Senator CANNON. If the Senator will yield-you say that there are probably a lot of fellows in this country today that would like to he classified as "collectors." [Laughter.]

Senator MCGEE. But they are going to collect anyway and already have collected and they aren't paying dues in your organization. They are not about to and they are not about to abide by the registration under this law or any other law, and that leads me to the expression of my misgivings about this approach.

I am afraid that there are some people under the illusion that the approach legislatively of this order is going to produce miracles, that we are somehow going to legislate human behavior or legislate human selfishness out of existence, and in the process all we are going to do is penalize those thousands, or in many cases millions of legitimate Americans who will alone suffer from the consequences of this type of legislation without getting at those few derelicts or lawbreakers that we are really concerned about in the wake of the tragedy. I would hope that our emotionalism does not lead us into some either disruptive or otherwise encroaching impingements on the freedom of both collectors and sportsmen as groups. I am not sure that we yet are aiming in the right direction at the right people.

Mr. JOHNSTON. I like to think about this in line with what you have said, sir. I like to think of the very restrictive laws that there are in New York, the Sullivan law, and its sundry amendments. The very thing that they have sought to accomplish in New York could be accomplished by legislation, no one in New York would ever get injured by a gun. And I will bet if you pick up the New York paper this morning you will see incidents of the improper and illegal use and none of them being registered so they can trace them.

Senator CANNON. Mr. Johnston, we heard about a case yesterday before this committee, where a man was convicted under the Sullivan law for using a paintbrush in an altercation in New York.

Mr. JOHNSTON. I am not familiar with all that, but I do know that strange results happen and not only that, that the very thing that they seek to prohibit is not prohibited.

Senator MCGEE. I think we could even agree that if it would inhibit them a little bit, if it would make more difficult in any measurable way, some would be willing to consider it very carefully in whatever small gain it might represent, but I don't believe they have demonstrated up to now to my satisfaction that this is going to inhibit anybody. It is simply going to introduce some new and devious routes toward getting the things they want in order to perpetrate the deed that they have already determined upon.

Mr. JOHNSTON. I am in accord entirely with what you say. May I illustrate it this way. I have in my hobby workshop a wrecking bar, a little wrecking bar I want to use to open a box with, a package that comes to me. Now, it is a perfectly legitimate object and it has a perfectly legitimate purpose, but if I take that with me and go over to my neighbor's sometime during the nighttime and use that to jimmy his window to get in his house, it becomes something else. And it is the same way with firearms. They have a proper use and there are just innumerable people that have keen enjoyment and use them properly, but there is always that, shall I say, black sheep or the bad dog in the litter. I don't know how that gentleman, if I may call him a gentleman, can ever be inhibited from

using an ordinary and a proper and an honorable article, namely a gun, for improper purposes.

Senator MCGEE. What it comes down to again is that guns don't kill people; people kill people.

Mr. JOHNSTON. I agree with you.

Senator MCGEE. And I am afraid we are jumping that gap there sometimes as we approach this problem.

Mr. JOHNSTON. The gun is inert and can't be activated until some, shall I say, nut behind the butt activates it. It is a problem, to reiterate, to define my stand here so that it will protect a whole field of the collectors. I am very frank to say to you, I don't know how I can do it, except to say "a collector's item." And Senator Cannon says many criminals would like to be termed collectors. You see, it has its pros and its cons.

Senator MCGEE. They are the cons. [Laughter.]

Senator CANNON. Do you have any questions, Senator Hart?

Senator HART. Just this: Mr. Johnston, I did not quite understand-or at least I would appreciate your summarizing againyour reaction to our chairman's suggestion that the Secretary be authorized to attempt to respond to the problem and concern that you have without Congress undertaking, with or without lawyers, to clarify what you mean beyond authorizing the right to write a regulation.

Mr. JOHNSTON. I am not certain in my own mind where the enforcement of this legislation would be, if it is enacted, or what field of the Government would have the enforcement. Secretary of

Commerce?

Senator CANNON. Treasury.

