Senator DODD. I am very grateful to you, Mr. Secretary for taking your time to come here.

Secretary AILES. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Senator DODD. We have Mr. Sheldon S. Cohen, Commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service. Mr. Cohen is also taking time out of a mighty busy day to come here. We are very grateful to you, Mr. Commissioner and as in the case of the other officials who appeared here this morning, I do not think it is necessary to read into the record your accomplishments in life which are very considerable. You are certainly an outstanding authority and we are very anxious to have the benefit of your views.

You may proceed.

STATEMENT OF SHELDON S. COHEN, COMMISSIONER OF INTERNAL REVENUE

Mr. COHEN. Mr. Chairman, I am Sheldon Cohen, Commissioner of Internal Revenue. As Secretary Fowler reminded you, the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax Division of the Service administers the Federal Firearms Act, which S. 1592 proposes to amend. To some it may seem a little incongruous for the Internal Revenue Service to be charged with this administrative responsibility where laws relating to commerce, and not to taxation, are involved. However, there is a quite logical answer for this arrangement.

As you know, there are two congressional enactments concerned with firearms regulation. The first, enacted in 1934 and known as the National Firearms Act, provides strict controls over "gangster type" weapons, and is based on the Federal taxing power, and is now incorporated in the Internal Revenue Code. The Federal Firearms Act was enacted, in 1938, in reliance on the congresssional power to regulate interstate and foreign commerce and has been codified under title 15 of the United States Code. In the interest of good management and efficiency it was deemed desirable to leave both firearms regulatory acts to be enforced by one Federal agency. It was concluded that this task should go to the Internal Revenue Service which was already equipped and capably functioning in the field, when the second measure was enacted. The Service has continued to administer the Federal Firearms Act and has an awareness of its limitations and the areas in which it could be improved.

In my remarks on S. 1592 I will discuss its major purposes and will point out how they would be achieved, by strengthening some existing provisions of law, by a modified approach in others and by extending the scope of the regulation of interstate and foreign commerce in firearms. I will also discuss some of the allegations being made by the principal detractors of the bill.

We feel that the case has been established beyond a reasonable doubt by past testimony given before your committee, and before the Commerce Committee on S. 1975 that a serious problem exists with respect to importation of firearms and to interstate commerce in firearms, and that the present provisions of the Federal law are inadequate to meet these problems.

S. 1592 proposes a general revision of the 27-year-old Federal Firearms Act for the purpose of more effectively controlling interstate and foreign commerce in firearms in order to meet the needs of our present-day society in the light of current realities, conditions, and problems.

The bill adheres to and furthers the principle inherent in the present act that interstate and foreign commerce in firearms be controlled at the Federal level under the commerce power, in a manner which will enable the States to control more effectively the traffic within their own borders, under their own police power.

Your subcommittee's inquiry into the interstate traffic in mail-order firearms, especially as it relates to juveniles and young adult criminals. has brought to full public attention the problem which has most thwarted the effectiveness of State and local firearms controls.

I understand that the subcommittee has kept abreast of this problem for some years, and began a full-scale investigation into this matter in March of 1961.

On August 7, of last year, Mr. Chairman, you made an interim report with regard to the "Interstate Traffic in Mail-Order Firearms" (S. Rept. No. 1340, 88th Cong., 2d sess.).

Your report presents a rather shocking picture of the conditions which exist with regard to interstate traffic in mail-order firearms.

The pivotal problem with regard to this traffic as it exists today is that the State and city into which the firearm is shipped has no prac tical way of exercising any effective control over the importer, manufacturer, or dealer who sells the firearm and ships it in from another State.

Further, in transactions of this nature the record of disposition to the purchaser is not maintained in the State where the purchaser resides, but in the files at the seller's premises, which may be thousands of miles away. Thus it is of very little value to the State and local law enforcement purposes. In addition, as you pointed out in your interim report, it can generally be said that "such deliveries are accomplished with no effective determination of the bona fides of the purchaser."

