First may I ask that this be, this article be entered into the record in addition to my written statement, which I picked up as I came through, in the airport. If I may submit it.

Mr. CONYERS. All right. We will receive it for consideration for submission as a part of the record. [The document referred to follows:]

[From True Magazine, July 1975]

MYTH #1-GUNS CAUSE CRIME

The Case of The People vs. Gun Control Laws

Last year, New York City had 16 times as many murders as London, and 182 times as many robberies as Tokyo. Tokyo has 11 million inhabitants, New York 8 million. American crime rates, enormous to begin with, continue to rise. Serious crime rose 17 percent nationwide in 1974 alone. More than 18,000 Americans were murdered last year.

There are about 40 million handguns in circulation, and they are used in 70 percent of all gun crimes. (The remainder are committed with long guns.) Many people therefore believe that handguns are a cause of violent crime; that without them at the least there would be fewer deadly crimes; and, above all, that strict federal legislation actually could reduce the number of handguns used for crime and, thereby, crime. None of this is true. Yet agitation for compulsory federal registration or licensing for the purpose of indirectly reducing the number of handguns is mounting. Why? Shadow boxing is more comfortable than actual fighting. One can win painlessly. By advocating handgun registration, politicians try to prevent us from discovering what actually causes, and above all, what might prevent criminal violence. For the measures actually needed are not easy to enact. Handguns do not cause crime anymore than prostitutes cause sex.

We used to hear that crime is caused by poverty, or by lack of education. Poverty has decreased-50 percent of all families were below the government established poverty line (in actual purchasing power) in 1920. Today, only 11 percent are below the poverty line. Education certainly has increased. So has crime. To be blunt: crime rose as education and prosperity did. Not just violent crime. All crime. In the first two months of 1975, robbery increased by 26 percent in New York, compared to 1974; aggravated assault increased by 20 percent, larcency-theft by 27 percent. Larceny, of course, is not done with guns. It increased more than gun crimes. From 1973 to 1974, as larceny rose 28 percent in New York (163,157 cases), and robbery by 7 percent (77,940 cases), murder decreased by 7 percent. (It is on the increase again.)

In other words, gun crimes either were fewer, or rose less than non-gun crimes-which does not suggest that the increased number of guns caused the rise of crime in the U.S., but that the rise in crime rates is clearly independent of the rise in gun ownership. Again, if we compare our crime rates with those abroad, it becomes clear that guns have nothing to do with the difference. All our crime rates are much higher than those abroad.

Crimes are committed only if intended-else, legally, they are not crimes. Guns do not produce criminal intentions, though they are more effective instruments in carrying out such intentions than most other weapons: People attacked with guns die more often than people attacked with knives. But the instruments are chosen according to the intention. The gunman is more ready to kill, compared to the knife wielder-which is why he uses a gun. The willingness to murder is the cause of choosing a gun; the gun is not the cause of the willingness.

Taking handguns away-if that could be done (a big "if")-would not leave the criminal unable to strike, although he would have to use less effective weapons; hands, knives, clubs, or more indiscriminate ones such as bombsto replace handguns; or, he may use sawed-off shotguns (there are about 200 million long guns in private hands). When it comes to "crimes of passion"-violence among family, or friends is not necessarily deliberately chosen, the outcome is less deadly in many cases if a gun is not handy. But we don't know how often. Othello did not use a gun when he murdered Desdemona; nor did Brutus when he killed Caesar. They would have used them had guns been

around. But they managed without. Had they used guns-would the guns have been the cause of the murder?

Anyway, no law-however strict-can prevent people from getting guns. Zipguns, quite sufficient to kill, can be made at home more easily than bathtub gin. You and I won't make them, but criminals will. The ease of producing guns would render gun control laws as futile as Prohibition was. And we might have learned from the experience of prohibition that laws opposed by a major segment of the population cannot be effectively enforced in a democracy. Forty million people own handguns. How can the government confiscate them?

