[Pages S11365-S11368]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

ONE GUN A MONTH FORUM

<bullet> Mr. LAUTENBERG. Mr. President, I rise today to inform my
colleagues of a forum I held on September 2 on the deadly problem of
gun trafficking. I am pleased that Senator Robb and Senator Sarbanes
were able to join me at the forum.
As my colleagues know, I have introduced S. 466, the Anti-Gun
Trafficking Act. The Judiciary Committee has not held hearings on this
legislation, and I thought it was important to gather expert testimony
on the issue. The testimony I heard at the forum has made me even more
determined to pass this sensible legislation and make it more difficult
for gun traffickers to obtain and sell their deadly merchandise on our
streets.
The witnesses at this forum included: Philadelphia Mayor Ed Rendell,
who is also the chair of the Conference of Mayor's Task Force on Gun
Violence; James and Sarah Brady; Captain R. Lewis Vass of the Virginia
State Police, and Captain Thomas Bowers of the Maryland State Police.
We also heard from a panel of youth from right here in our nation's
capital who live with gun violence everyday in their communities. They
were John Schuler, Kenisha Green and Quanita Favorite.
In this statement I will summarize what happened during the forum.
But I will also be including, during the next few days, testimony from
the witnesses so that my colleagues and the public will have a record
of their views.
Mr. President, as a result of the Brady Act, we have helped prevent
thousands of guns from getting into the hands of the wrong people.
Since the Brady Act went into effect in 1994, more than 242,000 handgun
purchases have been denied to convicted felons, fugitives, drug addicts
and other dangerous persons. The Domestic Violence Gun Ban in the Brady
Act, which I sponsored and which went into effect in