Mr. JOHNSTON. Secretary of the Treasury? Well, there have been some problems in that field by an interpretation placed by the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax Unit on a certain arm as being a registerable arm under the National Firearms Act which, in all sincerity, the particular collector involved does not believe it to be and many collectors don't believe it to be.

I understand that those who are interested in enforcement are just as sincere that it should be an arm under that act, now, to give an arbitrary authority to a bureau to determine what the rules are, it seems to me with some lack of reasonableness on the part of that bureau, creates very sincere problems so far as collectors and the honorable users of firearms might want to meet with. It would occur to me that a definition without discretion might be more desirable.

Senator HART. You have already cautioned us, however we define it, we will have outraged collectors, convinced that they too should have been excluded but aren't within any definition we have managed to talk about here this morning.

Mr. JOHNSTON. I am absolutely convinced of that, Mr. Hart, absolutely convinced of that.

Senator HART. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Senator CANNON. Thank you very much, Mr. Johnston, for being here with us and giving us your views.

The next witness being from the great State of Texas, I am going to call a 3-minute recess at the moment and ask Senator Yarborough

to preside then in my absence, while I attend another committee meeting.

(Recess.)

Senator YARBOROUGH. The committee will resume in session. The next witness is Mr. Raymond L. Sargent, Texas State Rifle Association. Mr. Sargent, proceed in your own manner.

STATEMENT OF RAYMOND L. SARGENT, LEGISLATIVE CHAIRMAN, TEXAS STATE RIFLE ASSOCIATION, HOUSTON, TEX.

Mr. SARGENT. Thank you, Senator. I am Raymond L. Sargent, a geophysicist by profession. My business is in Houston, Tex. My home is at Sugar Land, Tex. I am the past president of the Texas State Rifle Association and, since 1957, chairman of its legislative committee, and it is as legislative chairman that I make this statement.

Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, the Texas State Rifle Association is a statewide organization of sportsmen from all walks of life and draws most of its members from the over 40,000 NRA members who reside in the State of Texas.

The Texas State Rifle Association was organized in 1919 for the purpose of encouraging rifle and pistol shooting as a form of recreation, to conduct statewide contests to determine statewide rifle and pistol champions, to teach safe gun techniques and thereby contribute to the national defense, and to oppose unwise firearms legislation. The Texas State Rifle Association has steadfastly opposed legislation requiring registration of firearms as well as the permit system. for their alleged control. Feeling that there is ample evidence to prove that such legislation is subject to abuse by enforcement officials, law-abiding citizens are discouraged from owning and using firearms, and such laws are generally ignored by persons employing firearms in the commission of crimes.

Further, the identification of all firearms and their owners would be of great value to those supporters of political philosophies who have predicted and are working for the overthrow of our present form of Government.

The Texas State Rifle Association is opposed to any legislation pertaining to firearms, the enactment of which will give any aid or comfort to any enemy of the United States.

This association recognizes that crime throughout the United States has been increasing for quite some time, and it is alleged that some of the criminals involved have employed firearms which have been ordered by mail.

However, we recognize that no statistical proof has as yet been offered regarding the degree to which firearms ordered by mail are involved. This association believes the number of rifles and shotguns ordered by mail and used in the commission of crimes may well be a trifling figure.

It is not the means of firearms delivery, mail or any other method, that should be the object of legislation but, rather, the misuse of the firearms after delivery.

This association feels few committees of Congress have had the opportunity that is presented to this committee. That a problem exists that its solution is an urgent need-few can deny.

A reasonable solution to the problem of the misuse of firearms, we believe, will be found in the enactment and vigorous enforcement of legislation providing severe mandatory penalties to those convicted of committing any crime of violence while armed with a firearm.

These penalties should be in addition to the penalties provided by statutes for the commission of crimes without the use of firearms and should be progressively more severe for each succeeding violation.

The application of the misuse principle in firearms legislation does not interfere in any way with the rights guaranteed by our Constitution and the Bill of Rights and places the penalties for misuse of firearms where they rightly belong.

Misuse legislation in no way restricts the proper use of firearms by sportsmen, target shooters, and citizens generally and, therefore, will be supported by this association.

