[Congressional Bills 105th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H.R. 1147 Introduced in House (IH)]







105th CONGRESS
  1st Session
                                H. R. 1147

To repeal the prohibitions relating to semiautomatic firearms and large 
                  capacity ammunition feeding devices.


_______________________________________________________________________


                    IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                             March 20, 1997

   Mr. Paul introduced the following bill; which was referred to the 
                       Committee on the Judiciary

_______________________________________________________________________

                                 A BILL


 
To repeal the prohibitions relating to semiautomatic firearms and large 
                  capacity ammunition feeding devices.

    Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the 
United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

    This Act may be cited as the ``Second Amendment Restoration Act of 
1997''.

SEC. 2. FINDINGS.

    The Congress finds the following:
            (1) The Second Amendment protects the rights of individual 
        persons to keep and bear arms, including semi-automatic 
        firearms.
            (2) Article I, Section 8 of the United States Constitution 
        grants Congress no authority to enact gun control legislation. 
        For example, in United States v. Lopez (1995), the Supreme 
        Court struck down a gun control law on the grounds that the 
        Congress did not have authority under the Commerce Clause to 
        enact such legislation.
            (3) The United States Senate Subcommittee on the 
        Constitution reported in 1982 that, ``In the Militia Act of 
        1792, the second Congress defined `militia of the United 
        States' to include almost every free adult male in the United 
        States. These persons were obligated by law to possess a 
        (military-style) firearm and a minimum supply of ammunition and 
        military equipment. . . . There can be little doubt from this 
        that when the Congress and the people spoke of the a `militia,' 
        they had reference to the traditional concept of the entire 
        populace capable of bearing arms, and not to any formal group 
        such as what is today called the National Guard.''
            (4) The Supreme Court stated in United States v. Miller 
        (1939) that, ``The Militia comprised all males physically 
        capable of acting in concert for the common defense . . . (and) 
        when called for service, these men were expected to appear 
        bearing arms supplied by themselves and the kind in common use 
        at the time.''
            (5) High capacity semi-automatic firearms are excellent for 
        self-defense. These firearms are the very guns which Korean 
        merchants used to defend themselves during the 1992 Los Angeles 
        riots. These firearms provided to be extremely useful to the 
        Koreans, as their stores were left standing while other stores 
        around them were burned to the ground.
            (6) Semi-automatic weapons are not the guns most frequently 
        used in crime. The Bureau of Justice Statistics reported in 
        1993 that violent criminals only carry or use a ``military-type 
        gun'' in about one percent of the crimes nationwide.
            (7) Tracing is not a reliable indicator of which guns are 
        used in crime, and is thus a poor indicator of how often so-
        called semi-automatic weapons are misused. The Congressional 
        Research Service reported in 1993 that, ``Firearms selected for 
        tracing do not constitute a random sample and cannot be 
        considered representative of the larger universe of all 
        firearms used by criminals.''
            (8) Agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms 
        (BATF) have themselves stated that, ``BATF does not always know 
        if a firearm being traced has been used in a crime.'' For 
        example in 1989 in Los Angeles, ``assault rifles'' represented 
        approximately only 3 percent of guns seized, but 19 percent of 
        gun traces.
            (9) The National Association of Chiefs of Police found in 
        its 1992 poll that 66.7 percent of law enforcement agency heads 
        agree that ``law-abiding citizens should have the right to 
        purchase any type of firearm (including semi-automatic weapons) 
        for sport or self-defense under state laws that now exist.'' 
        Moreover, the same poll found that 89.6 percent of the 
        respondents did not believe that ``banning (military-style) 
        weapons would reduce criminals from obtaining them.''

SEC. 3. REPEAL OF THE PROHIBITIONS RELATING TO SEMI-AUTOMATIC ASSAULT 
              WEAPONS AND LARGE CAPACITY AMMUNITION FEEDING DEVICES.

            (a) Section 922 of title 18, United States Code, is amended 
        by striking subsections (v) and (w) and by striking the 
        appendix.
            (b) Section 921(a) of such title is amended by striking 
        paragraphs (31) and (32).
            (c) Section 923(i) of such title is amended by striking the 
        last 2 sentences.
            (d) Section 924(a)(1)(B) of such title is amended by 
        striking ``(r), (v), or (w)'' and inserting ``or (r)''.
            (e) Section 924(c)(1) of such title is amended by striking 
        ``short-barreled shotgun, or semiautomatic assault weapon,'' 
        and inserting ``or short-barreled shotgun''.
            (f) Title XI of the Violent Crime Control and Law 
        Enforcement Act of 1994 is hereby repealed.
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