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1996, has prevented more than 6,800 firearms sales to people convicted
of abusing a spouse or child.
However, the Brady Law has not completely stopped the flow of
handguns to those who should not have them. Gun traffickers continue to
supply an illegal gun market by buying large quantities of guns in
states with lax gun laws and then reselling them on the streets--often
in cities and states with strict gun laws.
If these traffickers can not legally buy a gun themselves, or if they
do not want to have their name turn up if the gun is later found at a
crime scene, they find others to make the purchases for them. The
trafficker pays a straw purchaser, in money or drugs, to buy 25, 50 or
more handguns at a time and then resells the guns to those who
otherwise could not buy them--such as convicted felons, drug addicts,
or children.
In fact, the Maryland State Police official testified that multiple
guns purchased by straw purchasers were the source of the majority of
firearms used in the commission of violent crime.
My bill would make it far more difficult and less profitable for
traffickers to conduct their deadly business, by prohibiting an
individual from buying more than one handgun a month. We know this
approach works because three states--Virginia, Maryland, South
Carolina--have passed one-gun-a month laws and the results have been
dramatic. Gun trafficking from these states has plunged.
For instance, officers from the Virginia State Police testified that
after Virginia passed its one-handgun-a-month limit in 1993, the number
of crime guns traced back to Virginia from the Northeast dropped by
nearly 40 percent. Prior to one-gun-a-month, Virginia had been among
the leading supplier of weapons to the so-called ``Iron Pipeline'' that
feed the arms race on the streets of Northeastern cities.
In 1995, the Virginia Crime Commission conducted a comprehensive
study of the one-handgun-a-month limit to determine if the law had
achieved its purpose. That study found, and I quote, ``Virginia's one-
gun-a-month statute . . . has had its intended effect of reducing
Virginia's status as a source state for gun trafficking.''
Maryland and South Carolina showed similar results. In South
Carolina, according to the same Crime Commission report: ``Prior to the
passage of the one-gun-a-month law, South Carolina was a leading source
state for guns traced to New York City, accounting for 39% of guns
recovered in criminal investigations. Following the implementation of
the law, South Carolina virtually dropped off of the statistical list
of source states for firearms trafficked to the northeast.''
Maryland--the most recent state to pass a limit on handgun
purchases-- passed its law in 1996 and has already seen the results.
According to testimony from the Maryland State Police:
``In 1991 Maryland was nationally ranked second in terms of suppliers
of crime guns to the City of New York. By 1997, one year after the
passage of Maryland's one gun a month law, Maryland moved out of the
top ten suppliers of crime guns to New York City.''
And most significant is the drop in crime that has followed enactment
of limits on handgun sales. For example, in Virginia, the number of
murders, robberies and aggravated assaults committed with a firearm
significantly dropped after 1993 when the limit went into effect. Of
course it should not come as a surprise to anyone that violent crime
would drop when it becomes more difficult for criminals to get a
handgun. Handguns are the gun of choice for criminals--they are cheap
and concealable. Of all murders committed with firearm, about 80% are
committed with a handgun.
Limits on handgun purchases, while disrupting gun traffickers, have
little or no effect on the sportsman or law abiding citizen because a
very small percent of all handgun purchases involve multiple sales. For
example, in 1991, Virginia State Police reported only 6% of handgun
purchases were multiple sales. But of these, nearly 75% were semi-
automatic weapons, the weapon of choice among gun traffickers. Mayor
Rendell testified that less than 1% of handgun purchasers in
Philadelphia bought more than 12 handguns in a twelve month period.
Let me put some human faces on this issue. As I said earlier, kids
from the District of Columbia testified at my forum. And what they had
to say was terrifying. Guns were an every day part of their lives. For
these kids, D.C. does not stand for District of Columbia. It stands for
Dodge City.
These young people told us that guns are easy to get in their
neighborhoods and schools. They call it getting strapped. And if you do
not get strapped you might not make it through the day, they said.
One young woman put it eloquently: ``It's not fair,'' she said.
``Other kids get to go to college. We get to go to funerals. These
people who sell guns are the real predators. They feed off our pain.''
We must shut these predators down.
Most sane people would ask, who could possibly need more than one
handgun a month? The testimony at my forum gave the clear and obvious
answer. Someone who should not have any at all. The only people who
would ``need'' more than one gun a month are gun traffickers. It is the
only way to make their deadly business profitable.
The need for a national limit on handgun sales is clear. I hope this
Congress has the courage to act in the interests of law abiding
Americans. But I have my doubts. This Congress has defeated sensible
proposals to try to make guns safer through mandated safety locks. This
Congress has defeated legislation that would require adults to keep
their guns locked and out of reach of children.
I look forward to the day when this Congress listens to the American
people instead of the gun lobby and the National Rifle Association.
Poll after poll shows that Americans, including gun-owning Americans,
want tougher controls on guns. A University of Chicago study in 1996
found 85% support legislation mandating that all new handguns must be
childproof, and 80% favors limiting handgun sales to one a month.
We have heard a lot from Charlton Heston lately now that he is
president of the National Rifle Association. But I sometimes think Mr.
Heston forgets he is only an actor--not Moses--when he uses that superb
voice of his in the service of the National Rifle Association.
I would like to remind Mr. Heston of one of the last things Moses
said to the children of Israel before he died.
``I have put before you life and death, blessing and curse. Choose
life if you and your offspring would live.''
Well, Mr. Heston, we choose life--for ourselves and our children. And
we are going to fight the curse that gun traffickers have wrought upon
cities, our schools and our streets.
I urge my colleagues to listen to the American people; stop turning a
blind eye to the daily destruction caused by guns in America. I urge my
colleagues to have the will to do something to help the youth of
America live without the daily sound of gunshots in their lives. I ask
my colleagues to support this common sense approach to keep handguns
out of the hands of criminals.
Mr. President, I ask that the testimony of Mayor Edward Rendell be
printed in the Record.
The testimony follows:

Testimony of Mayor Edward G. Rendell, Forum on Handgun Violence and S.
466, ``The Anti-Gun Trafficking Act''--Talking Points

i. the scope of the problem

We have a crisis in Philadelphia: Gun violence is out of
control, and the carnage it has created is unprecedented in
our City.
The statistics are chilling: Between 1985 and 1995, deaths
by firearm rose 66 percent in Pennsylvania, and by 102
percent in Philadelphia. In 1995 there were 432 total
homicides in Philadelphia, and gun homicides represented a
staggering 77 percent of that number. In 1996, there were 414
total homicides, and killings by gun represented 81 percent
of that number. And last year, the gruesome trend continued:
of the 410 total homicides in Philadelphia, 339 of them--
almost 83 percent--were due to gun violence. These numbers
are the highest of any city in the nation.
For the City, there is one particularly horrifying element
to the growing plague of gun violence: More and more, kids
are doing the killing. In almost 15 percent of all
Philadelphia gun homicides over the last three years, a child
under age 18 was arrested for pulling the trigger. And worst
of all, kids are the victims, too: in 1995, 24 children were
shot to death; in 1996, the number was 25; and last year, 26
kids were killed by gunfire. Ladies and gentlemen, homicide
is now the leading cause of death among youths ages 16 to 21
in

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Philadelphia. Compare this Boston, where no kids--zero--under
the age of 18 were killed by gunfire during the same period.
The carnage caused by gun violence in Philadelphia doesn't
just show up in the murder statistics, either: More than half
of all robberies committed in Philadelphia are robberies at
the point of a gun. In Philadelphia last year, there were
11,938 robberies, and 53.7 percent were gun robberies. Almost
one-third of those arrested for these crimes were under the
age of 18.
Of the 6,198 aggravated assaults in Philadelphia last year,
more than 36 percent involved a gun--a total of 2,279
shootings in one year. Almost 17 percent of those arrested
for these crimes were juveniles.
In one bloody week earlier this year, our newspaper
headlines recorded the shooting deaths of eight people in
Philadelphia--five in one weekend alone. Among the victims: a
22-year-old man killed in a gun battle that erupted outside
the Palestra at the University of Pennsylvania after a high-
school basketball championship game. Three others were
wounded in the melee, which took place in the middle of 33rd
Street as the crowd was leaving the game. In other cases, two
owners of a neighborhood pizzeria were gunned down in their
store; an elderly woman was shot to death during a robbery in
her own home; and a lawyer and his assistant were robbed and
executed in their Center City office.
Though that week was particularly grim, it was by no means
one-of-a-kind. In fact, the situation is so bad that an
absence of murder actually became news last spring: In a
story about the Philadelphia murder rate, one local newspaper
reported that Philadelphia went 12 days without a homicide,
from April 24th to May 5th. As the paper noted: ``There had
not been a comparable killing-free stretch for at least 10
years. The next longest streak on record was eight days, in
1988.''

ii. we have tried to address the problem in many ways

Having been a prosecutor for most of my professional
career--I was the elected District Attorney of Philadelphia
from 1978 to 1986, and before that, I served as the Chief of
the Homicide Unit in the DA's office--I know a fair amount
about crime and the fear that it generates among good and
decent people in our communities. This is not an argument
about whether people have the right to own guns or not.
Rather, this is about stopping guns from getting into the
wrong hands, particularly criminals and children.
I understand the need for comprehensive solutions to
fighting crime involve more than controlling the flow of
handguns in our City. For example, in my first term as
District Attorney of Philadelphia, I authored the death
penalty law in Pennsylvania, which withstood legal challenge
and today is being used with increasing frequency.
In 1982, during my second term as DA, I authored
Pennsylvania's current mandatory sentencing law, which
created tough new mandatory jail terms for criminal
offenders, including a flat five-year mandatory sentence for
anyone convicted of using a firearm during the commission of
a felony.
The results have meant longer sentences are being served in
Pennsylvania. Last year alone, the number of convictions for
gun offenses in Philadelphia almost doubled, and the number
of jail terms meted out for these convictions jumped by more
than 120 percent. Overall, the number of inmates in
Pennsylvania prisons has increased by almost 30 percent
since 1993 (26,060 inmates statewide in 1993, up to 34,534
inmates statewide by 1996.)
We have tried through the enactment of state legislation in
Pennsylvania as recently a 1995. The Pennsylvania Uniform
Firearms Act (18 Pa.C.S. Sec. 6111(g)(5)) makes it a felony
to ``knowingly and intentionally'' sell or deliver a gun if
he or she has ``reason to believe'' that the gun is intended
to be used in the commission of a crime. But the problem has
been in proving that the seller acted ``knowingly or
intentionally,'' with reason to believe that the firearm was
intended for use in a crime. Proving intent is always
difficult; proving that someone acted knowingly,
intentionally and with reason to believe is practically
impossible. As a result, a law meant to limit a criminal's
access to guns in reality is used only very rarely, and as
such has had no practical effect on the effort to keep guns
out of the hands of criminals.