Also, as is pointed out in your report, some of these mail-order dealers have resorted to "mail drops" and "answering services," to conceal the locations of their real places of business and often to shield themselves from complaints of dissatisfied customers. It is further stated in your report that "The advertising employed by most mailorder firearms dealers can best be described as lurid and directed at the immature or juvenile reader," as you pointed out this morning.

Mr. Chairman, it was in the light of studied consideration of the evidence presented before your committee, and before the Commerce Committee, and of the factual conditions outlined in your interim report, that the President proposed in his message on crime that the Congress amend the Federal Firearms Act to prohibit firearms shipments in interstate commerce except among importers, manufacturers, and dealers licensed by the Treasury Department, and to thus restrict the mail-order sales of firearms to individuals.

I strongly urge that you follow the recommendation of the President's message in this regard.

Another of the principal problems, and I might say one with which your committee is certainly thoroughly familiar, is the unrestricted purchase of firearms by juveniles. As you stated in your interim report of last August on the "Interstate Traffic in Mail-Order Firearms," an "area of concern to the subcommittee has been the casual relationship between the availability of firearms and juvenile and youthful criminal behavior." To anyone who has followed your hearings and read your interim report, in fact to anyone who follows in the daily press the tragic stories on the misuse of firearms by juveniles, it must be apparent that this problem has reached alarming proportions.

S. 1592 proposes to deal with this problem in a direct and forthright

manner.

The vast majority, in fact almost all of these firearms, are put into the hands of juveniles by importers, manufacturers, and dealers who operate under licenses issued by the Federal Government. A large percentage of these transactions are on a mail-order basis and are often consummated without the knowledge or consent of parents or guardians. The way to end this dangerous practice is to stop these Federal licensees from selling firearms to juveniles and this is one of the major things that S. 1592 would do. I am sure that every concerned citizen will agree with this objective.

A third major problem area involves individuals going across State lines to procure the firearms which they could not lawfully procure or possess in their own State, or in other cases, in order to circumvent certain local waiting periods and police notification requirements. This problem has been most acute in the area of conceable weapons, such as pistols and revolvers. For this reason, and because the States in general have under their police power imposed more controls on the acquiring, possessing, or carrying of concealed weapons than have been imposed with respect to sporting-type firearms, such as shotguns, and rifles, the restrictions in the bill regarding out-of-State purchases of firearms have not been made applicable to sporting-type firearms. I emphasize the fact that the restriction against sale to nonresidents has not been made applicable to shotguns and rifles as indicating that we have realistically recommended such control only as to the weapons that constitute the most serious law enforcement problem.

I might say that the District of Columbia is an excellent example of why this provision is a vital condition precedent at the Federal level to the achievement of effective firearms controls in our States and cities. Any resident of the District of Columbia can, by traveling less than 10 miles, cross a State line and arrive at the premises of a federally licensed firearms dealer. Here he can purchase a pistol or revolver and, indeed, from some of the dealers even a bazooka or antitank gun, as we have in the back of the room. He then brings his pistol or revolver back into the District of Columbia, thus circumventing the District's waiting period and police notification requirements. The seriousness of this problem was clearly revealed by a recent Treasury Department study which you cited this morning, of certain federally licensed firearms dealers who operate in the vicinity of the District of Columbia, the results of which were made available to your committee. There is no doubt whatsoever that a principal source of procurement of conceal

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able weapons by the criminal element in the District of Columbia is from nearby gun dealers in Maryland and Virginia.

Of course, the District of Columbia is not the only example. Similar conditions exist in many other parts of the United States.

Many of those who argue against gun control laws cite New York's Sullivan law and claim that it is ineffective. But, as you, Senator Dodd, have so ably pointed out on many occasions, the rate of serious crimes involving the use of firearms in our cities is actually much greater in cities which exercise little or no control over firearms, than in those which have strict control. However, the biggest drawback to the effectiveness of local controls, outside of the interstate mail-order traffic, involves those who go across the State lines and purchase their pistol or revolver in another jurisdiction.

