[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 52 (Wednesday, May 4, 1994)]
[House]
[Page H]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: May 4, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
      PROOF OF THE CALIFORNIA ASSAULT WEAPONS BAN'S EFFECTIVENESS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from California [Mr. Stark] is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. STARK. Mr. Speaker, I would like to include the following letter 
to Chairman Schumer in the Record.
  As it explains, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms has 
recently provided preliminary statistics documenting the success of 
California's Roberti-Roos Assault Weapons Control Act of 1989.
                                    Congress of the United States,


                                     House of Representatives,

                                   Washington, DC, April 25, 1994.
     Hon. Charles Schumer,
     Chairman, Subcommittee on Crime, House of Representatives.
       Dear Mr. Chairman: As the Subcommittee on Crime begins its 
     consideration of H.R. 3527, the Public Safety and 
     Recreational Firearms Use Protection Act, I urge you to look 
     at the effects of the nation's oldest assault weapons ban, 
     California's Roberti-Roos Assault Weapons Control Act of 
     1989.
       This legislation went into effect on July 1, 1989. It was 
     passed in the aftermath of Patrick Purdy's shooting spree at 
     a schoolyard in Stockton, California. Armed with an AK-47 and 
     several semiautomatic pistols, Purdy fired over 100 rounds 
     killing five school children and wounding thirty others 
     before killing himself.
       Now, five years after the passage of this law, I think we 
     can begin to evaluate the law's effectiveness. At my request, 
     the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (ATF) has 
     provided some preliminary data from the National Tracing 
     Center. These numbers reflect requests to the ARF by local 
     law enforcement agencies for background traces conducted on 
     guns which are suspected to have been used in crimes. 
     Although this data does have limitations and is not a direct 
     measurement of criminal use, the Congressional Research 
     Service has pointed out this data is, ``the only significant 
     national data on the makes and models of firearms that may 
     have been used in crimes.''
       The data shows that although the California law has not 
     ended criminal use of assault weapons in California, it has 
     significantly helped California's law enforcement officials 
     contain assault weapons' growing popularity among criminals.


              assault weapons in california vs. the nation

       Over the past three years, both California and the nation 
     have experienced growing criminal use of assault weapons, as 
     evidenced by increasing requests for ATF traces. However, 
     while national requests have skyrocketed, California's 
     requests have grown at a much slower rate and stabilized for 
     some of the most criminally popular weapons.
       Following the 1986 Machine Gun Ban and President Bush's 
     1989 Assault Weapons Import Ban, trace requests for assault 
     weapons (as determined by ATF) decreased nationally, both in 
     number and proportion. Starting in 1991, however, they have 
     risen and, based on the first three months of 1994, will 
     easily surpass the 1989 level (see tables 1 and 2).
       During the same period, however, California's local law 
     enforcement requested far fewer traces of the forty-plus 
     weapons banned by the Roberti Roos law. In fact, while trace 
     requests for assault weapons rose nationally by 52% between 
     1991 and 1993, California requests for banned guns increased 
     less than half that rate--22% (see table 3). Additionally, 
     California's trace requests for the banned guns decreased as 
     a proportion of the national total--from 7.1% in 1991 to 5.7% 
     in 1993. Clearly, the California ban has spared California 
     from the drastic national growth.
       As for the legislation you are considering, the guns 
     explicitly banned by H.R. 3527 make up 85% of all assault 
     weapons traced by ATF for criminal activity during the past 
     three years. From 1991 through 1993, trace requests for these 
     guns have risen 62%.
       Trace requests for certain weapons whose criminal use has 
     skyrocketed nation-wide also show California's stability. For 
     example, while trace requests for AK-47s have almost tripled 
     nationally, they have remained the same in California (table 
     4).
       However, California trace requests for another popular 
     assault weapon not banned by the California law, the TEC 22, 
     have essentially mirrored the national growth rate: 100% in 
     CA from 1991 to 1993 compared to 116% nationally.