III. And We're Still Trying

The statistics show the grim toll of gun violence in
Philadelphia, and these facts can be repeated in cities all
over America. They can be measured in starkly human terms:
the number of lives lost to gun violence, and the number of
lives ruined by it, either through injury (victims and
families) or incarceration (the perpetrators). But for cities
like Philadelphia, the cost of gun violence can be quantified
in dollars and cents too; Taking into account the enormous
burden that guns place on our health services, courts,
prisons, police, sheriffs, fire, pension, workers
compensation, our public schools, and social services, the
City estimates the cost of gun violence in Philadelphia is
$58.8 million a year.
These statistics underscore the critical importance of
doing all we can to eliminate the flow of guns to the wrong
people: criminals, children, and those ``straw purchasers''
who sell to them. That is why we pushed for tougher
sentences, for the death penalty, and for the construction of
new prisons to house those sentenced to longer jail terms.
But the grim gun violence statistics keep climbing, showing
that what we've done hasn't been nearly enough.
That's why we continue to do all that we can to stop the
violence, with initiatives like the successful effort to win
agreement with gun manufacturers to provide a child safety
lock with every handgun they sell. The industry is to be
commended for its willingness to act affirmatively to provide
child safety locks. They are an easy, affordable way to
reduce gun violence, and they are helping.
That is why we also have launched a comprehensive public
education campaign in Philadelphia, targeting youngsters with
a message that focuses on violence reduction (I Can End
Violence) and specifically on carrying and using guns. These
messages are aimed for distribution through churches, rec
centers, and youth centers. In addition, we have launched a
public service ad campaign--``What Are You Shooting For?''--
that sends that same message throughout the Greater
Philadelphia region, and we have garnered the assistance of
the local media in supporting this effort by broadcasting
these messages.
The Philadelphia Police Department has changed the way it
does business with respect to handguns. A whole new series of
initiatives have been introduced to control the damage done
by criminals with handguns. These initiatives include:
Standard Interview Protocol for all gun offenders to
determine the origin of guns used in crimes; streamlining all
gun issues in the Police Department under one command;
aggressively serving warrants; zero tolerance for gun
offenders in high violent-crime areas; and more aggressively
tracing guns used in crimes, and cracking down on second
sales, with the help of the ATF.
Working together, the ATF and the Philadelphia Police
Department have made terrific progress in tracking the
origins of guns used in the commission of crimes. Initially,
the joint ATF-PPD task force traced firearms recovered in
major crimes. Today, they trace all firearms linked to an
arrest, and soon, they will have the capability to trace all
firearms recovered in Philadelphia.
As a result of these initiatives, the task force has
increased the number of arrests for gun violation
prosecutions by 25 percent, and that number continues to
rise. But again, to be successful in prosecuting those who
sell guns to criminals, we must prove that the seller
``knowingly or intentionally'' sold the gun to someone he
knew was going to use it to commit a crime. In practice, it
is a difficult EGR standards to meet, especially since
neither the seller nor the buyer has any incentive to
testify to that effect. The seller clearly has no interest
in testifying that he knowingly sold a gun to a criminal,
or that he had reason to expect that it would be used in a
crime. And the criminal likewise has little incentive to
volunteer any inculpatory evidence whatsoever.
As a result, despite the success of these efforts, we must
all do more.

