to supervise state firearms system to insure fair administration that does not discriminate on the basis of race or other unlawful grounds. A federal review system could also be provided to allow aggrieved parties recourse through the federal courts, on either their own initiative or that of the U.S. Department of Justice.

(2) The Gun Control Act of 1968 bans imports of guns that are not suited for sporting purposes. This ban should be extended to firearms of domes tic manufacture, excepting only the manufacture of handguns for use by law enforcement agencies and licensed owners.

(3) Federal firearms laws should be amended to eliminate the possibility of firearms dealers transferring to nonresidents by renting guns with a high security deposit that is subsequently forfeited. In addition, licensed federal firearms dealers should be strictly policed to eliminate all but legitimate dealers. Licensed dealers should be required to maintain security procedures to minimize theft of firearms, particularly during civil disorders.

(4) Public and private campaigns should be fostered in states and cities to encourage persons to turn in unwanted guns. Such turn-ins could be coordinated with occasional amnesty days when illegally owned handguns could be turned in without penalty.

(5) Public and private shooting clubs should be allowed to store handguns suitable for sporting purposes and to permit target shooters to use them on the premises.

(6) The FBI should revise its crime reporting system to obtain a statistical breakdown of crimes involving firearms by type of weapon-handgun, rifle, or shotgun.

(7) Customs regulations should be amended to require written declaration of each firearm brought into this country from abroad and impounding of such firearms until legality of ownership is

established.

Chairman DODD. I should add that Mr. Newton is a lawyer from Chicago, and we are very happy to have you here this morning, gentlemen, to hear what you have to tell us about this gun situation. How do you wish to proceed?

Who will go first?

Mr. NEWTON. We have a short statement, Mr. Chairman, and, if it would be appropriate, we could present that first and then open it to questions.

Chairman DODD. All right. Go ahead.

STATEMENT OF GEORGE D. NEWTON, JR., DIRECTOR, TASK FORCE ON FIREARMS, NATIONAL COMMISSION ON THE CAUSES AND PREVENTION OF VIOLENCE, AND FRANKLIN E. ZYMRING, DIRECTOR OF RESEARCH, TASK FORCE ON FIREARMS, NATIONAL COMMISSION ON THE CAUSES AND PREVENTION OF VIOLENCE

Mr. NEWTON. Mr. Chairman, we appreciate the opportunity to address this subcommittee on the task of finding effective and appropriate methods of reducing firearms violence in the United States. During the past year, we have studied the relationship between firearms and violence under the auspices of the National Commission on the Causes and Prevention of Violence. We appear before this subcommittee, however, as interested individuals and our comments do not necessarily reflect the views of the violence commission.

A commission charged with investigating the causes and prevention of violence had to devote attention to the problem of firearms misuse in this country. One out of every 200 deaths in this country results from the criminal or accidental use of guns, and about the same number of deaths result from firearms suicide. At the present time, two-thirds of all homicides, nearly half of all suicides, and about 3,000 accidental deaths a year are attributable to the misuse of guns. Thousands of other persons are wounded each year as a result of gun misuse; many others are threatened by someone holding a gun. At the same time, an overwhelming majority of the guns in this country are used responsibly. Of the 90 million guns in civilian hands in the United States, only a fraction of 1 percent will be used as instruments of violence. But that small fraction is a substantial national problem.

The goal of all firearms control is to separate the legitimate from the illegitimate use of guns-the more than 99 percent of all firearms that are used responsibly from the dangerous less than 1 percent. The ideal solution would be a system of regulations that left all legitimate gun use undisturbed and prevented all illegitimate uses. This solution is obviously unattainable, but it provides a reference point for judging various approaches to firearms control in search of a system that will prevent as much illegitimate gun use as possible, while interfering minimally with legitimate gun uses.

A number of our findings shed some light on the direction firearms control in the United States should take. First, it is significant that firearms cannot be considered as interchangeable with other weapons used in violence. The use of a gun makes serious attacks five times as likely to result in death as the use of the next most dangerous substitute weapon, the knife.

Second, the degree to which guns are used in violence rises and falls with the level of gun ownership. Our study of Detroit showed that firearms violence increased in proportion with increased handgun acquisitions. Comparison of different regions of the country also demonstrates that the percentage of gun use in violent attacks parallels rates of gun ownership. A study of guns used in homicides, robberies, and assaults in eight major cities shows that cities where a high proportion of guns are used in one crime, tend to have a similar high proportion of guns used in other crimes.

