volume gun distributor in California, and the distributor can send him what he asks, with frequent contempt for the laws in the buyer's State concerning the ownership of guns, and even more important, with no reference whatever to the extreme youth, or instability, or alcoholism, or criminal purpose of the buyer.

By ending interstate commerce in guns, we would eliminate this kind of shooting-in-the-dark transaction. By keeping retail sale of guns within State borders we would give State officials a real chance to enforce their laws protecting public safety.

There are some important, explicit exceptions to this prohibition against interstate traffic in guns. Sportsmen could continue to take their shotguns or rifles across State lines. Pistols could still be carried between States, in conformity with the laws of the States involved. But no longer could hundreds and thousands of persons, with criminal records or unstable or underage, buy weapons freely from out-of-State mail-order houses nor could those houses sell to them.

Second: This legislation would set some limits on the retail overthe-counter sale of weapons. A federally licensed dealer would have to conform in all standards with the State and local laws on the sale and ownership of guns.

In addition, he would have to ascertain the residence of the buyers. And he would have to establish that if they are buying a shotgun or rifle they are over 18 and if any other weapon that they are over 21. Most important, a dealer would have to ascertain that customers are residents of the State in which they are buying any handguns. Almost as severe a problem as the mail-order shipment of guns has been the fact that criminals can easily cross over into adjacent States and buy guns out of State where they are not known and where the guns laws may be far less stringent.

Numerous police authorities testified before the Senate that the permission for gun dealers to sell to visitors from out of State makes a a mockery of their attempts to disarm criminal elements.

Sportsmen could still buy rifles and shotguns in States other than their own. The prohibition against buying guns out of State would apply only to handguns.

Third: This legislation would seek to eliminate opportunists and fly-by-nights from the firearm retailing business by raising license fees beyond present token levels. The present annual license fee for a gun dealer is $1. For a manufacturer it is $25.

We expect that without damaging serious traders we could eliminate those who are not seriously interested by raising the fee to $100 for dealers in weapons and ammunition; to $500 for manufacturers of destructive devices such as grenades and bazookas; and to $1,000 for manufacturers of such things as bombs and grenades.

We would agree with the Senate amendment that exempts dealers who trade only in ammunition from licensing and from fees and that gives consideration to dealers who trade only in rifles and shotguns. For the latter, I think we could agree on a fee substantially less than $100. Still, we feel that the present dealers' fee of $1 is an invitation to abuse and should be changed.

Fourth: This legislation would give the Secretary of the Treasury reasonable discretion as to who should be licensed to manufacture, import, or deal in the deadly weapons with which the Federal Firearms Act is concerned.

In reviewing applications for a license, for instance, he could deny an applicant whom he found

by reason of his business experience, financial standing, or trade connections, not likely to maintain operations in compliance with this act.

Fifth: This legislation would stop the flood of military surplus weapons into this country from abroad. Foreign weapons imported for science, research, or military training, or as antiques and curios, would still be allowed. So would weapons particularly suitable for lawful sporting purposes if they are not surplus military weapons and their importation were judged not contrary to the public interest.

But the present shower of a million foreign weapons a year into this country would be checked, at long last. We have seen this trade reach dismaying proportions, bringing in not only rifles and pistols, but bazookas and antitank guns.

The rifle that killed President Kennedy is the most infamous of the surplus military imports that have found their way into the wrong hands in the United States. It symbolized a great many others. In St. Louis, for example, police report that they have been picking .22caliber German revolvers out of criminal hands at the rate of one a day for the past several months.

These are the main provisions of the legislation. They have been worked out in careful study over the past several years with the one goal of reducing crime and, by disarming the criminal, of reducing his destructive power.

These are crime bills, Mr. Chairman. They are priority items on the President's list of crime legislation, and he explained them as such in his special message on crime to the Congress 4 months ago.

These bills have been worked out with and have the strong, widespread support of law enforcement officials who know the problems of crime most intimately.

Opponents have worked diligently but misguidedly to read these as bills curbing legitimate activities of sportsmen. I think I can explain that they have virtually nothing to do with sportsmen but, rather, provide a very specific set of answers to clear and dangerous criminal problems.

A quick look at the different Federal and State gun-regulation laws at how they work together, and, more important, at how they do not-will show why the current gun problems exist and just how these bills can provide some solutions.

The National Firearms Act (26 U.S.C. 5801-5862) enacted in 1934 at the height of the gangster era, gave the Treasury the responsibility for registering and taxing certain flagrantly "criminal" weapons like machineguns and sawed-off shotguns.

In 1938 the Federal Firearms Act (15 U.S.C. 900-909) added to the commerce statutes a prohibition against sale or shipment of guns to convicts, fugitives, and other obviously dangerous types.

All the rest was left to the States. Within their own boundaries, State after State has tried to keep track of gun sales and ownership. Some States have gone to great lengths.

New York's Sullivan law provides that no one may possess a pistol, revolver, or other concealable firearm unless he has a license. The procedure for licensing is detailed, and the investigation of applicants is intensive.

In Massachusetts, a license to carry, which bears a photograph of the licensee, and a special permit to purchase must be presented to a dealer before a pistol or revolver can be sold.

Philadelphia has just passed a city ordinance requiring that a person be photographed and fingerprinted before he can bring a gun into the city.

But these different kinds of Federal and local firearms laws now amount only to trifling harassment for criminals, psychopaths, and thrill-bent juveniles who have no legitimate business with guns. Why? Principally because there is almost no discouragement to the purchase of guns by such people in stores outside their own States or by mail order from distant wholesale houses.

The facts are abundant and conclusive. State laws regulating ownership of handguns can be flouted simply by stepping out of State, or in the case of the District of Columbia, by stepping into Maryland.