Obviously the States and municipalities cannot stop every traveler at the State line or the city line, and make a search for concealable weapons. The effective way to deal with this problem, which the States cannot deal with, is to stop these federally licensed dealers from selling the concealable weapons to residents of another State and to require persons procuring weapons which can be concealed on the person to purchase them from dealers located in the State where they reside.

I urge that you aid the law enforcement officers in metropolitan areas who are trying to cope with the crime problems by adopting these amendments to the Federal Firearms Act.

The fourth problem area, and one which can only be dealt with at the Federal level, concerns the importation of surplus military weapons and other firearms not particularly suitable for lawful sporting

purposes.

The investigations of your subcommittee have established the magnitude and seriousness of the problems which have been caused by the importation of such weapons.

In your statement to the Senate on February 18 of this year, Mr. Chairman, you expressed your view that there is a serious and sometimes destructive effect on law enforcement because of the staggering flow of imported weapons of the type which would be curbed under the amendments to the Federal Firearms Act which would be made by S. 1592. You also pointed out the distressing fact that the assassination of the President of the United States was perpetrated by a man armed with a foreign-made and imported Carcano rifle, which cost the importer $1.12.

The President has recommended that the Congress enact legislation to halt this senseless flow of surplus military weapons into the United States, and the provisions contained in S. 1592 are designed to implement that recommendation.

There is widespread public support for this provision, and I note that the National Rifle Association of America in the statement issued on April 3, 1965 this year, at the conclusion of its annual meeting, declared, and I quote:

The National Rifle Association will support properly drawn legislation to curb the flood of castoff military firearms that have been dumped in America as a result of the adoption of more modern weapons by most countries since World War II.

Mr. Chairman, in addition to the surplus military weapons, we are also seriously concerned with the influx of relatively inexpensive pistols and revolvers which have plagued the law enforcement officers of our metropolitan areas. You spoke of these in your speech to the Senate on February 18 and pointed out that many of these imports are of poor quality and are dangerous to the user as they may be to the person who is often threatened or assaulted with them.

You also quoted from the statement of Mr. Franklin Orth, executive vice president of the National Rifle Association, which he made before your subcommittee on May 2, 1963. Since the quotation from Mr. Orth's statement so well illustrates the problem with regard to these inexpensive imported pistols and revolvers, I think it is important it should appear in this hearing record. It is very short, and with your permission I would like to read it into the record at this point. Mr. Orth stated, and I quote:

For the most part, this traffic in firearms involves the relatively inexpensive imported pistols and revolvers that are advertised in many cheap pulp magazines throughout the country. As a matter of information for the commitee, the National Rifle Association has conducted product-evaluation studies of many of these handguns and has found them to be largely worthless for sporting purposes. As a matter of policy, we do not accept their advertising in the American Rifleman, the official journal of the association.

I would like to make it clear that the provisions of this bill relating to the importation of firearms is intended to exclude surplus military firearms, and firearms which are not suitable for lawful sporting purposes. The bill would not, and I emphasize would not, preclude the importation of good quality sporting-type firearms.

The amendments to the Federal Firearms Act contained in S. 1592, relating to the importation of firearms, are urgently needed, and I strongly support the President's recommendations that they be adopted.

The fifth major problem area with which the bill deals concerns the interstate shipment and disposition of large-caliber weapons, such as bazookas and antitank guns, and destructive devices such as grenades, bombs, missiles, and rockets.

The lack of controls over the traffic in these highly destructive weapons is a matter of greatest concern to me, and should be of concern to every responsible citizen of the United States. It may be of interest that the Secretary of the Army, speaking for the Department of Defense, expressed the view to the Director of the Bureau of the Budget that "because of the potential dangerous threat these weapons pose, effective controls are needed."

I would also like to note that the National Rifle Association has recognized the need for action in this area and that in their April 3, 1965, statement at the annual meeting, the National Rifle Association declared:

That it would support properly drawn legislation to outlaw dangerous devices such as bazookas, bombs, antitank guns, and other military-type weapons that have found their way into trade channels across America.

I have here the Herblock cartoon which appeared in the Washington Post on December 29, 1964, entitled "You Don't Even Need to Limit Yourself to a Few People," which so aptly illustrates the subject which