II. That libelant is ordered and directed to immediately return to Martin B. Retting the following weapons in its possession: One Minneapolis palm protector pistol, serial No. 1100, one Chicago palm protector pistol, serial No. 500; one Chicago palm protector pistol, serial No. 956. Dated: March 31, 1956. Approved as to form: PIERSON M. HALL, Judge, U.S. District Court. LAUGHLIN E. WATERS, By VOLENY V. BROWN, Since the judgment, the chief enforcement officer of the ATTD states that it has been advised to ignore this judgment in all districts except the Southern District of California. It readily becomes apparent if this Division of the Treasury Department assumes this kind of an attitude toward a judgment of a Federal district court, then how can a mere individual hope to uphold his rights except at great loss in time and money? There are many other examples of this kind. At the beginning of my statement, I gave the quotation, "You do not examine legislation in the light of the benefits it will convey if properly administered, but in the light of the wrongs it would do, and the harms it would cause if improperly administered." Gentlemen, the foregoing statement and quotation were made by the now President of the United States, Lyndon B. Johnson. I thank you. U.S. TREASURY DEPARTMENT, NATIONAL RIFLE ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA, GENTLEMEN: On page 52 of the May 1956 issue of the American Rifleman, you announce that, as the result of a decision rendered on March 27, 1956, by the U.S. District Court for the Southern Judicial District of California, a device identified as the “Chicago palm pistol" is not subject to registration and taxation under the National Firearms Act. The court decision to which you refer affects the classification status of the device mentioned only within the jurisdiction of said court, specifically the Southern Judicial District of California. Revenue Ruling 55-44 published on January 24, 1955, in Internal Revenue Bulletin No. 4 (Rev. Rul. 55-44, C.B. 1955-1,129.), takes precedence elsewhere. To avoid any misunderstanding which may result from your published article, it is suggested that you consider the propriety of clarifying this important point as a public service. Your cooperation in this matter will be appreciated. DWIGHT E. Avis, Director, Alcohol and Tobacco Tax Division. STATEMENT OF BOYD R. WILLIAMS, SECRETARY-TREASURER OF WILLIAMS GUN SIGHT Co., DAVISON, MICH. My name is Boyd R. Williams. I am the secretary-treasurer of the Williams Gun Sight Co. My comments on S. 1592 are in response to a telegram received July 27, 1965, from the Honorable Senator Thomas J. Dodd, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Juvenile Delinquency indicating that additional statements would be accepted for 2 weeks, and my reply dated August 2, 1965, indicating that a prepared statement would be submitted. My statement will be brief compared to most of those that have been submitted, at least those I have seen, but from what I have been advised, there has been reams of material supplied. I certainly do not want to burden this committee with a lot of unnecessary and irrelevant views. The Williams Gun Sight Co. consists of Mr. Harvey A. Williams, Sr., president, and the six Williams brothers who are officers and entire stockholders of this corporation. The Williams Gun Sight Co. wishes to extend our fullest cooperation and effort in helping the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Juvenile Delinquency compile the necessary materials so that improved legislation can be had. First, I must give you a little background on our firm because it is rather unusual and unique. Most of the firms that have appeared before the subcommittee seem to cover one phase or another of the firearms industry. Their views expressed, understandably so, were channeled in a manner for their own selfpreservation. Our firm is a little unique in that because of the scope of its business it is more or less effected by practically all facets of the firearms business. This is because it grew from a very small company, doing only retail and service work on firearms, to a company that is doing national and international trade in the manufacture of firearms accessories and the distribution of firearms and shooting accessories of other manufacturers to dealers and jobbers throughout the United States and some foreign countries. The Williams organization has worked very diligently over the years in training for the handling of firearms safely and properly. Each year we conduct shooting schools for many hundreds of youngster. Through our service department annually we repair and service approximately 14,000 firearms that are sent into our plant from all parts of the United States, Canada, and other countries. Our retail store is one where individuals will sometimes drive hundreds of miles in order to get the type of firearms equipped in the manner in which they wish to have it equipped for the type of sporting purposes they intend to use it. Records would indicate that we are one of the larger distributors for some of the leading arms companies including Winchester, Remington, Savage, etc., while on the other hand, we also distribute what we like to call the better grade of surplus military rifles. A little later in this statement