Well, now we are trying to do something legislatively again. My point is that as a result, I think, of our failure in 1938 to legislate with respect to the concealable guns, the criminal has used this type of weapon on an increasing scale for the commission of crime.

We got away from the machinegun, and we got the handgun. Now you and others suggest-you say, "All right, now we will ban the handgun."

Doesn't it make sense to feel if we do that the criminals will have to resort to the rifle saw off the barrel, things of that kind?

Mr. HADLEY. Well, our feeling about this-the 30 percent that you mentioned, this is, I believe, the 1963 summary of crime in the country which, as I believe, worked out at 16 percent of all homicides, but 30 percent of those with firearms-these are rifles and shotguns.

Senator DoDD. Yes.

Mr. HADLEY. Well, now, our feeling is that this is really a matter for the States, for them to determine, because conditions differ so. Now, most of the States-as we know, I think, there is only one that has any restriction. All right. They are there, and they should be able to determine what needs attention in their State. That is our basic feeling that that is a State affair.

But one point I would like to make, if I may, and that is the figures that were given by Chief Layton, being 1964 figures, for Washington, which he has broken down with all the different causes and the percentages the causes and the numbers-and a study of that shows that as far as shoulder weapons go, the number of murders that were committed was less than 4 percent, the number of aggravated assaults with the shoulder arms was less than 2 percent, and robbery was less than 1 percent.

Now, the reason I speak of that is to show what a tremendous difference there is in locality. Here these figures are quite different from the overall 1963 figures which merely emphasizes the fact that local conditions vary and would be a further argument that the States should assume the responsibility if they believe it is important and, furthermore, that probably the results, if they all did something in the way of legislation, would differ because conditions differ.

Senator DODD. Don't you think that the control over the sale, transfer, and possession of a shotgun or rifle in the District has something to do with this? There is rather strict control exercised here.

Mr. HADLEY. Well, presently, as I understand it, there is little control in any State.

Senator DODD. I have here this form, application for the sale or transfer or possession of a shotgun or rifle, which has to be filled out by anyone over 18 years of age. I believe this is true in many other jurisdictions. Are you familiar with this?

Mr. HADLEY. No-is that the District?

Senator DODD. Yes.

Mr. BARNARD. I believe, Senator, the chief mentioned that form yesterday. It is a form filled out by the purchaser, but there is no restriction on purchase, as I understand it, sir.

Senator DODD. Well, on the age-18 years of age.

Mr. BARNARD. I believe the form requires a statement, but there is no restriction.

Senator DODD. Well, it seems to me this is a pretty good kind of control or restriction on the sale or possession or transfer of rifles and shotguns. Doesn't it seem like that to you?

Mr. HADLEY. Well, the comment on that is the local control-whatever the State may desire or subdivisions, if they have authority to do so, would be the thing that would count.

Senator DODD. Well, that is an important point.

Do I understand you to say that you think that we ought to have this kind of control all across the country on the sale or transfer of shotguns and rifles?

Mr. HADLEY. No-our feeling is that it is up to the States. If the State thinks that the conditions mean that they should control in some manner or other, all right, they should go ahead and do it.

Senator DODD. I see.

Well, Doctor, I want to thank you again for your testimony and your time. We will certainly review it very carefully.

Mr. HADLEY. Thank you.

Mr. BARNARD. Senator, I have a copy of the article by David Acheson that appeared in the Washington Post. If you would like to have it, I would be delighted to supply it for the committee's records.

Senator DODD. Very well.

(The article referred to was marked "Exhibit No. 94" and reads as follows:)

EXHIBIT No. 94

[From the Washington Post, Jan. 10, 1965]

NOSTAGLIA HELPS GUN LOBBY TORPEDO CONTROLS

(By David C. Acheson, U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia)

As the 89th Congress convenes, the District of Columbia's legion problems again come before that body. Some of those problems are veterans of many Congresses; others are thrust forward by a relatively recent, though insistent. concern. In this latter category is one of the District's most alarming large-city illnesses: the growing proliferation and misuse of firearms.

The problem is not new in the District, but its dimensions and the degree of public shock are probably at an alltime peak. Alarm at the local firearms prob lem has been further sensitized by the national reaction of horror to the shooting of President Kennedy and by growing revulsion to the emphasis on violence which has characterized many national television programs.

Statistically, the problem of firearms in the hands of the criminal is the problem of pistols. Hardly a week passes but a pistol killing is reported to District police, usually committed with a gun borrowed from a casual acquaintance or bought from "a man in the street."

Rifles and shotguns, by comparison, are seldom used in committing crimes of violence. The figures of fiscal 1962 and fiscal 1964 show the proportions:

These statistics, of course, far understate the magnitude of the danger of pistols, since the table measures only actual crimes of violence, taking no account of pistols carried illegally which are instantly capable of violent use. Present District law is not wholly oblivious to the problem of guns, but there are wide gaps in the law in two major areas:

1. The law is lax in establishing too few categories of persons who may not have pistols under any circumstances. Present law forbids ownership of pistols under any circumstances. Present law forbids ownership of pistols by felons and narcotic addicts. Ownership is permitted to every other dangerous category, including juveniles (though sales to minors are forbidden without parental consent); persons convicted of violent misdemeanors or misdemeanors involving pistols; mental cases; habitual drunkards, and persons with no training or experience.