States that have restrictive gun laws-e.g., the Sullivan Law in New Yorkdo not succeed in enforcing them among people willing to break the law. You can buy an illegal gun in New York as easily as an ounce of marijuana. (Upstate the police merely license.) In New York City, however, the police use the Sullivan Law to make it nearly impossible for non-criminals lawfully to have handguns. Yet the murder rate (per 100,000) is higher in the city, where law-abiding citizens do not have guns while lawbreakers do, than in the rest of the state. In 1926, New York shopkeepers and homeowners were issued 7,000 gun permits. There were less than 1,200 robberies. Forty years later, only 282 gun licenses were issued. There were 223,539 robberies. Were those robberies fostered by the presence or absence of guns in the hands of lawabiding citizens? The figures speak for themselves. The law in New York City serves to disarm law-abiding citizens, but unavoidably it leaves the lawbreakers armed; which explains why the streets are unsafe. In New York, to be law-abiding is to be defenseless. Federal laws would be only a little more effective than the Sullivan law. They could not prevent the gun running, or stealing, that would supply criminals; nor the making of guns at home. Unilateral disarmament would increase the advantage criminals already have and make it safer for them to use it.

When carelessly handled, guns can produce fatal accidents, as anti-gun people never tire pointing out. But so can medicines. Medicines, however also save and protect lives. So do guns in the hands of law-abiding citizens who have learned how to use them. And in the right hands, more guns would reduce crime. When policemen in New York were encouraged to drive cabs in civilian garb, cab robberies (often fatal), fell by one-third. What is the difference between a disguised policeman and actual cab driver? The policeman has a handgun and is trained to use it. Robbers rarely attack if they suspect their victims are armed. The reasonable conclusion is to train and arm selected cab drivers and storekeepers, householders, bank tellers, and bartenders. Disarmament of all individuals reduces interpersonal violence (or its dangerousness), just as universal disarmament of nations reduces international violence. However, unilateral disarmament always has increased the danger of war— and of crime. Which is why not even Switzerland dares disarm. (Incidentally, the crime rate in Switzerland is low. Yet every male Swiss of military age keeps his military gear, including guns, at home.)

What actually causes crime? There is little agreement. But we do know one thing. In the U.S., only 1 percent of all those who commit crimes ever serve any time in prison-99 percent stay on the streets. Even the tenderhearted former Attorney General, Ramsey Clark, doubts that "we achieve one conviction for every 50 serious crimes," and convictions do not lead to prison sentences by a long shot.

Crime rose 74 percent between 1966 and 1974, 176 percent between 1960-70. In the same period, arrests increased only 31 percent, while the number of convictions decreased from 117- to 95-per-100,000 persons! More crime, less punishment. The latter explains the former. In New York, 80 percent of defendants accused of homicide plead guilty to a reduced charge and are freed on probation. As crime rises, and arrests and convictions fall, politicians tell us that guns cause crime. The fact is that crime does pay-at least it doesn't cost the criminal much. That is why there is so much of it and so much more here than abroad.

Handguns are in great demand-both by criminals and their prospective victims, but they do not cause crime. Crime causes people to need and want guns. They become popular when crime does. Guns will sell legally or illegally, as long as crime pays as well as it does now-as long as the prospect of even mild punishment is remote and improbable.

More than half of all violent crimes are committed by people who are on probation, or parole, or out on bail. These people are the source of danger, not the handguns they certainly-and always can manage to acquire, or, if need be, produce themselves. Even the unlucky few who are convicted are rarely incarcerated, and then only for a short time. Few of the convicted go to, or stay in, jail for any length of time. Most of those arrested are allowed to plead guilty to lesser charges. Thus an all-too-typical case history (New York Times, Feb. 11, 1975):

"Willie Poinsette was 48 years old and had a record of 21 previous arrests when, on April 8, 1973, he was charged with robbery and possession of a gun, both felonies. If convicted on these charges he would have faced up to 32 years in prison. Two days later in Criminal Court, Mr. Poinsette pleaded guilty to petit larceny, and was sentenced to two months in city jail."