we will attempt to point out the relationship between the military surplus field and the commercial field of firearms. In our own manufacturing plant here at Davison, Mich., we have what might be classified as diversified industry, located in the "backyard" of the auto industry area. We provide employment for quite a few persons from this area. In this manufacturing plant we manufacture approximately 500 different accessories that are used in the sporting firearms field that are distributed thoughout the United States, Canada, and the world on sporting firearms. These are sold through both dealers and distributors, and in some cases direct where service is not available. In view of our operation dealing on the retail level, on the service level, on the wholesale level in both commercial and surplus field, in the manufacture of our own products, and also the distribution of hundreds of other types of accessories manufactured by other firms and sold to dealers throughout the United States, we get a fairly wide view of the entire picture. I In filing this statement, I must apologize in that this is a layman's report. don't have the finesse or legal lingo for preparing a statement. Probably this is good because it is apparent that your committee does have and if we can put together some of the things that the many hundreds of thousands of sportsmen throughout the country want, in the form of a sensible bill, then the whole country will benefit. In browsing through bill S. 1592, there are several things that puzzle me and probably puzzle and confuse most laymen. For instance, what is a dealer? This is always one of our problems in establishing dealerships throughout the country. Now we have approximately 15,000 dealers on our addressograph plates, or at least what we call dealers. As far as we are concerned, just because a person buys a Federal permit doesn't make him a dealer. As you know, the Federal firearms license number only costs a dollar. At the price of a dollar, if that made a person a dealer, then it would pay everyone to buy one at a dollar and in that way they could buy everything wholesale. This is ridiculous. In setting up our own dealerships, we think that the main criterion is that the bulk of the merchandise being purchased is being purchased for resale to make a profit and not necessarily being purchased for one's own use or the use of a few friends. To change the dollar value of a Federal firearms license number by increasing the cost of it is not the answer either. Throughout the country there are hun dreds, yes thousands, of very small operators. The firearms industry in many of these remote places is pretty much a seasonable business. You might be in a small town in North Dakota, Wyoming, Texas, or other areas, and the local fixit shop is also the local gun repair man. He doesn't get enough gun work during the course of a year to make a livelihood so during the rest of the year he does everything from blacksmithing to repairing kitchen utensils. If you increase the cost of the Federal firearms license to a great deal, you will be putting this man out of the gun business and create a real problem in servicing of firearms. Firms, such as ourselves, have to service these small operators. We screen them very carefully to make sure that they are dealers, but you can't put that small man out of business because he doesn't do a large sales volume. Most of his livelihood may come from service work, but still and all, he augments that livelihood by the sales of an occasional firearm, a telescope, or the other types of accessories. In any of these areas, service is not generally available. Herein you run into your problem on interstate trade. It would appear that the target of many of the proponents of firearms legislation are the handguns. It is doubtful if anyone on your committee would want the actual registration of all firearms. Let us take one of the very fine line of handguns, the Smith & Wesson line. Our sales volume in the Smith & Wesson line will exceed $100,000 a year. It should actually be close to a quarter of a million dollars except for the inability of Smith & Wesson to ship a sufficient amount of the handguns because of their Army contracts, etc., that are currently existent. In furnishing these handguns, we supply them to police departments, dealers, and when individuals cannot find the type of handgun that they want they have to seek out a source of supply that carries a large inventory. To do approximately a quarter of a million dollars worth of business in the Smith & Wesson line annually a firm would have to carry close to $50,000 worth of inventory. To carry a complete line of Smith & Wesson handguns, with all the types of target accessories and the combinations that they would have if you had one of each model, you would have close to 2,500 guns in inventory, handguns alone. There are not many firms throughout America that would carry that type of inventory. Certainly you couldn't find one in each State, though in some States you would probably find several. When you don't permit interstate commerce, then you are creating a real hardship on the person that wants to get a specific gun which most likely is not available in his own State. It appears to the writer that the rural areas certainly will be discriminated