NCJ Number
93399
Date Published
1982
Length
379 pages
Annotation
Advocates and opponents of gun control discuss past and current measures to amend the Gun Control Act of 1968 in hearings whose witnesses included legislators, lobbyists, reporters, and scholars.
Abstract
A professor from Duke University who had conducted research on firearms and violent crime stated a gun control measure that reduced gun availability to criminals would decrease the intensity of violent crime, but not the incidence. He discussed governmental regulation regarding interstate transfers, Saturday night specials, and screening handgun buyers. Representative Peter Rodino and Senator Edward Kennedy described the handgun control legislation they co-sponsored in 1981. A representative from the National Rifle Association stated that organization's opposition to gun control, citing several studies that demonstrate gun laws have no effect on crime or cause criminal violence to rise. He also opposed S. 1387, which requires a waiting period for the purchase of a handgun within a Federal enclave. A correspondent from the Cox Newspaper Service summarized his investigation of types of handguns used in crime. He found that short-barrel guns seemed to be more crime-prone than standard size weapons used by people for target practice or by the police and that cheap guns were not more prevalent in crime than expensive ones. The chairman of Handgun Control, Inc., a lobbying group, supported the Kennedy-Rodino bill, emphasizing that it would keep handguns out of the hands of criminals, the mentally ill, and drug addicts and imprison felons caught with guns. He and other organization members described their experiences as victims or relatives of victims in crimes involving handguns. The author of a study that reviewed the literature on weapons and violent crime commented that much of the commonly cited research failed elementary methodological standards and that no one knew enough to accurately predict the consequences of gun control laws. The final witness focused on the basis of the constitutional right to bear arms in common law and constitutional history. Prepared statements and papers entered in the record to support testimony are included.