2. The law requires that identification data on pistols be furnished only by local sellers, not by local owners who mail ordered, or brought in their pistols, from another State. Thus, there is no systematic or comprehensive system of records and no requirement that lost or stolen pistols be reported to the police. These laws are generally thought to be inadequate for a major city marked by a high incidence of crimes of violence with weapons.

In considering further regulation as a response to the pistol danger, one thinks first, perhaps, of the parallel of State control over automobiles. (At a time when the only automobiles were in the hands of a few rich sports, registration and licensing were not thought necessary. But when automobiles became so plentiful and powerful as to pose a serious physical danger to society, it became important to make operating competence a condition of driving an automobile and it became important to require comprehensive registration for effective identification and enforcement of the traffic laws.

Similarly, it is widely argued, when pistols were primarily instruments of defense and livelihood in rural and frontier communities, there was little need for regulation. Today, however, when a growing majority of our population lives in cities and a gun is more of a danger than a necessity, some regulation of guns similar to the regulation of automobiles becomes the course of common

prudence.

In this connection, it is pertinent to point out that District traffic fatalities for 1964 were 115 while homicides, aggravated assaults, and robberies with pistols for the last fiscal year totaled nearly 1,000.

Policy considerations appear to militate so strongly toward a tighter gun control law for the district that it is worth considering why such a law has not been passed before this. The immediate answer lies in the demands and uses of politics.

A Congressman is not likely to give much help to a measure for the District if his own district opposes it. In many districts, the homefront opposition to gun legislation is highly vocal, powerfully backed, and well organized, particularly in the southern and western sections of this country.

The principal factor in this gun lobby has been the National Rifle Association, supplemented by the National Wildlife Federation and local gun clubs around the country. Many of the latter include sportsmen who are important community figures-bankers, lawyers, judges, industrialists, and political leaders-and it should surprise no one when Congressmen heed their voices.

The gun lobby has a number of advantages in its battle against tighter gun legislation. One is the frontier nostalgia in America, affection for the notion that every American should keep his trusty Brown Bess over the hearth, ready for instant use.

Perhaps nowhere is this nostalgia carried further from modern urban reality than in the Minuteman organizations which virtually enshrine the gun as the historic symbol of freedom-freedom both from King George III and from Washington, D.C.

Hardly less animosity to gun laws is expressed by the National Rifle Association, the National Wildlife Federation, and some of the sporting magazines. For example, in the Senate Commerce Committee's hearings on the Dodd bill in December 1963, Thomas L. Kimball, executive director of the NWF, expressed the fear that gun registration is "the most effective and convenient way of disarming the private citizen should a subversive power infiltrate our police system or our enemy occupy our country."

A letter in the January 1963, number of Guns & Ammo said: "I really think that anyone would have a real good time trying to make Texans from this section give up or register their guns. *** Hunters and gun nuts must really stand together on this and be ready to stand up and yell real loud and long."

In November 1962, Guns & Ammo: "*** there are millions of gun lovers who won't vote for any man who doesn't give his firm promise to protect our rights. Let's get behind this and stop these gun laws before it's too late." And in March 1963: "We might well be U.N.'d and World Court'd out of our freedoms and with the help of the liberals lose our gun rights, but we can 'Alamo' the hell out of them."

Numerous editorials and letters have also appeared in the magazine the American Rifleman arguing against the need or utility of more stringent gun laws for the District of Columbia or any locality.

This grassroots attitude not only has a conviction approaching religious belief, but it has potency and focus. Eleven thousand gun clubs all over the United States are affiliated with the National Rifle Association. The NRA itself has more than half a million members and an annual income of several million dollars.

For more than 30 years it has been actively involved in legislation on firearms. As recently as the 88th Congress, the NRA opposed a proposal for pistol licensing in the District, and NRA Secretary Frank C. Daniel told the national convention of the association of plans for a 300,000-piece mailing to members of the association whose Congressmen and Senators were on the District Committees of the House and Senate.

The executive vice president, Franklin Orth, said, "We expect about 1 million persons can be reached by this appeal against District legislation on firearm control." Representative John D. Dingell, Democrat, of Michigan, vociferously supported the NRA position and the District bill, H.R. 5608, never got out of the House District Committee.

Wonder is sometimes expressed at how the National Rifle Association, a taxexempt organization, can take such an active part in legislative battles consistently with its tax-exempt status. The answer lies in the fact that the precise type of exemption that the NRA enjoys appears to carry no prohibition against lobbying activity.

