would not provide protection for the public but would, contrariwise, place the well being of the public in jeopardy. The criminal would be encouraged in his activities, knowing he would be dealing with an unarmed and defenseless citizenry.

Marksmanship training, Mr. Chairman, plays a very important part in the American way of life. Throughout the country myriad gun clubs have as their object the development of skill in target shooting, along with the proper handling and care of firearms. Young boys and men learn how to be straight shooters on target and in life, how to handle firearms in a responsible manner, and how to respect the safety of others. Their elders spend time on skeet ranges or at trap shoots, enjoying these shooting matches at locations safely removed from the cities and their populations.

Men with this background of marksmanship in civilian life have made a great contribution to our Armed Forces, all the way from Colonial America up to the present. All of us are familiar with the fame of Alvin York who-if he had been denied the chance to gain shooting skill by hunting wild turkeys-would not have been able to give such a grand performance against enemy troops in World War I. Individuals with this kind of marksmanship background serve as an "extra reserve," a kind of backup for our National Guard and Reserve forces.

The many hunting clubs throughout America perform in a similar manner, with the interest in hunting coming in company with a keen and constructive interest in the conservation and preservation of our natural resources.

At this point, Mr. Chairman, I would like to say that throughout my life I have been associated with sportsman clubs, and I have never seen a reckless or irresponsible use of firearms by any member of these organizations. More aptly, the membership of these clubs is constantly conscious of the proper handling of firearms, with care and caution being keynotes in gun handling. A true sportsman understands firearms and knows how to handle them, with safe handling of firearms always being a starting point.

The individual States are ideally constituted to carry out an effective gun-control program, for they are close to the root of the problem. For this reason, any Federal legislation that is contemplated should operate to strengthen existing State laws. This could be done by amending the Federal Firearms Act and making it unlawful to sell or ship firearms to any person in violation of any State firearms statute. In conjunction with this, the Federal Government could encourage and persuade the States lacking effective laws to adopt measures that would facilitate uniform enactments at the State level throughout the country. While the lighter firearms could be handled by State statutes, effective controls should be set up for such bulky destructive contrivances as antitank guns, bazookas, silencers, and similar unconventional devices. The National Firearms Act already covers machineguns, and this authority could be amended to cover these other mammoth weapons. Legislation emanating from this committee should meet the requirements of both the public and of the law-abiding private citizen concurrently. The measure should get at the real problem, that of crime, and it must not invade the constitutional right of our citizens, "to keep and bear arms". There are more than 40 million gun owners in the

United States, and the constitutional rights of each one of these must be respected.

Mr. Chairman, I deeply appreciate having the opportunity of presenting this statement for the attention of your committee.

Acting Chairman CORMAN. Your testimony is greatly appreciated Mr. Goodling. Thank you. We shall now hear from the Honorable Cecil R. King.

STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE CECIL R. KING, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA

Mr. KING. Mr. Chairman, I appreciate this opportunity to appear before your committee and to comment on H.R. 5384. I have a long and intimate familiarity with the history of this gun control legislation. I am deeply interested in it personally, and as a member of the House Ways and Means Committee which, as you know, held exhaustive hearings on somewhat similar legislation in 1965.

As a lifetime member of the National Rifle Association of America and a member of its board of directors, I am naturally distressed by the attack on the association made by one witness before this committee which I can describe only as vicious and by the generally widespread inference that the National Rifle Association blindly opposes all efforts to enact reasonable and sensible firearms legislation. Mr. Chairman, I can assure this committee, from my own personal knowledge, that this is not so. Quite the reverse is true. On two occasions, one in 1954 and again in 1960, at the request of the National Rifle Association, I introduced legislation in the Congress to make amendments to and improvements in the National and Federal Firearms Acts. These amendments were arrived at in conference between representatives of the National Rifle Association, other national sportsmen and conservation groups, and officials of the Department of the Treasury, the agency which enforces the Federal firearms laws. In both cases, the amendments were passed by the Congress, resulting in a substantially improved law. In each instance, comments in the press were nonexistent and no one referred to the National Rifle Association as a "powerful gun lobby" for its efforts in improving the Federal law.

Most recently, in 1961, at the request of the administration, the Federal Firearms Act was amended to strengthen several of its provisions. These revisions were found desirable by the Department of Justice and were wholly concurred in and supported by the National Rifle Association.

