Mr. MANN. We would like to have that. Mr. STROM. Mr. Chairman, I would like to call to your attention something else, if I may. Mr. CONYERS. Please do. Mr. STROM. Spouse killing spouse-31, 16.2 percent, in our State. Mr. MANN. What was that? I didn't understand. Mr. STROM. Spouse killing spouse. Mr. MANN. Oh, spouse, yes. Mr. STROM. 31, 16.2, and it goes on down the line. Your robberies, 29, 15.2. Mr. MANN. Well now with reference to that statistic and the one you quoted earlier, are these valid South Carolina statistics? Mr. STROM. They are valid statistics, yes, sir. Mr. MANN. All right. Crime based, third party criminal type cases, and the first statistics that you quoted, you had a figure for robberies and other crimes and now you just have a figure for robberies. What is the aggregate percentage of homicides caused by criminal action, third party criminal action, feloneous criminal action, in each of those Mr. STROM. All right, in the year 1966, the number of armed robberies, 325. Number of persons injured as a result of robberies, 12. Number of persons killed as a result of armed robberies, 3. That was in 1966. I want to bring you up to 1974. Mr. MANN. The total was how many? Mr. STROM. 325. Mr. MANN. Three killed by armed robbery? Mr. MANN. Of that 325. Mr. STROM. That is the year 1966 and I have got it right on through, but I was going to jump to Mr. MANN. I am not interested in armed robberies alone, I am interested in other criminal acts, other than crimes of passion between friends and acquaintances, spouses, cousins, relatives. You know like felonious murder. Mr. STROM. Yes. I have it parent kills child, 7; child kills parent, 6; other family arguments, 28; lover's quarrels, 16; quarrels due to alcohol, 19; arguments over property, 8; other arguments, 29; robberies, 29; related other crimes, 22; unknown circumstances 2, for a total of 191. Mr. MANN. That was in what year? Mr. STROM. That was in 1974. Mr. MANN. All right. Mr. STROM. And if you would, Mr. Chairman, I would like to go back to this robbery a little bit to show you that it increased from 325-armed robberies 325 in the year 1966 and in 1974 we had 2,446 armed robberies. Mr. MANN. How many deaths? Mr. STROM. We had 33 deaths in 1974 compared with 3 in 1966, one in 1967, five in 1968, one in 1969, 10 in 1970, 8 in 1971, 17 in 1972 and it just goes right on up. Mr. MANN. All right, if you will then submit that as a part of the record. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. CONYERS. Thank you, Mr. Mann, for elucidating on the more important considerations. We appreciate your testimony, Chief Strom. Are there further questions? Before you start your questions, we in Detroit have an old saying that when you come down south and you are questioning a relative of Congressman Jim Mann, that he is a friend of yours automatically and we sort of take that into consideration here, and I will yield to Counsel Gekas. Mr. GEKAS. You were referring to a report that contained statistics concerning South Carolina as a whole? Mr. STROM. That is correct. Mr. GEKAS. I am not sure if the Congressman has asked for a copy of it, but I wonder if before you go you might leave us one of your copies. Mr. STROM. Yes, sir. Mr. GEKAS. Also let me ask this question. On the impact of gun control systems, on crimes, on homicides of passion, one of the relevant facts is whether or not offenders in crimes of passion, that is the murder of the husband or wife, or whoever pulls the trigger, has a criminal record himself. We have received some information that here is a substantial percentage of offenders in crimes of passion who do have serious criminal records, homicide statistics from Chicago suggests that. The importance of it is that if you design a system to prevent the acquisition of the handguns by felons, will that impact on crimes of passion because many crimes of passion are committed by persons with felony records. The point of all of that involved explanation is to ask whether or not your statistics break down crimes of passion, homicides of passion by felony records of offenders and victims? Mr. STROM. We have those records available. I do not have it with me today. I would be glad to make them available to you, but the way we feel in South Carolina, the availability of the trash gun, the cheap price to irresponsible people, they increase all crimes. I know of several people-several cases where people have shot other people just because they had a gun, no real reason. They may get drugged up or drink and for no real reason people pass by in an automobile or maybe they congregate in a crowd and some young fellow will shoot a man because he has a gun and the reason he has that gun is because he can walk down to a pawn shop for $8, $10, $12 or maybe on an instalment plan, purchase a gun. The same man would not purchase a gun if he had to pay for a quality gun such as Smith & Wesson, Colt, and so forth. Mr. MANN. Do you think there is any reasonable viability in the idea that one who buys a gun should show some qualification or receive some instruction from