                assault weapons in CA: banned vs. legal

       Looking at trace requests within California reveals other 
     important trends. Although California has stabilized the 
     growth of the guns which it has banned, there has been 
     significant growth in California's trace requests for guns 
     which were left out of the ban or which did not exist in 
     1989.
       California's assault weapons ban has experienced problems 
     with new weapons because it bans weapon names rather than 
     weapon features. Both the San Jose Mercury News and The Los 
     Angeles Times have reported that, ``designing similar but not 
     identical guns to those on the prohibited list has become 
     common for gun manufacturers looking to get around the 
     California law'' (San Jose Mercury News, 7/3/93). Even though 
     the law gave the state Attorney General the power to add guns 
     to the list, none have been added since 1989. As a result, 
     there has been a boom in new, legal, assault weapons with 
     features identical to banned guns, but with new names.
       The TEC 9 family of guns manufactured by Intratec, shows 
     both the increased criminal preference for legal assault 
     weapons as well as growing popularity in copy-cat designed to 
     get around the ban. The Roberti-Roos Assault Weapons Ban 
     specifically banned the TEC 9 but did not mention the 
     substantially similar TEC 22. As a result, California's trace 
     requests for the TEC 9 have slightly declined, while those 
     for the TEC 22 have doubled (see table 5).
       This family of guns also shows the ominous dangers of the 
     copy-cat loophole. On July 1, 1993 Gian Ferri walked into the 
     San Francisco law offices of Pettit & Martin carrying two TEC 
     DC9 semi-automatic assault pistols. With them he shot and 
     killed eight people before taking his own life. The TEC DC 9, 
     functionally identical and look-alike to the TEC 9, was 
     created shortly after the passage of the California law to be 
     sold as a legal version of the TEC 9. Not surprisingly, 
     California trace requests for TEC DC9s have shot up while 
     requests for TEC9s have fallen (see table 5).
       The Public Safety and Recreational Firearms Use Protection 
     Act (H.R. 3527), which you are presently considering, would 
     close this gaping loophole by including language to ban 
     assault weapon by feature rather than name. Since this 
     features-based assault weapons ban focuses on military 
     features, it protects the rights of legitimate hunters and 
     sportsmen. The appendix listing over 600 legitimate hunting 
     and sporting guns (including over 60 semiautomatic rifles) 
     would also be an important fail-safe guarantee of hunters' 
     rights.


                       would a national ban work?

       Some skeptics have asked whether a national assault weapons 
     ban could work. We already have one that does.
       ATF tracing statistics show that President Bush's 1989 
     Assault Weapons Import Ban has significantly reduced the use 
     of the models it banned over the past three years (see table 
     6). Trace requests for illegally-used guns banned by 
     President Bush's 1989 Import Ban declined nationally by 16% 
     between 1991-1993. Both California and the nation have 
     benefited from the reduced misuse of these guns.
       I hope you will find this information helpful as you 
     consider the Public Safety and Recreational Firearms Use 
     Protection Act. I enthusiastically support it, and hope you 
     will report the bill as it passed the Senate. If you have any 
     questions, please don't hesitate to contact me at (202) 225-
     5065.
           Sincerely,
                                                       Pete Stark,
                                               Member of Congress.

        TABLE 1.--U.S. ASSAULT WEAPONS TRACE REQUESTS ARE RISING        
------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                               Traces of
                                                     All ATF    assault 
                                                     traces     weapons 
------------------------------------------------------------------------
1986..............................................     39,800      2,755
1987..............................................     35,100      2,296
1988..............................................     37,050      3,977
1989..............................................     41,807      4,163
1990..............................................     47,770      2,808
1991..............................................     53,924      2,991
1992..............................................     50,533      3,254
1993..............................................     55,665      4,532
1994--projected...................................     60,672      6,332
------------------------------------------------------------------------

     Table 2.--Assault weapons are also rising as percent of traces

                                                                Percent
1986................................................................6.9
1987................................................................6.5
1988...............................................................10.7
1989...............................................................10.0
1990................................................................5.9
1991................................................................5.5
1992................................................................6.4
1993................................................................8.1
1994--projected....................................................10.4

   Table 3.--California trace requests for weapons banned in 1989 by 
                            Roberti-Roos law

1986................................................................246
1987................................................................170
1988................................................................279
1989................................................................290
1990................................................................318
1991................................................................213
1992................................................................235
1993................................................................260

                    TABLE 4.--GROWTH IN AK-47 TRACES                    
------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                       AK-47 traces--   
                                                  ----------------------
                                                   California    United 
                                                                States  
------------------------------------------------------------------------
1991.............................................          25        336
1992.............................................          21        424
1993.............................................          28       934 
------------------------------------------------------------------------


                                  TABLE 5.--TEC 9 FAMILY OF GUNS IN CALIFORNIA                                  
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                          TEC 9 banned        TEC-DC9 copy cat--legal         TEC 22 legal      
                                   -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                    United                    United                    United  
                                    California     States     California     States     California     States   
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1991..............................           20          771  ...........  ...........            4           98
1992..............................           25          640            1          111            5          134
1993..............................           16          617           24          454            8          212
Percent of growth 1991-1993.......          -20          -20  ...........  ...........          100         116 
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Table 6.--Decline in trace requests for assault weapons banned by 1989 
                               import ban

                                                                 Traces
1991...............................................................1028
1992................................................................893
1993\1\.............................................................862

\1\From 1991 to 1993 traces declined 16 percent.

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