Article: 5870 of info.firearms.politics From: berenson@nova.enet.dec.com (Database Architecture, Standards, and Strategy 10-Aug-1993 0841) Newsgroups: info.firearms.politics Subject: NRA Testimony at Senate Judiciary Committee Date: 10 Aug 93 12:41:55 GMT Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana Approved: Usenet@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu NNTP-Posting-Host: ux1.cso.uiuc.edu Originator: daemon@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu TESTIMONY OF SUSAN LAMSON DIRECTOR, FEDERAL AFFAIRS INSTITUTE FOR LEGISLATIVE ACTION NATIONAL RIFLE ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA BEFORE THE SENATE JUDICIARY COMMITTEE AUGUST 3, 1993 TOPIC OF HEARING "ASSAULT WEAPONS" Mr. Chairman, My name is Susan Lamson and I am the Director of Federal Affairs for the National Rifle Association, Institute for Legislative Action (NRA-ILA). As an Association representing 3.2 million members, we encourage the responsible use of firearms and deplore the misuse of firearms. We remain willing to work with any Member of this body to seek common ground on criminal justice reform to reduce violence. What the NRA will not do is yield reason to the flawed logic which says that the activities of the lawless can be controlled by restricting the actions of the law-abiding. The NRA believes strongly that the attack on semi-automatic firearms is no less than an attack on an entire class of firearms that have been owned by millions of law-abiding Americans throughout this century. In a sense, the NRA's historic position on gun control, at times characterized as paranoia by our opponents, has been vindicated. Advocates of gun control have finally admitted that they are not interested in protecting the rights of law-abiding gun owners --- they are merely interested in eliminating any type of firearm whenever presented with an emotionally charged opportunity to do so. What was once an attack on handguns is this year an attack on rifles, shotguns and handguns. Sportsmen have been told for years that the reason gun control advocates targeted handguns was because they were not suitable for militia use, hunting, or self-protection and were therefore not included under the constitutional safeguard of the Second Amendment. We are now being told by anti-gun advocates and certain politicians that precisely because many semi-automatic firearms useful for hunting and target shooting are patterned after their military counterparts, they should be banned or heavily restricted in the interest of public safety. The NRA, supported by the available crime statistics, rejects the idea that additional "gun control" -- including a ban on the so-called "assault weapons" -- is going to be a step forward in controlling crime. To the extent that the focus is on "gun control", rather than on enforcement of existing laws and punishment for criminal behavior, the discussion is worse than fruitless, it is counterproductive. A recent Bureau of Justice survey taken of convicts in prison documents the all but complete absence of the use of military style firearms in crime. The less than 1% of those convicts who admit using such firearms in crime correlates almost perfectly with the less than 1% figure based on the FBI's Uniform Crime Report data. Taken to the lowest common denominator, it appears that the reason why the various bills contain lists which ban many of the same semi-automatic firearms is because they are using as the main criteria the fact that these firearms have either a military style or, to a non-firearms person, exotic looking appearance when compared to more conventional firearms. Evidence of this is found in both S. 653, and a similar bill, S. 639. Equally common to these bills is that they provide no meaningful definition of an "assault weapon" but instead rely on the existence of cosmetic accoutrements as the means of determining the firearms to be banned. For instance, the AK-47, often used generically by the media, and listed in several different manners in S. 653, is already banned, as are the MAC-10 and MAC-11. In fact, an AK-47 is one model of Avtomat Kalashnikov and has been banned for import under provisions governing trade with communist countries, since 1954. This intentional confusion between semi-automatic and fully automatic firearms is but one part of a campaign to achieve a public policy goal that has nothing to do with crime control. Banning the Steyr AUG, Galil, Fabrique National FNC, or the Beretta AR-70 will not reduce crime, but serves only to draw attention away from the real issues. There can be no legitimate public policy goal served which bans firearms based on appearance. Additionally, attempts to control high capacity magazines,and the parts from which such magazines may be assembled, criminalizing springs, screws, bolts and sheet metal have no legitimate criminal justice purpose. Advocates of such proposals are unaware of the relative ease with which a magazine may be manufactured. Any firearm, semi-automatic or otherwise, capable of accepting a detachable magazine can accept a magazine of any capacity. In addition to banning magazines, S. 683 requires registration of existing magazines. It should be noted that in registering firearm magazines, S. 653 will also register law-abiding gun owners. The Supreme Court