iv. what the gun industry can do

Gun manufacturers can help, too. Child safety locks were a
great move, but more must be done. I have asked the industry
to:
(1) increase internal security--14,000 guns were stolen
from one manufacturer's plant in Southern California;
(2) stop selling guns that are attractive to criminals but
have no legitimate use except to kill people: Saturday night
specials, armor piercing bullets, military assault weapons;
(3) stop advertising that incorrectly suggests that people
are safer for having a gun in their homes; the New England
Journal of Medicine reports that bringing a gun into the home
leads to a three-fold increase in risk of homicide in the
home;
(4) take the lead and oppose senseless restrictions that
impede investigation of gun crimes, such as obstruction of
the Brady form and multiple purchase form in 20 days, making
tracking infinitely more difficult. NOTE: even Ron Stewart of
Colt recently called for federalization of state laws
requiring a second set of serial numbers on weapons because,
as he said, ``isn't that a protective measure that prevents
illegal ownership of a firearm?''
(5) A 1994 federal law banned further manufacture for
civilian use of clips or magazines holding more than 10
rounds of ammunition. Stop producing guns that accept
``grandfathered'' magazines;
(6) Develop technology to make illegal use almost
impossible, such as the production of ``personalized''
handguns that can only be fired by their rightful owners.
This is the ultimate weapon against illegal use of handguns.
Last year, Colt unveiled a prototype personalized handgun for
police to prevent them from being shot with their own
weapons. This system should be developed ASAP for everyone,
police and civilians alike.
The gun industry, working with the American Shooting Sports
Council, has agreed to join mayors from a variety of cities,
including Philadelphia, Chicago, Dallas, and St. Louis, in
the formation of a joint task force to come with initiatives,
by the fall of this year, to reduce handgun violence in
American cities. That is the kind of partnership we need to
substantively address the problem of handgun violence in our
cities.
That is why I also urge federal support for Project Exile,
a partnership we have created with the National Rifle
Association in which Philadelphia would be used as a test
city to gauge the impact of federalizing every violation of
existing handgun laws. The idea is

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simple: federally prosecute all handgun violations, and mete
out tough federal prison sentences for all convictions. It
has shown dramatic results in Richmond, Va., and I have no
doubt that it will reduce gun violence and the carnage that
accompanies it on the streets of Philadelphia. People on both
sides of the age-old gun debate have criticized this
partnership, but again, this is not about the Second
Amendment. This is not about the right to bear arms. We're
talking about stemming the flow of guns into the inner city,
where they are used by criminals and children to commit
crimes and destroy families. Thanks to the support of Sen.
Lautenberg and Sen. Specter, Congressional support for this
initiative will help us obtain the federal resources needed
to make the program a success. I have already been to the
White House to discuss Administration support for the
initiative, and I believe that it will be successful in that
regard.
We are engaged in a war to reduce the carnage caused by gun
violence. And we must fight this fight on many fronts, and
sometimes with unusual allies. We have worked with the gun
industry, the NRA and its representatives, for one simple
reason: We need their help to reduce gun violence. And we are
still considering litigation to force gun manufacturers to
join the fight against gun violence if they do not do so
willingly.

