Two of the most tragic cases that come to mind from mail-order guns involve juveniles. In one, a 16-year-old boy-and these are recent cases in the city of Los Angeles-and two companions were playing with a mail-order type .22 caliber Derringer when the boy pointed it at his best friend and pulled the trigger, killing him. The youth claims that he thought the gun was unloaded. The second involves a 16-year-old boy who was being reprimanded by his father and asked permission to go to the kitchen and get a coke. Shortly thereafter, the father heard a shot, went to the boy's bedroom and found he had killed himself with a mail-order type gun. Neither the father nor mother knew that the boy had the gun. And although we are unable to trace the origin of it, it was definitely a mail-order type. The portion of the act which prohibits licensed importers, manufacturers and dealers from selling a pistol or revolver to a person who is a nonresident of the State in which the licensee's place of business is located would be especially beneficial to us in that some of our neighboring States have less restricting gun laws and as a result some of our residents who are ineligible to buy a gun in California cross a border, purchase a gun, and return to commit their crimes. We had two recent and tragic examples of guns purchased in this manner being used to murder Los Angeles police officers. In the first. a James Smith and Gregory Powell kidnaped Officers Ian Campbell and Carl Hettinger at gunpoint when the officers stopped to interrogate them. They forced the officers into their (the suspect's) car, drove them to Bakersfield, Calif., over 100 miles from Los Angeles, and executed Officer Campbell in a field. Officer Hettinger escaped by running through the field amid a hail of bullets. When Smith and Powell were apprehended, they each blamed the other for the actual killing but readily admitted buying their guns in an adjoining State. The second case involves the murder of Sgt. Charles Monahan and Officer Robert Endler by Leman Russell Smith when the officers were summoned to a local department store to investigate Smith and his girl friend who were attempting to cash a forged check. Smith opened fire without provocation or warning, killing Monahan and Endler, wounding another officer and a store employee. After Smith's capture several weeks later, it was discovered that he had purchased the gun in a neighboring State and returned to California. All three suspects in these two cases were ex convicts and ineligible to buy or possess a gun in California. The provisions requiring records of disposition of weapons be kept by the licensee and giving the Secretary power of inspection and authority to reveal to the State, or possession or any political subdivision thereof, any information which he may possess or which he may obtain. is especially significant in the city of Los Angeles because of the number of gun dealers in our area. The records kept by gun dealers specializing in mail-order sales are usually poorly kept and many times unavailable or lost when our investigators need them. The higher, more realistic fees will materially reduce the fly-bynight dealers in our area. The old provisions calling for a $1 fee for dealers and $25 for manufacturers and importers was completely unrealistic. In the city of Los Angeles one company advertised to teach people to be importers and gun dealers for a small fee and even throw in a foreign-made Derringer in the bargain. Investigation of some of his customers revealed business addresses that they had given were in low-class hotels, private residences in rundown areas, and many other questionable locations. The section prohibiting licenses to the applicant who does not have or does not intend to have or to maintain business premises for the conduct of a business can be utilized by our department to curtail the activities of the itinerant gun seller who goes from town to town peddling his wares. This traveling gun dealer uses many a ruse to allow paramilitary organizations to transport their weapons. Recently, the Los Angeles Police Department and agents of the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax Unit of the Treasury Department arrested two such peddlers for illegal possession of machineguns. The two men had each driven a 5-ton truck loaded with machineguns, an antitank cannon, rifles, mortars, training mockup machineguns, machetes, and some one-quarter of a million rounds of ammunition, from Delaware. The arrestees told our officers that they had traveled across the country selling their merchandise to various gunshops and at gun shows as they went. It is significant to note that the trucks were still fully loaded when they reached Los Angeles. And, Senator, that is the Robert A. Smith folder that Mr. Perian has a copy of. And near the back of it, in addition, one item that I did not mention but which shows quite clearly in the picture is an aerial bomb. These individuals had an aerial bomb in their group of armament that they were supposedly taking from town to town to sell at gunshop and gun shows. (The documents referred to were marked "Exhibits Nos. 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, and 37" and are as follows:) EXHIBIT No. 31 INVENTORY-ROBERT A. SMITH, FRANCIS A. OWENS 1. 20.30 caliber M-1 carbines. 12.303 caliber British jungle carbines. 6 British other. 14 revolvers. 1 shotgun. 4 miscellaneous rifles. 2 muskets. 2. 950 rounds, 20 millimeter; approximately 250,000 rounds of miscellaneous military ammunition of the following calibers: To point up the need for legislation restricting the importation and sale of weapons, the committee has been presented with a chart containing statistics showing the tremendous increase in weapons seized and destroyed by the Los Angeles Police Department and the percentage of foreign weapons among them. |