ruled in Haynes v. United States 390 U.S.85(1968) that criminals have a 5th amendment right not to register a firearm. Therefore, they would be under no obligation to comply with a magazine registration law. Furthermore, a magazine can be constructed by virtually any one with knowledge of metal working. Various firearms experts at the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms have testified that even an inexperienced individual could change a magazine in one or two seconds. It is important to point out that although the proponents of these bills have advanced the argument that existing owners of firearms and magazines are "grandfathered", there is no way to know when a magazine has been manufactured. Moreover, high capacity magazines as defined by S. 453 are not a significant factor in crime. The annual firearms incident reports by the New York City police department have found that the average number of rounds fired by criminals during the course of incidents involving firearms is consistently less that 3 rounds. The police involved fire slightly more. The argument is being made that absent a high capacity magazine, the recent tragic murders in San Francisco would not have occurred. However, the list of heinous crimes in this country is hardly limited to the use of any particular firearm and certainly not an "assault weapon". * Richard Speck killed eight nurses with a knife, * Charles Whitman gunned down 14 people using a variety of common hunting rifles and revolvers from a tower at the University of Texas at Austin. His overall total including those killed with a knife before climbing the tower was 18. * John Wayne Gacy killed at least 32 boys using quite a few different weapons to murder his victims, but no "assault weapons". * Ted Bundy confessed to murdering 30 young women, and hinted at possibly hundreds more. * Julio Gonzales killed 87 people with a couple of gallons of gasoline at the Happy Land Social club in New York City, the worst mass murder in a single incident in U.S. history. * Jeffrey Dahmer killed 17 victims by strangulation *David Berkowitz, the Son of Sam, killed 6 people with a revolver. * Juan Corona killed 25 migrant workers by strangulation. * Priscilla Ford, who killed 7 and injured 23 people with her car. The point is, there is no corner on mass murder by those using firearms, and to suggest that an individual who manifests violent behavior would be stopped by restricting the availability of a particular firearm is hardly credible, and not the basis for formulating public policy. For example, a Member of this committee had an opinion article published in the Washington Post regarding the recent tragic shootings by Gian Luigi Ferri in San Francisco. Obviously Ferri had deep seated mental problems, yet appears to have no criminal record or recorded history of mental illness. There is no reason to believe he would have been stopped even under California's strict fifteen day wait for all firearms, regardless of what firearms are legal for purchase. The conclusion of the article is that the existence of the specific firearm itself, with its potential for mayhem, is the cause of the deaths and injuries, rather than the actions of a demented individual. The Senator said that the DC-9, a semi-automatic handgun capable of accepting a box magazine, was bought in Nevada, but could also have been bought in California, and then makes much of the volume of ammunition carried by Ferri loaded into "high- capacity" magazines. Yet, any firearm capable of accepting a box magazine is capable of accepting a high-capacity magazine. There are literally tens of millions of self-defense and sporting firearms that take such magazines, both semi-automatic and manually operated, such as by a bolt or even lever action. Since the overwhelming number of firearms that will take a box magazine are not used by criminals, banning any firearm that will accept a box magazine is pointless for crime control, but will have a tremendous impact on the lawful gun owner. However, the capability of the firearm used is hardly the major factor in this event. The sad truth is, this shooting was methodically carried out in such a way that ample time was available to facilitate reloading for practically any style of firearm ever manufactured. It could have been accomplished by a mad man or woman using virtually any one of, or several for that matter, commonly purchased revolvers, cut-down shot guns, or even numerous semi-automatic firearms with limited capacity magazines. The Senator attempted to make the connection between firearm's traces and crime control. Such assertions are unfounded. BATF has addressed this issue on several occassions, most prominenetly in connection with an analysis of a Cox news service article on tracing "assault weapons". BATF noted that that: "We do not necessarily agree with the conclusions of Cox Newspapers and need to express that all firearms trace requests submitted by law enforcement agencies are not crime guns and that the 42,000 traces examined are but a small percentage of all firearms recovered by law enforcement during the period." (Emphasis added.) [Press Statement of the BATF.] BATF explained: "Many crimes may not be reported to the police, and traces requested by police are not always for guns that are used in crimes. Traces