Third, while handguns constitute only 27 percent of all firearms in civilian hands, the handgun is the principal firearm used in crime, accounting for over three-fourths of all firearm homicides and an even larger proportion of firearm robberies. If these are the costs of handgun ownership, what are the benefits? Most long-gun ownership is associated with sporting purposes, while ownership of handguns is primarily associated with self-defense. In order to be a useful instrument of self-defense, the handgun in the home-and that is where most of the handguns in the United States are kept-must be loaded. Yet our information indicates that the loaded firearm in the home is far more likely to cost lives than to save lives.

Fourth, statistics on the interstate movement of firearms indicate that when one jurisdiction attempts to control firearms within its borders, its efforts have historicaly been frustrated by the flow of firearms from jurisdictions with less stringent or nonexistent gun restrictions. We are not yet sure what results can be expected from the Gun Control Act of 1968. We hope this law will achieve some reduction in the interstate flow of firearms, but the law is far from leakproof.

We have concluded that the basic choice in firearms control is between a system that allows all but a small number of persons, such as convicted criminals, drug addicts, and the insane, to own any kind of firearm-a system we call permissive licensing-and a firearms control system that treats the different kinds of firearms differently by making shotguns and rifles available to all but the manifestly unqualified and allows handguns to be restrictively licensed in a way that would substantially reduce the number of such firearms owned by civilians in the United States. The problem with only permissive licensing of handguns is that many, indeed most, of those who use handguns to wound or kill would not be prohibited from having handguns under such a system. Even if gun misuse in this country were to be traced to an identifiable group of persons and a law enacted to prohibit them from owning guns, it is far from clear that we can keep guns away from the prohibited group when there are 40 handguns for every 100 households in the United States and when over 10 million handguns have been acquired in the last decade. The problem of separating the bad guys from the good guys when handgun supplies are this ample is that even if every dealer in the United States abides by the law, it is extremely difficult to control the private sale of handguns. We have found that over half of all handguns are acquired used, and more than half of these are acquired from friends or strangers in private handto-hand transactions. We conclude that the only way to reduce firearms violence is to substantially reduce the number of handguns in circulation.

We come then to the question of the appropriate Federal rule in firearms regulation. One school of thought holds that the Federal Government should do nothing since State and local governments, under the traditionally local police power, have the primary responsibility for making decisions about the impact of firearms on violence and the countermeasures which should be taken. The problem with this position is that firearms are indeed a national problem, requiring a national solution. The interstate movement of firearms is so substantial that Federal inaction means complete frustration of State and local firearms control efforts. It would seem a cruel hoax if this strategy were chosen in the name of protecting the police power of States and localities.

A second possible Federal role in firearms control is typified by the backstop efforts that underlie the recent controls on interstate firearms and ammunition shipments. This approach, it would be argued, discharges the Federal Government's primary responsibility in the area of firearms control by suppressing interstate movements of guns so that State and local governments charged with the primary responsibility of diminishing firearms violence, can better enforce whatever systems of control they deem appropriate. One problem with the backstop approach to that, as long as some States permit large accumulations of guns, it may be impossible to prevent interstate movement of firearms into States with more rigid control systems, no matter what is prescribed by the Federal Criminal Code. Thus, a system of national licensing may be the only method of achieving the goals of the backstop approach. A second problem with assigning the Federal Government a secondary role in firearms regulation is that the Federal Government may be unwilling to tolerate the levels of firearms violence and firearms possession that particular State governments would allow. Our view is that the regulation of the interstate shipment of guns through backstop efforts, such as the Gun Control Act of 1968, is necessary but insufficient. The large accumulation of guns in States which laws have no controls, will still lead to interstate firearms movements and toll in violence will remain high.

We favor the provisions of the Gun Control Act of 1968, but we feel more should be done. Registration has been recommended as the next logical step. Yet registered guns are just as deadly as any other kind, and registration alone cannot reduce this Nation's handgun stockpile. We urge a Federal law establishing minimum Federal standards for State firearms control systems. Within 3 years each State would enact a firearms control system meeting the Federal standards or a federally administered system based on these standards will be established. Under the Federal standards, each State would enact a restrictive licensing system to allow only persons who need them to possess handguns. Under this standard, ordinary home protection would not be a sufficient need to own a handgun and the 24 million handguns in this country would be reduced by about 90 percent. All those who are not issued licenses and who must give up their handguns would be duly compensated. At the same time, a Federal standard of permissive licensing would allow all persons except a small group of specifically prohibited persons to own long guns, so long as they have a State issued identification card. Instead of registration of all guns, we urge a transfer notice system for long guns whereby every dealer