[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.
____________________