are sometimes submitted for firearms recovered by police investigating crimes where the guns were found but were not necessarily used to commit a crime reflected in the UCR. Accordingly, concluding that assault weapons are used in 1 of 10 firearm related crimes is tenuous at best since our traces and/or the UCR may not truly be representative of all crimes." [Letter from Director, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms to U.S. Representative Richard T. Schulze, March 31, 1992; emphasis added.] The entire debate on semi-automatic firearms as a "special category" subject to a gun ban is nothing more that a bill of goods sold to appease a public clamoring for substantive crime control measures. In fact, the designation "assault weapon" for certain semi-automatic firearms with military styling is part of an ongoing effort to capitalize on the confusion over the difference between a semi-automatic firearm and those capable of a fully automatic rate of fire. Because proponents of a semi-automatic ban cannot provide any compelling, legitimate justification, they resort to terminology that is without a specific definition. There is nothing new about semi-automatic firearms, they have been around for more than a century. The term semi-automatic designates a multiple round firearm that uses the explosive gases produced by the discharge of a round of ammunition to chamber the next round. In the hands of an experienced shooter many manually operated firearms have the capacity for a rate of fire equal to, or in some cases greater than, many semi-automatic firearms. The idea that an assault weapon is capable of "spray fire" is an attempt to foster among the uniformed the idea that a semi-automatic firearms is capable of firing at the same rate of fire as a fully automatic firearm. "Assault rifle" is a military term originated during World War II to describe selective fire military rifles of intermediate power cartridge and capable of fully automatic fire. Selective fire firearms mean those firearms capable of producing variable firing patterns including the discharge of a single shot, a burst of shots, or the continuous discharge of ammunition with a single depression of the trigger. Semi-automatic firearms do not meet these criteria, since they discharge one round of ammunition with each depression of the trigger, rather than multiple rounds. Fully automatic firearms, which fire multiple rounds with a single depression of the trigger, have been stringently controlled since 1934. The notion that a military configured semi-automatic firearm using military ammunition is inherently more lethal or capable of greater firepower is simply untrue. Semi-automatic firearms have been owned and used for sporting purposes and self-protection by millions of Americans for almost a century. They are a mainstay in the hunting community with 49 states currently allowing hunting with semiautomatic firearms. The NRA believes strongly that current laws are sufficient to punish criminals -- what is lacking is the will to do so. We are strongly supportive of strict enforcement and adherence to the law in regard to the use of a firearm in a crime, particularly since we helped draft and pass many of the relevant laws. The "sporting purposes" criteria used in various bills and advocated as the criteria by which the Department of Justice is directed to evaluate semi-automatic firearms presumably to decide if they fit the category of "assault weapons" is indefensible. The Second Amendment was not drafted to protect hunting, or target shooting, or collecting, all of which are legitimate activities carried out by millions of law-abiding Americans. We believe strongly that banning an entire class of firearms, such as semi- automatics, would be violative of the Second Amendment to the Constitution. The consequences of federal legislation restricting semi- automatics ownership will be exactly the same as evidenced in New Jersey and California, namely turning otherwise law-abiding citizens into criminals, with no resultant benefits accruing to society. as a "model" for some past Congressional bills has an estimated compliance rate of about 10% -- and that includes all guns labeled as "assault weapons" which do not fit the state legislature's definition. The inescapable fact is that banning firearms has no effect on crime. Until there is effective deterrence, crime will continue to increase. The NRA has repeatedly suggested ways in which this can be accomplished including mandatory sentences without parole, more prosecutors, more prisons, and an end to plea bargaining. If the goal of this body is disarming the American people, either Senator Metzenbaum's or Senator Deconcini's bill are equally good as a starting point. There is no crime control purpose that will be served by either bill and the proponents of restrictive gun control will be back with a new anti-gun panacea for the national crime problem. If there is evidence that gun controls result in a greater degree of safety in any community in our nation, let it be presented. Anything else is a smokescreen. Again we thank the Chairman and Members of the Committee for the opportunity to testify. Downloaded from GUN-TALK (703-719-6406) A service of the National Rifle Association Institute for Legislative Action Washington, DC 20036