The common statutory tax exemption for religious, charitable, or educational organizations under subsection 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code explicitly bars "carrying on propaganda or otherwise attempting to influence legislation." NRA's tax exemption, however, is not under that subsection but under 501 (c) (4), which exempts "civic leagues or organizations not organized for profit but operated exclusively for the promotion of social welfare and the net earnings of which are devoted exclusively to charitable, educational or recreational purposes."

So far, that subsection has been thought not to forbid lobbying activity. One may doubt, however, that lobbying on the scale indicated by a mailing campaign designed to reach 1 million people is the kind of exclusively "charitable, educational, or recreational purposes" called for by subsection 501 (c) (4).

Whether NRA is complying with the technical terms of its tax exemption seems arguable, but there is a more fundamental question of legislative policy: Is it desirable for tax-exempt organizations to lobby so energetically at the taxpayers' expense? It would be surprising if this question did not come under close Government scrutiny as public concern with firearms becomes more intense.

Opposition to firearms legislation is most commonly expressed by certain arguments so often repeated that they have assumed something of the character of orthodox litany. Since familiarity with these arguments and their rebuttals is important to an understanding of the gun controversy, they are briefly sum marized:

Argument: An armed citizenry is important for citizen resistance to enemy invasion and occupation, and private possession of guns should not be interfered with.

Answer: The possession of firearms without regard to individual training or responsibility is more dangerous to our population than it is worth as a military defense against any likely weapons of foreign attack.

Argument: Pistol registration is dangerous and unpatriotic because it will give an enemy occupying force or subversive agents a record of the weapons of resistance and of the members of the patriotic underground.

Answer: Registration provides a record that is useful in solving crimes and tracing weapons in the real, present-day world. The fear that a citizen underground will have a useful function and will be betrayed by gun registration is theoretical in the extreme. If it were not, the NRA membership list would be the single most useful blacklist for enemy agents.

Argument: Gun laws calling for licensing or registration would penalize the law abiding, who would comply, and not touch criminals, who would not comply. Thus, such laws do not reach the real problem.

Answer: It can be said of any law which most obey, while some do not, that it penalizes the law abiding (for example, traffic speed laws). The point is that most people obey regulatory laws, which brings about at least some degree of control over the problem. Moreover, the Government then has authority for punishment of those who do not comply.

Argument: We should not disarm householders and leave them at the mercy of armed burglars and other criminals.

Answer: The most commonly proposed forms of licensing or registration would not have that effect. Householders and shopkeepers could be permitted to keep registered guns.

Argument: A gun is only dangerous if misused. No gun ever shot a person by itself without someone firing it. Therefore, the appropriate legal remedy is to punish illegal misuse of guns, not to hamper mere ownership.

Answer: Severe criminal sanctions against carrying concealed guns and against armed robbery, armed assault, and murder have not been adequate to prevent those crimes from reaching serious proportions. Since a pistol has such an attraction for criminals and such a particular efficiency for inflicting injury or death, we must do something more to control access to guns. The ownership of pistols should be recorded and dangerous categories of persons must be altogether forbidden to own pistols.

Argument: The second amendment to the United States Constitution guarantees to every private citizen the right to bear arms, including pistols.

Answer: The second amendment states: "A well-regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed." This amendment was intended as a guarantee of State militia legislation against Federal interference and does not create a private, individual right to keep or carry firearms.

This purpose was made clear by the Supreme Court in United States v. Miller, 301 U.S. 174 (1939), upholding a conviction under the Federal Firearms Act for carrying an unregistered firearm across a State line. Other Federal courts have similarly emphasized the purpose of the amendment to preserve the power of State legislatures in militia matters, rejecting any notion of a federally protected individual privilege to carry arms in defiance of local law. E.g., Cases v. United States, 131 F. 2d 916 (1st Cir. 1942); United States v. Tot, 131 F. 2d 261 (3d Cir. 1942), reversed on other grounds 319 U.S. 463.

The argument that the second amendment guarantees unlimited individual freedom to bear arms is wholly inconsistent with the fact that many States, including the District of Columbia, have passed laws forbidding any private ownership or possession of submachine guns, switchblade knives, brass knuckles, sawed-off shotguns, blackjacks and the like, all weapons which have some utility in defense of self or country.

What should be the main elements of a District firearms bill? Here, reasonable men may differ, depending upon their individual evaluation of the need, the workable and the politically possible.

The major alternatives thus far proposed appear to be licensing or registration. They are very different. The purpose of a licensing bill is to reduce or limit the possession of guns.

Under a licensing bill, such as New York's Sullivan law, possession or ownership of a pistol is forbidden (and criminally punishable) unless a license is first obtained. Qualifications for a license must be satisfied by the applicant (need, good character, reputation, mental and physical health, perhaps absence of children in the house). Opinions differ whether New York's Sullivan law has been effective in minimizing the pistol population; no one knows how many unlicensed guns are outstanding or whether the figure is smaller than it would be with no Sullivan law on the books.

A registration bill, by contrast, is primarily designed to ascertain and record outstanding guns and their serial numbers, owners, and transfers. Most regis

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