against as far as service and availability is concerned. Any time a national law is put through, where most of the data for compiling this law is obtained strictly from the urban areas, then the law works a great hardship on the less-populated areas. Earlier in this statement I indicated that there was a certain correlation between the sales of commercial new firearms, such as manufactured by Winchester, Remington, Savage, etc., and the sales of the surplus rifles. Our firm distributes a large volume of Winchester and Remington and other new firearms. We also distribute a large volume of what we would classify as the "better" military surplus rifles. These would include the Springfields, Mausers, Enfields, and others. We never have felt that the military surplus field actually hurt the small arms industry here in the United States, but rather felt that it helped it and we know that it helps. It helps the hundreds of small dealers and small manufacturers of shooting accessories. If the small dealers and the manufacturers of shooting accessories had to depend just on the commercial new firearms for a livelihood, most of them would fold up. As an example of the 500 odd items that our firm manufacturers, better than half of these accessories go for installations on military type surplus firearms that are being sporterized by some persons into a very fine rifle. It has been our experience that the new firearms are sold, in the main part, as seasonal business. There are some of them that are sold in the off season, but the sporting goods store, the gun shop, and firms handling firearms throughout America, in general, live off the fall season, prior to hunting, in the sale of new firearms. There are a lot of new accessories such as telescopes, recoil pads, and hundreds of other little items that are sold on these new firearms or added later. In the case of the better surplus firearms, which have been imported by such firms as Interarmco, actually create a market that is far beyond the belief of most persons and associated with the firearms game. It is not uncommon for a person to buy a surplus rifle at $20 and then go ahead and do in excess of $200 worth of work on it in order to make it into a first class sporting firearm. It 49-588-65-55 is this type of service that fills the lean months for the gunsmith or the sporting goods dealer and also the manufacture of shooting accessories. In addition, there is no question in the writer's mind that many times a person will buy the $20 or $30 sporting firearm and it will cerate enough enthusiasm that he will also purchase additional commercial firearms. In the United States we have a do-it-yourself craze where a person likes to fix up a piece of equipment, whether it be a firearm, boat, lawn, or a back porch. He likes to point with personal pride to his accomplishment. This leads to a tremendous amount of sales to dealers and distributors and I feel it is an important economic fact in our American economy. It is buying and more buying that keeps America going. To curtail the sale of the miltary surplus rifles would hurt the entire firearms industry. Most certainly the sales of bazookas, cannons, or big, heavy field pieces should not be to civilian consumption. Everyone agrees on this-but don't get rid of the good military rifles but rather crack down on the sales of field pieces. I am sure that your subcommittee is doing a very fine job. I am also certain that it is a tremendously big job. Bill S. 1592 has a lot of good points. Since there has been so many changes made on it since the first transcription that the writer has seen, it would be impractical to try to cover it point by point. I would rather try to point out some of the things that the sportsmen throughout the country do not want, and they are summarized as follows: 1. Do not prohibit the sale of firearms to nonresidents. 2. Do not make the licensing prohibitive to the small part-time operators. 3. Do not prohibit the sale of the better surplus military rifles. 4. Do not, under any circumstances, call for national registration of firearms. 5. Do not put the American public at the mercy of a few hoodlums who will not obey the laws anyway. Respectfully submitted. WILLIAMS GUN SIGHT Co. ARTICLES SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD [From the Association of the Bar of the City of New York] PROPOSED FEDERAL LEGISLATION TO CONTROL THE INTERSTATE SALE OF FIREARMS (By the Committee on Federal Legislation) INTRODUCTION The assassination of President John F. Kennedy on November 22, 1963, with a rifle reported to have been purchased by the accused assassin through the mails, brought public and congressional scrutiny to bear on the availability of firearms in the United States through mail orders and other uncontrolled channels of distribution. However, consideration of this problem had preceded that tragic event; concern with juvenile crime in which the use of mail-order weapons was an incerasing factor led to hearings by the Subcommittee to Investigate Juvenile Delinquency of the Senate Committee on the Judiciary during early 1963, and legislation directed at the types of weapons used by juvenile criminals was introduced in August 1963 by Chairman Dodd and other members of the subcommittee. The assassination brought the introduction of numerous other bills, the expansion of the Dodd bill, and greater concern about this problem. S. 1975, 88th Congress, 1st session, was introduced on August 2, 1963 by Senator Dodd for himself and other members of the Juvenile Delinquency Subcommittee. Following the assassination Senator Dodd proposed certain amendments to that bill, and the text discussed in this report is that of the bill as amended. Other legislation proposing varying techniques for controlling the interstate shipment of firearms has also been introduced in the House of Repre sentatives and in the Senate, and reference will also be made to such bills. In addition, resolutions have been introduced in the House of Representatives authorizing an investigation of the sale of firearms in interstate and foreign commerce. 