KF27 CONTENTS May, Timothy J., General Counsel, Post Office Department, accompa- Advertisements showing the availability of several types of firearms__- 59–64 MAIL ORDER GUN CONTROL TUESDAY, JULY 2, 1968 HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, SUBCOMMITTEE ON POSTAL OPERATIONS OF THE Washington, D.C. The subcommittee convened at 10 a.m. in room 210, Cannon Building, Hon. Robert N. C. Nix (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding. Mr. Nix. The subcommittee will be in order. Today the subcommittee is investigating the possibility of banning all firearms from the U.S. mail. The presence of over 100 million weapons in a society of 60 million homes is a fact that threatens our claim of being a civilized nation. I have introduced a bill that would bar firearms and weapons from the mail, including so-called model guns which are really deadly weapons with plugged barrels and missing firing pins. There have been investigations by the Justice Department which show that anyone could become a gun dealer or gun runner by melting the plugs in the barrels of World War II weapons, including antitank guns, and restoring firing pins. The death of Robert Kennedy coming on top of the assassination of Martin Luther King and President John F. Kennedy has of course stunned us. It has stunned us enough that we are willing finally to reexamine our institutions and our laws. For instance, the Criminal Code of the United States, which governs the mailing of firearms, dates back to the 1920's. I refer to 18 U.S.C. 1715. This section refers only to weapons which are concealable. It does not refer to the rifles that in the hands of a sniper can strike terror into the hearts of our cities. Lee Harvey Oswald was able to kill the President of the United States with a weapon costing less than $20. He simply clipped an advertisement, mailed $18, and received in return a high-powered Italian Army rifle. The lethal but militarily outmoded hardware that Europeans have been dumping on our market since the end of the Second World War has finally made its potential for horror a reality. The American Rifleman magazine, the mouthpiece of the National Rifle Association, advertises weapons such as German Mauser rifles with which Hitler's army was equipped for $30 or less. There is also advertised the weapon described as "everybody's favorite"-the British jungle carbine No. 5, for $39 complete with flash eliminator so that enemy troops cannot fire back by sighting in on the flash. Of what use this is to a hunter is unrecorded unless there are those hunters who (1) fear that the deer are going to shoot back. This weapon also comes with a bayonet and scabbard for an additional $3.75. Nazi bayonets cost slightly less. What do hunters need bayonets for? What convenience does a bayonet serve? For a real bargain there is the British service rifle for $22.50, as advertised in Gun magazine. The mail-order gun business is scattered throughout the United States. Oswald obtained his weapon from a Chicago mail-order house. He could have gotten any weapon he wanted from a Mr. Walter H. Craig in Selma, Ala. He could have obtained a carbine for about $20, but for really heavy work he could have obtained something that is very similar to a submachinegun for $100. This is the Spitfire semiautomatic. An American rifle, the M-1, would have cost him a little over $100 and the Springfield army rifle would have cost him $46. Oswald or Eric Starvo Galt could have bought a weapon called the "Enforcer" from Selma, Ala., for $100. It has what is called guerrillatype stock. Craig also advertises an antiriot gun for $75. There are two models, one of which has a rifle sight for pinpoint accuracy. Mr. Walter Craig of Selma, Ala., the seller of guerrilla-type weapons, antitriot guns, British Army rifles, and semiautomatics with submachinegun stocks, is a careful man. He asks that each purchaser sign a statement which reads as follows. And I quote: I am a citizen of the United States over 21 years old, of sound mind, not a drug addict or habitual drunkard, not a fugitive from justice, I have never been convicted for a crime of violence and I am not under indictment for a crime punishable by a year or more in prison. I have checked and I assure Walter H. Craig that there is no law in my State, county, or city that would prohibit him shipping me this order and I assume full compliance with all laws. I have read this carefully, I understand it perfectly and I sign. That's the end of the quote. And there is a space for a signature and date. I think Mr. Walter Craig has succinctly outlined for all of us the case for gun control. His weapons should not be in the hands of children, drunkards, drug addicts, lunatics, fugitives from justice, convicts or ex-convicts. Senators Kennedy, Dodd, Tydings, and Congressman Celler are doing what they can about this. But I have looked at the bills being considered by other committees and I think that some questions remain. Mr. Walter Craig has built a nationwide business out of the mailorder gun trade. Selma, Ala., is not a great industrial center. His business is a mail-order business, with the buyer and seller unknown to each other except for Mr. Craig's pious keepsake. There is nothing in the law today which would prevent Mr. Craig from arming the Ku Klux Klan, the Minute Men, the Blackstone Rangers, or anyone else at cutrate prices. What is more, the bills under consideration in the Judiciary Committees of the House of Representatives and the Senate of the United States would not prevent Mr. Craig or other arms salesmen from decentralizing and by means of post office boxes continuing to mail arms intrastate through the good offices of the Post Office Department. The cost to gun dealers would be minimal. The cost to the Nation would be great. What is more, these merchants of destruction prefer |