v. the need for federal one gun a month legislation

If these initiatives are critical to our fight, then the
enactment of legislation is no less essential in the effort
to reduce gun violence. And that is why today's forum is
critically important: Whatever other initiatives are
implemented, we must develop Congressional support for S.
466, the federal Anti-Gun Trafficking Act sponsored by Sen.
Lautenberg. Because gun trafficking knows no state lines,
federal legislation--a uniform national standard limiting
handgun purchases--is the only effective way to combat this
problem.
I have long advocated support for One Gun a Month, because
it is a matter of basic common sense. One Gun a Month deals
only with handguns, and does not interfere at all with a
citizen's right to maintain a firearm for home or personal
protection. Instead, One Gun a Month focuses on stopping
multiple purchases of handguns, because these are the guns
that ultimately wind up being resold on the streets of our
cities to criminals and children.
Look at the statistics on gun sales in Pennsylvania. In
1996, there were 150,000 handgun sales statewide. During
roughly the same period, there were 38,338 guns sold in the
Philadelphia region alone. Of that number, roughly nine
percent of the purchasers bought nearly 30 percent of the
guns.
What that means is that small numbers of people are buying
lots of guns, and our experience shows that is for only one
reason: to resell them on the street to people who use them
in the commission of crimes.
One Gun a Month would limit purchasers to buying 12 guns a
year. I also support the so-called ``Collector's Exception,''
which would permit bona fide gun collectors from the
legislation. As a result, for the overwhelming majority of
gun purchasers, only the 13th gun would be prohibited. Ladies
and gentlemen, legislation that proposes to ban handgun sales
only at the purchase of 13 guns a year does not affect the
average citizen--or the average gun purchaser. As the New
York Times pointed out in a recent editorial supporting a
federal limit, those who argue that One Gun a Month would
limit a citizen's right to bear arms should be forced to
``explain to crime-fearing Americans why a 12-gun-per-year
limit would impose any offensive burden on law-abiding users
who may want a weapons for target shooting or for personal
protection.''
Instead, the federal standard proposed in S. 466 simply
limits the ability of those who resell guns on our streets.
Again, look at just the Pennsylvania numbers. Of the 25,510
purchasers of guns in 1996, One Gun a Month would affect only
103 Pennsylvania purchasers (those who bought more than 12
guns in a 12-month period.) That's .4 percent of all
purchasers of guns in Philadelphia, and only a total of 5,000
guns out of the 38,000 sold in 1996 in the Philadelphia
region.
And while One Gun a Month does little to limit purchases by
law-abiding citizens in Pennsylvania, it has the potential to
crack down on the sales to those who sell to criminals and
children. In other words, it has the ability to go after the
gun sales that none of us want: not the City of Philadelphia,
not any member of Congress, and not even the gun
manufacturers or the NRA.
The grim reality of these types of sales is inescapable.
FACT: At least 20 percent of all multiple gun purchasers can
be linked to guns used in the commission of crime,
particularly violent crime, in Philadelphia. FACT: A total of
608 handguns that were purchased in multiple purchase
transactions have been directly linked to a homicide or other
violent crime in Philadelphia. And as the tracing of these
guns continues, these numbers undoubtedly will continue to
rise. FACT: Under One Gun a Month, the sale of guns to
``suspect purchasers'' (those whose purchases suggest
involvement in street resale of guns) could be reduced by as
much as 54 percent.
States have taken the lead in the effort to limit purchases
to one gun a month. And as Sen. Lautenberg has made clear,
the good news is that One Gun a Month is working in Virginia,
South Carolina and Maryland, where it was most recently
enacted. In Virginia, the odds of a handgun seized in a crime
anywhere along the East Coast has dropped 66 percent since
One Gun a Month was enacted in 1993. In Maryland, handgun
sales dropped more than 25 percent last year, and as the
Washington Post noted sarcastically, that in turn ``is
threatening Maryland's position as a leading supplier of
handguns seized by police at crime scenes up and down the
East Coast.''
I urge members of Congress to follow the lead of Sen.
Lautenberg and support S. 466, the ``Anti-Gun Trafficking
Act.'' I have also urged the gun industry and the NRA to
support this important legislation, together with my fellow
mayors from cities all over the nation. Again, this is not
about whether people have the right to bear arms or purchase
weapons. This legislation does not affect them. This is about
keeping guns out of the hands of criminals, and out of the
hands of children. Gun violence is out of control in
Philadelphia, and this legislation can help to stop it. I
urge your support.
Several years ago, a Florida-based manufacturer of assault
pistols which at that time were with a 32-round magazine,
said: ``I know some of the guns going out of here will end up
killing people, but I'm not responsible for that.'' He was
wrong then, and that attitude is wrong now. It is my
responsibility, and it is everyone's responsibility,
including mayors, state legislators, members of Congress, and
indeed, especially the gun industry itself.
Back in April, I came to Washington to speak directly to
gun manufacturers, thanks to the invitation of the American
Shooting Sports Council. It was, I might add, not the
greatest reception I've ever gotten. But they were at least
willing to listen, and I told them that we very much wanted
to be their allies in fighting the growing plague of gun
violence. That remains true, but understand, one way or
another we will try anything and everything--whether it is
partnering with the gun industry or the NRA, or suing gun
manufacturers--to end the terrible consequences of gun
violence on the streets of Philadelphia.<bullet>

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