1E.g., H. Res. 584, 88th Cong., 1st sess. (1963) (Representative Farbstein), HISTORY OF FEDERAL FIREARMS LEGISLATION Federal action directed at the control of firearms originated, for modern purposes of criminal control, in the National Firearms Act of June 26, 1934, which is now set out in sections 5801-5862 of the Internal Revenue Code of 1954. This act, passed in reaction to the gang wars of the prohibition era and the postprohibition crime waves, was directed at preventing criminals from obtaining firearms, such as machineguns, cane guns, sawed off shotguns, silencers, and similar weapons, which were particularly suitable for criminal use. The act provides for special licensing taxes on importers, manufacturers, dealers and pawnbrokers dealing in such arms, imposes heavy transfer taxes on the transfer of such arms, requires the registration of such arms upon transfer and the registration of persons possessing such arms. Although written as a revenue measure, it was clearly intended to control the criminal commerce in firearms of a criminal character and provided penalties of up to 5 years' imprisonment. The Federal Firearms Act of June 30, 1938 (15 U.S.C. secs. 901-909) was designed to suppress crime by regulating the traffic in firearms and ammunition, and applied to all firearms. Its legislative history shows particular concern with "roaming racketeers and predatory criminals who know no State lines—a situation beyond the power of control by local authorities to such an extent as to constitute a national menace." United States v. Platt, 31 F. Supp. 788, 790 (S.D. Tex. 1940); see hearings on H.R. 9066 before House Committee on Ways and Means, 73d Congress 2d session (1934). The act requires a dealer to obtain a Federal dealer's license by filing an application with the Internal Revenue Service and paying a fee of $1. However, because of the simplicity of this requirement and of the other recordkeeping required by the law, this act has been called a mail-order operation in itself. Hearings before the Subcommittee to Investigate Juvenile Delinquency of the Senate Committee on the Judiciary, 88th Congress, 1st session, part 14, at 3209 (1963). THE PENDING LEGISLATION S. 1975 would amend the Federal Firearms Act in order to place stricter limitations on interstate transactions in lethal weapons, principally the so-called mailorder purchases of guns. It would apply the provisions of the act to all firearms, prevent their shipment in interstate commerce to juveniles under the age of 18 and require notice to carriers that guns are being shipped. It would also require that a purchaser of guns by mail order enclose a notarized affidavit with his purchase order, setting forth his age, name, address, any felony convictions, whether he has complied with local and State firearms laws, and the name and address of the principal local law enforcement authority in his community. A copy of this affidavit and a description of the gun being sold must be forwarded by the seller to the law enforcement officer by registered mail, return receipt requested. An alternative approach is contained in S. 2345, 88th Congress, 1st session (1963) (Senator Scott), which provides that no manufacturer or dealer may ship a firearm in commerce unless the purchaser has delivered a certificate executed by a designated local law enforcement officer indicating the purpose for which the firearm is sought, any criminal record of the purchaser, whether he is a fugitive from justice, and any information available to the local law enforcement officer as to the probable mental competence and stability of the purchaser and his reputation for observance of law. Other proposals would require that interstate shipments of firearms be consigned to the purchaser through the chief local law enforcement officer, H.R. 9390, 88th Congress, 1st session (1963) (Representative Glenn), or would bar all interstate shipments of firearms except to licensed dealers, H.R. 9471, 88th Congress, 1st session (1963) (Representative Karsten). GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS It was brought out at the hearings before the Subcommittee To Investigate Juvenile Delinquency that like many other articles in commerce, whether or not useful for criminal purposes, firearms are regulated in different ways in each of the 50 States, and it is possible for almost any individual in any jurisdiction to acquire almost any weapon which he chooses. The power of the Federal Government to legislate with respect to the control of firearms has |