I would only point out further in this connection, Mr. Chairman, that the parent of the very legislation we are considering today was S. 1975, introduced in the early months of 1963 by Senator Thomas J. Dodd of Connecticut. This bill, Mr. Chairman, was the result of more than 4 years of investigations by the Senate Subcommittee on Juvenile Delinquency. Numerous conferences were held by the subcommittee staff with the staff of NRA and all national sportsmen organizations having an interest in the legislation, and it had their full support. The NRA has never altered its position. The tragic events in Dallas in November of 1963 led to an era of highly emotionalized thinking about guns, and the result has been a succession of introductions, each

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more restrictive and each, in my opinion, more unwarranted than the last. It is time we got back to a reasoned approach to this problem, and it is my hope that this committee will do just that.

On Monday, April 17, Mr. Chairman, I introduced in the Congress H.R. 8645. This is substantially the original bill which started this long succession of hearings. It has been tempered somewhat by evidence submitted at these and previous hearings. It is directed at concealable firearms which, from a preponderance of the testimony, appear to be the weapon in need of additional controls. It is the product of the combined reasoning of many competent and dedicated organizations for a period extending over the last 5 years. In my opinion, H.R. 8645 will do what the administration has asked for; and it will not interfere in any way with the purchase and ownership of firearms by honest citizens for legitimate purposes. This bill, combined with H.R. 7457, introduced earlier to control "destructive devices," should correct the problems before you for consideration.

I commend this proposal to the committee's attention. I believe you will find in it the solution to many of your problems.

Acting Chairman CORMAN. Thank you very much, Mr. King. We will now hear from the Honorable Ancher Nelsen.

STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE ANCHER NELSEN, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF MINNESOTA

Mr. NELSEN. Mr. Chairman and subcommittee members, today we are considering an act to regulate firearms. This becomes a controversial and perplexing problem chiefly because it is a subject which immediately brings to mind crime and the use of firearms for crime; only secondly does it elicit the idea that there are purposeful and constructive uses for firearms. Besides the subject of crime, there is perhaps no domestic question which brings forth more concern, more emotions, more wrath, and more speeches. The only constructive actions that will be taken on the crime problem are the ones that receive rational and studied thought, and not the ones that attempt to placate the emotions of the moment.

I think I can say without fear of contradiction that the Nation's attentions became focused on firearms legislation after the assassination of President Kennedy. It was a traumatic, tension filled day for the Nation; and a few men can call it to mind without also bringing up emotion laden experiences of the hour. We look back to the object that was the focal point of the hour, and we see the photo of the murder weapon. We react and say, "If only he didn't have the rifle."

Emotions lead one to grasping at the first solution to a problem that comes to mind. The immediate answer, though, is seldom the best answer or the most effective.

The proposal before us today would among other things, ban the sale of mail-order firearms, but unfortunately there has nowhere been shown that this impediment to commerce in firearms would have any real effect on the individual's intent on using them as criminal weapons. The common thug can inevitably obtain a stolen, pawned, or secondhand gun, if he desires one.

We talked here about firearms and crime but I would like to change the course of discussion from the instrument used in a crime to the criminal.

What are the prime considerations of a criminal when he decides he is going to act illegally? He asks himself what will be his rewards, what are his chances of getting caught; and if he gets caught, what will be his penalty. When he thinks of this last variable, "What will be the penalty?", the criminal considers whether he will be penalized more for one crime than another with the same or similar rewards, and, gentlemen, it has been shown that he will usually choose the combination with the least penalty and the greatest rewards.

As my friend, Congressman Bob Casey of Texas pointed out, "Armed robbery of post offices, which hold large sums of money are generally unguarded, carries a mandatory 25 year Federal sentence. There were but 66 such robberies last year. Armed robbery of a bank carries a lighter sentence from suspension to a maximum of 25 years, depending upon the leniency of the judge. There were 1,070 bank robberies last year. But the severeness of the penalties is reversed on burglaries. Burglarizing a post office carries a light penalty of up to 5 years, plus a fine of up to $1,000. Burglarizing a bank carries a stiffer penalty of up to 20 years and a fine of up to $5,000. It is obvious the criminals know-and avoid-crimes with stiff penalties. Last year, they burglarized 1,763 post offices and only 467 banks.