Senator Dodd has shown that during 1964 and 1965, a single hardware store in Chillum, Md., made 58 percent of its sales to District residents, and that 40 percent of those purchasers from the District. have criminal records.

A trading post in Suitland, Md., made 40 percent of its gun sales, Senator Dodd showed, to District residents, and 23 percent of those had criminal records.

This is not just a District of Columbia problem. The Massachusetts State police have found that their State laws on firearms are being blithely frustrated by the easy purchase of weapons in adjoining States. Six of the last seven police officers killed or wounded by criminals in Massachusetts were victims of guns procured from other States.

Checking just 4 dealers in one of their neighbor States in 1963, the Massachusetts State Police found that 690 out of 988 handguns had

been sold to people listed as Massachusetts residents, but a vast majority of the buyers had concealed their real identity with fictitious

names.

Just recently on a 2-month check of 3 dealers in an adjacent State, the State Police found that 39 Massachusetts residents had bought handguns, but only 4 of the 39 would have been considered qualified to own guns under Massachusetts law.

By stopping the sale of handguns to out-of-staters, this legislation would make a major contribution to the public safety.

The other large loophole in the effective regulation of commerce in guns comes through the mail-order houses. This year at last I think we are going to do something about it.

Lee Harvey Oswald had an established record of defection and mental instability when, with ease, he ordered his rifle from a supplier in Chicago and had it sent to a post office box, under an assumed name, in such a way that the local authorities who knew him had no knowledge of his purchase.

Chicago police studying the records of 4,067 persons who had purchased guns from 3 mail-order firms found that 948 of the purchasers, or virtually 25 percent, had arrest records. Naturally, the California mail-order houses did not know about the criminal records of their Chicago customers.

Nor can the mail-order suppliers know if their customers are juveniles, and so juveniles too run free with guns. Of the 191 gun murders in Chicago, in 1964 41 were committed by juveniles.

In Philadelphia, a spot check of 300 guns arriving in the city by mail order showed that 54 of the gun recipients had police recordsand 15 of the 54 had been arrested previously for crimes involving the use of firearms.

The New Jersey State Police, checking two California suppliers and their recent shipments east, found that 61 out of 154 guns sold and shipped to New Jerseyites were not registered or authorized by State permits. Twenty-six of their New Jersey customers had criminal records.

By continuing to allow these mail-order houses to flourish in interstate commerce, over the heads and behind the backs of State authorities with a legitimate interest in gun regulation, we are inviting criminals to defy State laws.

The legislation we consider today would close this mail-order loophole for good.

I have tried to demonstrate that this legislation is tailored to close specific gaps between State and Federal laws that have allowed wholesale and dangerous abuse. We have not only indulged the desperate criminals, making it easier for them to own the guns they would probably contrive to get anyway. But we have also put lethal weapons into the hands that might not otherwise turn to such violence-into the hands of defectives, or juveniles, or the highly emotional, for whom possession itself can lead to destructive crime.

It is because of the unmistakeable invitation to abuse that we must act.

When I testified on this legislation before the Senate committee, I felt obliged to dismiss as preposterous the charge in a circular to all the 700,000 members of the National Rifle Association that the object of this legislation was not so much the criminal as the sports

man, and that the legislation could conceivably lead to the elimination of "the private ownership of all guns."

Since then, our discussions with the NRA have been more constructive, I am happy to say. Where the NRA has suggested valuable amendments, we have accepted them. Among the changes we have conceded are those I mentioned exempting dealers in most ammunition from this act and reducing some of the licensing fees. We have recognized, I hope, that there is no good reason for conflict on this sort of legislation between law-enforcement people and sportsmen.

The NRA course, Mr. Chairman, has taught my two boys to shoot, and I appreciate their training and their safety consciousness. If these bills threatened the legitimate enjoyment of sport shooting, I would not be supporting them.

The NRA, however, is still opposed to this legislation, and I would like to devote the rest of my remarks to their opposition, as reflected in the statement before the Senate committee by NRA Executive Vice President Franklin L. Orth.

The NRA seems to have three major objections. First, it opposes categorically the limitation of interstate commerce in firearms to licensed dealers because of the economic dislocation it will cause momentarily in the firearms business.

Second, it opposes the raising of license fees. Both of these objections suggest that the NRA's principal concern may be less for the hundreds of thousands of legitimate shooters than for the very small number of commercial gun dealers who have flourished as the result of public neglect.

By outlawing mail-order sale of firearms between States, this legislation would, indeed, bring about changes in the commercial firearms world, and it might cause temporary economic hardship for some.

It would indeed challenge interests which have thrived on the present state of unregulated chaos. But such a challenge is tragically overdue. It must not be mistaken for a challenge to the legitimate widespread public interest in sport shooting, which is, emphatically, not challenged by this legislation.

How does this threaten the hunter or sport shooter? He will still be able to buy a rifle or shotgun at any store, in or out of his home State. If the store does not have just what he wants, he can order a gun by name, number and model, through the store. If he is far away from stores, he can study the catalogs and order by mail through dealers in his State. This legislation will not force sportsmen to register their guns, and it will not prevent them from carrying their guns. The third principal objection of the NRA is to the reasonable supervisory discretion the legislation allows the Secretary of the Treasury. The NRA attacks on his regular authorization are unjustified by the Treasury's past administration of the Federal and National Firearms Act, and quite unmindful of the vigilance of the judicial and legislative branches over the executive.

Moreover, we would be willing to add amendments setting forth formal notice and hearing procedures in connection with the issuance of Treasury regulations similar to those provided in the Federal Alcohol Administration.

On a more general level, the NRA opposes our measures because it does not accept the conclusion of law-enforcement authorities, as well as of commonsense, that the availability of lethal weapons is a factor