law enforcement or other voluntary gun group before he is qualified to own a gun? Mr. STROM. That is much preferable, I don't know how you would accomplish that. Mr. MANN. Did that idea come up in South Carolina during the consideration of your recent gun legislation? Mr. STROM. It didn't come up last year but we have talked about everything in connection with gun control from waiting periods up and we never did get very far with a waiting period. We have been working on this legislation for a period of 10 years and this has been the first time that we have been able to pass legislation that we think that will accomplish some purpose and I think will save a great many lives in a period of 1 year. Mr. MANN. What was the strongest argument that you recall against the waiting period? Mr. STROM. Well they would say that you would have a problem in-well, we had one case where a doctor was killed and said everybody in the small community was afraid for their lives and everybody wanted to buy a gun the next day, and you get answers like that. It depends on who you talk to and what day of the week, and when the people who oppose any type gun legislation had time to contact their members of legislation. Sometimes people talk to you pretty good on Saturday that wouldn't talk to you very much on Tuesday. Mr. CONYERS. Well Chief Strom, we commend the leadership of you and the Governor in beginning to break the law jam on firearms regulation in your State. I hope that you will consider some of the questions that our colleague Jim Mann raised and I would like to raise a couple for you to consider; the idea of a tracing center so that we could locate and have a record of guns so that if they are used in criminal activity and recovered, they can be easily identified as to where they came from and who owns them; and just to caution about this 800° F melting point requirement, as I am worried about some of these gun manufacturers who might be able to meet that 800° and beat it and still be selling a very, very inexpensive handgun. Mr. STROM. I agree, Mr. Chairman, they are already doing it. They are making the nuts and bolts a little bigger and the precision parts they don't look quite as neat but they are going to be able to produce a gun that is going to be very inferior at a cheap price. Mr. CONYERS. I see you are on the case then, and I commend you for it. If there are no other questions, I want to thank you very much for joining us here in Atlanta today, and we will be looking forward to any materials or recommendations that you or the Governor of the State may have with regard to the legislation that will be coming from this committee, rather shortly. Thank you very much. Mr. STROM. I want to thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I also want to thank the ATF and the Federal officials who have cooperated through the years in trying to accomplish some gun bill whereby we could save lives of the American people. Mr. CONYERS. Very good. Thank you. Our next witness is from Greenville, S.C. He is a medical doctor. He has written on the subject to which he will testify today. His name is Dr. Jefferys A. Macfie, Jr., and if he is here, we invite him. to come forward. Dr. Macfie, we have your statement and I notice you have submitted in addition an extensive bibliography, some of it including materials written by persons with whom this subcommittee has been in touch with, and especially Dr. Pasternack, Prof. Norvell Morislet me see who else here-those are the names of two persons who have written on the subject which you are going to address us today. We will include your prepared statement in the record at this point and that will free you to add whatever comments that you might want to to your prepared statement. Welcome before the subcommittee. [The prepared statement of Jefferys A. Macfie, Jr. follows:] STATEMENT OF JEFFERYS A. MACFIE, JR., M.D. A study of personal violent injuries in the Greenville General Hospital area reveals this to be a larger cause for admission to the hospital than previously expected. It is to be noted that gunshot wounds constitute greater than 90% of these injuries. A comparison study shows that personal violent injuries rank with each of the following maladies, in terms of frequency-acute myocardial infarction, peptic ulcer disease, gallbladder disease, and appendicitis, as a reason for hospitalization in this community. Pneumonia and respiratory diseases outrank these injuries only a 2:1 basis and all malignancies on a 5:1 basis. By comparison with cancer of the cervix, the violent injuries outrank these admission substantially. This is interesting in view of the fact that this disease entity is being searched for with more and more frequency since the advent of the "pap" smear. The number of hospital admissions for these violent injuries has shown a steady increase in the past 5 years but a paradoxical decrease in the length of stay in the hospital. In addition the expenditure in blood units has declined over the past 5 years. This is explained by the fact that the wound is more frequently