These statistics reveal that there is a definite correlation between the penalty and the crime committed. Some proponents of H.R. 5384 scoff at this fact, but of their theory, I have seen little cogent or convincing proof. So then, when we find that the perpetration of a crime is an anathema, it should be punished accordingly.

Congressman Casey has introduced a bill that would be aimed at the criminal and not at the weapon he may use. The bill is geared to greatly discourage the use of firearms in not only robbery, but assault, murder, rape, burglary, kidnaping, and homicide, other than involuntary manslaughter. He would require sentences in such crimes in the first offense for not less than 10 years, and not less than 25 years for the second offense.

The problems that focus on the armed criminal involve primarily the repeat offender. Page 28 of the 1965 Uniform Crime Report compiled by the FBI from the case histories of nearly 135,000 criminal repeat offenders, states:

This entire sample had an average criminal career of more than 10 years (span of years from first to last arrest) during which they averaged five arrests, 2.4 convictions and 1.5 imprisonments.

In its "Profile of Known Repeaters by Type of Crime" the report states:

Repeating the same crime was highest for the narcotic offender, 53 percent, the burglar 48 percent, the gambler 47 percent *** 33 percent of the robbers repeated in robbery. For the crimes against the person-murder, rape, and felonious assault-the rate of repeating in the same crime is considerably lower than for the property offenses.

The report goes on to note the high degree of leniency that is granted even in light of the high level of repeat offenses. "The frequency of leniency action in the form of probation, suspended sentence or parole. ranged from 38 percent for the murderers to 55 percent for the burglars."

After these statistics drew the surprised reaction of many it seems that the FBI then did a followup study over a 2-year period on 6,907

offenders who were released between January and June of 1963. They found that "Fifty-nine percent of the burglars, 70 percent of the auto thieves and 64 percent of the robbers repeated, as did 65 percent of the narcotic offenders and 49 percent of the forgers."

The responsibility of the Government in crime prevention is not being fulfilled when we are experiencing this astounding rate of repeat crimes. Until it is shown that our prisons are actually effecting a constructive change in their inmates, those inmates must stay in the prisons. The Casey bill will help put offenders in prisons and away from society, for an extended period of time. It is unfortunate in this age of scientific and technological achievement that we must resort to the ancient means of prisons to keep our society safe from criminals, but when progressive sociological leniency results in such an overwhelming percentage of repeat offenses, we must reexamine our penal system.

H.R. 5384 is a well written bill but unfortunately, it is one that will not only be largely ineffective, but one that will cause innumerable problems.

Let us look to history for an example. The reign of terror that followed the French Revolution was brutal and criminal, but it would hardly have been stopped by restricting commerce in guillotines. So, Mr. Chairman, a crimewave cannot be stopped by restricting commerce in firearms. Unlike the guillotine, however, the vast bulk of firearms are owned by citizens whose only offense perhaps will be that they go out to the countryside to hunt on a brisk fall day instead of staying home to put up the stormwindows.

Gentlemen, I do not mean to make light of the seriousness of the problem, or of the proposal before us. There is another and more sombre reason we should not inhibit the free commerce of firearms and that is personal protection. While we must leave the vast bulk of protection to the police, commonsense tells us that the extra margin of protection in the possession of a firearm should be made easily available. As we all know, there are high crime areas where it could happen that the police may be busy or several minutes away, and particularly in these areas, the "deterrent force" in a small firearm can be the difference between economic security or disaster, worse, life and death.

There are, however, legitimate areas where the sale of firearms could be regulated. I would hope your committee would study the possibility of recommending prudent measures to prohibit mail-order sales of firearms to minors, felons, and narcotic addicts.

I would like to affirm four points relative to this morning's topic, they are:

(1) That H.R. 5384 and similar proposals will cause undue hardships and undue restrictions of freedom;

(2) That H.R. 5384 is by and large a measure that does not provide a real solution to the problem;

(3) That the present firearm statutes need reform in the area of mail-order sale to minors, felons, and narcotic addicts; and

(4) That the approach of the Casey bill, to provide greater penalties to crimes were firearms are used is the preferred approach to the problem and one for which I urge your support.

Thank you.