The Texas State Rifle Association questions the constitutionality of some aspects of Senate bill 1975, feeling that such legislation very possibly should originate at the State level, but, in any event, such legislation should provide penalties for the misuse of any firearm, rather than ineffective and unenforcible requirements for the purchase or possession of a firearm.

The folly of enacting legislation requiring registration of firearms or permits for their purchase or possession is clearly indicated by the experience of the State of New York, where very severe firearms laws have failed for 50 years to effect a significant reduction in armed crime. We believe that penalties can be levied which are so severe that few would misuse a firearm.. Legislation penalizing those who misuse a firearm is an urgent need.

I have some additional comments I would like to make, bearing partly on the testimony that occurred yesterday before this committee.

Yesterday, Mr. James V. Bennett, Director of the Bureau of Prisons, testified on behalf of the Department of Justice at these hearings. In connection with his testimony he stated that it would be desirable to amend the Dodd bill, which is before this committee, by further restrictive language.

He suggested that an amendment should be added which would give the Treasury Department the right to obtain from manufacturers and dealers all information at their disposal relative to the sale of firearms as presently required by the Federal Firearms Act, and that such information should be forwarded to local police departments everywhere in the United States.

I wish to take violent opposition to any such proposal, for the reason that this would amount to central registration of firearms outright and complete and would place in the hands of police in the United States everywhere the full information concerning guns sold, including identifying serial numbers, which are expressly excluded from the present language in the Dodd bill.

This would secure by indirection that which is specifically excluded from the Dodd bill and would be contrary to all the expressions of opinion opposed to registration of firearms here heard by this committee since the inception of these hearings.

In addition, it should be pointed out that this is a direct infringement of the second amendment to the Constitution of the United

States, guaranteeing to the individual citizens the right to keep and It was then suggested in the testimony of Judge Bartlett Rummel, bear arms.

It was also suggested by Mr. Bennett yesterday that the Justice Department would be happy to offer their services, together with other related departments of the Government, in drafting a uniform State criminal law or code.

president of the National Rifle Association, that under those circumstances it would be proper for the National Rifle Association of America and other sportsmen's groups to be also represented on any such committee, to assist the staff of the Commerce Committee in the drafting of such legislation.

From the point of view of the many millions of sportsmen everywhere in the United States owning firearms, many responsible sportsmen's groups such as the Texas State Rifle Association would also be very happy to assist in such a project.

I would like to emphasize our complete endorsement to the thought expressed by Judge Bartlett Rummel, of the State of Washington, yesterday that the right to keep and bear arms is an individual right guaranteed in the second amendment to the U.S. Constitution and not a right limited to the militia of the several States.

The people of the State of Texas have good reason to value the right to have and bear arms because of their historical resistance to a tyrannical government. In the Texas Declaration of Independence we find this statement:

It (the Mexican Government) has demanded us to deliver up our arms which are essential to our defense the rightful property of freemen-and formidable only to tyrannical government.

If we had followed the theory that this basic right to keep and bear arms derived from the English common law related only to military forces, the State of Texas would probably still belong to Mexico rather than the United States. The determination of those Texas patriots to resist the Government of Mexico was enforced only by virtue of the determination of every Texas citizen to keep, bear and use their personal firearms.

That concludes my statement, sir.

Senator YARBOROUGH. Mr. Sargent, in your statement at the beginning of the last sentence of page 2, speaking of penalties for misuse of firearms, you say that these penalties should be in addition to the penalties provided by statutes for the commission of crimes without the use of firearms, and it should be progressively more severe for each succeeding violation.

Did you refer there to State statutes or Federal?

Mr. SARGENT. State statutes, sir. If I am correct in my thinking here, this would only be possible if this whole issue is given back to the States for action at the recommendations of this committee and could not be included in the Dodd amendment as it is now written. Senator YARBOROUGH. What did you think of Mr. Bennett's suggestion that the Justice Department will be happy to offer their services, together with other related departments of the Government, in drafting a proposed uniform State criminal law or code relating to firearms?

Of course, many States have laws now, but they differ, and it makes it difficult for one State with a firearms law to cooperate with the