inflicted by a smaller caliber weapon or "Saturday night special." It is also apparent that a high cost is certainly involved in the care of these gunshot victims. The minimum figure in this small community approaches $200,000 or more annually and does not include readmissions for complications or rehabilitation, which is considerable. This high cost is measured in hospital untilization, physican's time expended and a very real economic burden upon the taxpayer. The taxpayer and the private paying patients appear to underwrite the hospital expenses of about two-thirds of these injuries. A study of the total number of gunshot wounds in this area reveals a frequency greater than 1 per day (avg. 1:1 per day). Last year 411 victims of gunshot wounds were treated in the Greenville General Hospital emergency ward. By comparison on a per capita basis, Greenville, South Carolina, has a four times greater incidence of gunshot wounds than Belfast, Northern Ireland. In the two Carolinas, we see more deaths, per capita, in one year from gunshot wounds than in the entire conflict in Northern Ireland over the past five years. The weapons inflicting these injuries in Greenville are as follows: As noted the handgun accounts for probably greater than three-fourths of these injuries. National statistics show that most of these injuries occur in the private homes and within social circumstances rather than by hardened criminals per se. It is my opinion that this is also true for the Greenville, S.C., area. An inescapable conclusion drawn by other medical investigators, law enforcement officials and the National Commission on Crime is that the easy availability of guns is one of the principal factors contributing to the large number of deaths and injuries. We are therefore forced to return to the premise that we are dealing with a theoretically preventable disease in society that is not only a problem of management for trauma surgeon, but also is a problem that desperately needs effective attention and concern from legislators, law enforcement officials, psychologists, sociologists, and the taxpayer. BIBLIOGRAPHY 1. Macfie, J. A.: The Comparison of Violent Injuries to More Common Disease Entities and Its Impact on the Hospital and Community. To be published. 2. District Administrative Officer, Royal Victoria Hospital, Belfast: Personal Communication. 3. U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, Public Health Service: General Mortality in Vital Statistics of the United States-1967, Vol. 2, Part A, Section L, pp. 1–168. 4. Fatteh and Troxler: The Gun and Its Victims, The North Carolina Medical Journal, December 1971. 5. Shenfeld, G.: Our Violent Era, Physician's World, September 1973. 6. Pasternack, S.: The American Connection: Handguns and Homicide, Medical Tribune, January 23, 1974. 7. Moris, N. and Hawkins, G.: The Honest Politician's Guide to Crime Control, The University of Chicago Press, Chicago and London, 1970. 8. Kirkpatrick, J. R., and Alexander, J. W.: The High Cost of Gunshot and Stab Wounds, Journal of Surgical Research, 14, pp. 260-264, 1973. TESTIMONY OF JEFFERYS A. MACFIE, JR., M.D., GREENVILLE, S.C. Dr. MACFIE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, it is a pleasure for me to be here, and members of the subcommittee. I appreciate the opportunity to be able to address you on the subject of the medical injuries that we see involving gunshot wounds in our community, Greenville, S.C. I came to Greenville 3 years ago from the Armed Forces where I was a physician there, at Madigan General Hospital and at this particular hospital we took care of a large number of returnees from Vietnam who were injured, involving rather major injuries from gunshot wounds, land mines, and the like. When I arrived in Greenville 3 years ago, it was a little bit appalling to me that the situation existed in our calm little docile community of a war that seemed to go on every Saturday night. We had a phenomenal amount of gunshot wound injuries. We saw a great deal of problems being committed that it seemed like no one was doing very much about it at the time. As I have stated before, I think that physicians have a responsibility to practice to a large degree some aspects of preventive medicine. Gentlemen, here was a disease that we were'nt looking at in that respect. We were looking at it from the standpoint of it being a social problem and that was the end of it. So, I wanted to compare this to see what the magnitude of these injuries really were and how they related to other reasons for admission to the hospital. Now in 1972, which is the last year that I have been able to dig up the statistics, I have 5 years of study here, but we see that gunshot wounds rank with malignancies on a 5-to-1 basis. This is all malignancies are five times greater of course than gunshot wounds as the reason for admission to the hospital, 5-to-1, at Greenville General; but it is appalling to me that acute heart attacks rank on a 1-to-1 basis. A common disease like appendicitis ranks on a 1-to-1 basis with gunshot wounds. It is outranked by |