Very few criminals are ever convicted to begin with. A steadily declining proportion of crimes lead to arrest. A very small proportion of the arrested are convicted or jailed. Joseph W. Bishop Jr., Professor of Law at Yale University, put it this way: “.. the incarceration of even the most obviously guilty criminal is a task comparable to landing a barracuda with a trout-rod and a dry-fly . . ." It is not guns that cause crime. The cause of crime is politicians and courts which, while attempting to divert our attention to guns, release the criminals. New York, I mentioned, has 182 times as many robberies as Tokyo. But in Japan, more than 90 percent of all crimes lead to arrest and conviction, whereas we punish, let me repeat, 1 percent of all crimes, and obtain about one conviction for every 50 serious crimes. No wonder politicians like to look the other way.

Murders committed by juveniles have been increasing most rapidly: In New York City, persons under 16 committed three times as many murders in 1972 as in 1968. Guns? How about this: No matter how many murders he commits, the maximum sentence (which must be expunged from the record) for a juvenile killer is 18 months in reform school-of which, on the average, he serves nine. We license juveniles to murder. No wonder they do. Not guns, but our way of letting loose dangerous people on the community causes the high rate of violent crime-of all crime.

Cars are about 10 times as likely to cause fatal accidents as guns are. We lose 55,000 people a year owing to car accidents, half of them because of drunken driving. It would be silly to abolish cars. But it would make a great deal of sense to prevent and punish abuses. So for guns. Just as only trained people are allowed to carry handguns. (Owning a gun is a different matter: you need no license to own a car.) Anyone who proves his competence, and has no previous record, should be as entitled to a gun license, as he is to a driving license. No government should have a right to withhold or withdraw a license except for cause. Anyone driving a car while drunk should be severely punished-no probation and a mandatory minimum prison sentence. (This has been done quite successfully in England and in Sweden.) So anyone carrying an unlicensed gun should be severely punished, and anyone using a gun while committing a crime should be refused probation or parole, and the sentence should be higher by one-third of what it would have been had he not used a gun. This will neither prevent all car accidents nor all gun accidents, nor all gun crimes. But it will reduce them. Doctors can neither prevent nor cure all diseases. But they can reduce them. At present, police are unable to do much about crime, not because of guns, but because the courts simply release criminals, convicted or otherwise. What is needed then is court reform above all, not gun reform. But a non-restrictive licensing law which would entitle anyone competent to carry a gun would not be objectionable.

It is not enough to prevent courts from releasing dangerous convicts on probation. Or to prevent parole which is now automatic except in rare special cases. It is necessary to isolate people known to be dangerous to the community. This can be done, for dangerousness is not hard to predict on the basis of previous arrests and convictions, combined with such matters as age and sex. We know, for instance, from past statistical experience that delinquents who have committed three violent crimes before they are 18 are 80 percent sure of continuing a career of crime in the next 20 years. It seems irresponsible to release such persons before they are 35, except when there are special circumstances. To be sure, 20 percent of them would not commit further violent crimes. But I'd rather isolate them than to let loose the 80 percent who

would. To do otherwise is to inflict suffering and death on innocent people who could have been spared.

The federal prisons now have custody of a man sentenced to life for homicide, who, while in prison, committed three more murders on three seperate occasions. Three more life terms obviously did not deter him-which may be a good argument for the death penalty in such cases. (And there is an argument for better prison security in here somewhere.) But the cirumstances also show that men, not guns, are the danger. This convict managed to do without guns in his three separate additional murders. Where there is a will, there is a way. And guns do not produce the will.

This is not the place for a full discussion of the necessary reforms of courts, laws and prisons. But the direction is clear: crime is reduced by locking up criminals, not guns.

Mr. Hor. Very rapidly, my name is Harry Hoy. I am here representing the Tennessee State Rifle Association which is made up of some 1,700 competitive shooters.

Mr. CONYERS. Excuse me, Mr. Hoy, are we going to be able to share the 10 minutes remaining?

Mr. Hor. I would think so.

Mr. CONYERS. All right.

Mr. Hoy. I will read as rapidly as I can and this statement is much shorter than theirs.

Mr. CONYERS. OK. I am going to have to stop you in about 5 minutes so that we can let the final witness get on. That is the only thing I can do is to fairly divide the time, as long as you realize that.

Mr. Hoy. I will hurry as much as I possibly can.

Mr. CONYERS. Thank you.

Mr. Hoy. I am here to give my views on firearms legislation. My experience with firearms covers almost 40 years; 40 years which have been involved with sport and recreational shooting. As a police firearms instructor, Tennessee hunter safety instructor and recreational shooter, I have trained hundreds. Having been involved for so long all over the United States and some foreign countries, I have come to know in varying degrees a vast number of competitive and recreational shooters; and I will have to say that not once have I met a shooter who was not 110 percent American, law abiding and dedicated to the principles of his country. Almost all of them volunteer for civic programs involving community service. You cannot find a more dedicated group of Americans and I think that it would be wrong to place any further restrictions or harrassments on these citizens who happen to own firearms. Any further laws are only going to be obeyed by the same group of people who now obey the law. Don't think for 1 minute that those who now violate the law are going to be concerned with breaking one more law. Especially when, as a criminal, their chances of being apprehended are small and their chances of any restrictive, punitive punishment even less.

If the law requires me to register my guns, I won't like it, but I'll either sell or register them. But will that in any way reduce crime? Of course not. How could it? My guns haven't and won't while in my possession, be involved in any criminal activity. They are marked with identification, have serial numbers and if stolen I can put this information into NCIC within minutes. Registration

could not accomplish any more and if registration were to be meaningful it must be kept current. Keeping a current registration of firearms will require another large, widespread bureaucracy to be created. And to insure the accuracy either every firearms owner must make a report which will have to be assumed to be accurate or every home and business must be thoroughly searched to verify the listings. How much better would it be for how much better it would be for the money to be spent in providing cells for criminals and leaving the sportsmen and recreational shooters alone.

This country is big geographically, with many and diverse life styles. What's good or bad for one section or group may not even be applicable in another part of the country.

Firearms in rural areas of our States are taken for granted, as a tool or piece of sporting equipment. Not so in the large urban areas. The attitudes are different. Any national universal law, written because of firearms misuse by a small percentage is going to affect all of us. Punish the misuser but don't restrict or harrass the law abiding citizen. Don't try to treat us all the same because we are all very different, and have the right to stay that way.

There is, of course, no easy pat answer to the problem of crime especially violent crime. But we must not allow ourselves to be diverted from the main problem which is crime. Crime is the problem, not guns, knives, brass knuckles, or what have you.

To reduce violent crime, and I include mugging, forcible rape, assault and assault with a deadly weapon, and so forth, is going to require the separation by imprisonment of those inclined and involved in criminal acts from those normal law abiding citizens, the vast majority of Americans and sportsmen. I'll admit that I'm not as worried about rehabilitation as I am about reducing crime.

I can't understand how passing any more restrictive firearms laws is going to help when the arrest, conviction, and sentencing record is minimal and the time served per conviction is a farce.

The FBI statistics tell us that a great percentage of crimes are committed by repeaters. Now one way to keep offenders from repeating is to keep them where they can't repeat, keep them in prison. Treat them humanly, give them a chance to be trained for useful skills, but keep them off the streets. If the small percentage can't live within the law, especially the perpetrators of violent crimes, then they must be separated from the honest law abiding citizenry. By reducing crime, in the long run, you will reduce the number of people who own guns by removing the reason for their wanting protection.

I have skipped through as rapidly as I could, sir. I thank you for the opportunity to appear and I will close with that.

Mr. CONYERS. Well, I first have to say to all of you that you ably represent your respective organizations and I will promise that I will carefully consider all of the items that you have raised here.

I think nothing could be more harmful to our deliberations and to our final product than saying that this subcommittee has not carefully weighed all of the advice that has been proferred by you who are the leaders of your organizations; who in fact bring to this subcommittee some considerable experience about firearms, their