[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 42 (Monday, March 25, 1996)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2802-S2803]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

       By Mr. BRADLEY:
  S. 1640. A bill to prohibit the possession and transfer of 
nonsporting handguns, and for other purposes; to the Committee on the 
Judiciary.


            The Domestic Saturday Night Special Act of 1996

  Mr. BRADLEY. Mr. President, I rise today to introduce a measure 
designed to ban the sale and possession of domestic Saturday night 
specials, which are inexpensive, short-barreled--4" or shorter, easily 
concealed handguns that are made from inferior materials and lack any 
sporting purpose. These handguns have flooded the black market and are 
disproportionately used in violent criminal activity. These weapons are 
poorly made, unreliable and, in some cases, unsafe. They are cheap to 
build, cheap to purchase, and are roughly 3.4 times more likely to be 
involved in violent crimes than are handguns from other major 
manufacturers. Their destructive impact on the lives of American 
citizens must be stopped.
  Mr. President, in the aftermath of the assassinations of Robert F. 
Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr., Congress passed the Gun Control 
Act of 1968, which targeted small caliber, easily concealable, and 
poorly made imported handguns named Saturday night specials. It was 
Congress' intent to eliminate imported guns which were believed to be 
disproportionately involved in crime. Specifically, the legislation 
banned the importation of handguns not particularly suitable for or 
readily adaptable to sporting purposes. Congress, however, exempted 
domestic manufacturers from the legislation, resulting in the creation 
of a protected domestic industry that produces and markets small, 
poorly made, easily concealable handguns.
  Today, Mr. President, six handgun manufacturers in southern 
California dominate the production of Saturday night specials. In 1992, 
they made over 80 percent of the .25 ACP, .32 ACP, and .380 ACP pistols 
manufactured in this country. Indeed, in 1992 these companies 
manufactured 685,934 handguns, or 34 percent of all handguns made in 
the United States. According to 1993 figures, one of the Saturday night 
special manufacturers, Lorcin Engineering Inc., is the leading pistol 
manufacturer in America.
  In 1968, ``the American Rifleman''--a publication of the National 
Rifle Association, in arguing in favor of a ban on Saturday night 
special imports, noted that such weapons were ``miserably made, 
potentially defective arms that contribute so much to rising 
violence.'' This statement is equally applicable today to domestically 
manufactured Saturday night specials.
  The carnage and killing that occur in our Nation's towns and cities 
are directly related to the proliferation of these weapons of 
destruction on the streets of America. According to a Wall Street 
Journal investigation, these pistols are purchased in bulk at retail by 
illegal dealers and smuggled by bus or train to urban centers for 
resale on the street.
  Once they reach the streets, domestic Saturday night specials, which 
sell for as low as $35, are the starter guns of choice for criminals 
and the very young. For example, in 1990, a 5-year-old from the Bronx, 
NY, carried in his pocket a loaded domestic Saturday night special to 
kindergarten. In 1992, a 15-year-old aimed a domestic Saturday night 
special from the roof of a New York apartment building and shot a 
policeman in the ankle.
  Mr. President, these guns are disproportionately used in robberies 
and murders. From 1990 to 1992, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and 
Firearms [ATF] traced approximately 24,000 handguns sold after 1986 and 
used in murders and other crimes. Saturday night specials produced by 
three southern California companies accounted for 27 percent of the 
traces, as compared to 11 percent for the much larger Smith and Wesson 
Company. According to the Wall Street Journal, police in Houston 
confiscated nearly 1,000 guns used in crimes in 1991. Three Saturday 
night specials produced by southern California companies--the Raven .25 
ACP, the Davis .380 ACP, and the Davis .32 ACP--ranked as the top three 
guns confiscated. The same year in Cleveland, police confiscated more 
than 2,000 handguns; the Raven .25 ACP ranked second.
  The Washington Post reported in June 1994 that of all 21,744 guns 
seized at crime scenes and traced by ATF during 1991 through 1993, an 
astounding 62 percent--or 13,559 handguns--were produced by a southern 
California manufacturer of Saturday night specials. ABC television's 
``Day One'' reported that in 1994, the Lorcin .380 ACP was the single 
firearm most frequently submitted to ATF for tracing. Thus, there is no 
question that these weapons are the weapons of choice of criminals.
  Of significant concern is also the threat that these guns pose to law 
enforcement. The single gun with the greatest number of police 
homicides per number of guns in circulation is the .32 caliber pistol. 
As of 1992, nearly 90 percent of these guns were manufactured by the 
southern California gun makers. Mr. President, for the sake of the 
American public and the law enforcement community, it is time that 
Congress take action to get these killing machines off the streets of 
America.
  Mr. President, under the 1968 Gun Control Act, ATF has developed an 
elaborate scheme to determine whether foreign firearms should be 
classified as Saturday night specials. To gain entry into the U.S. 
market, imported guns must meet minimum size and safety specifications 
and pass a battery of individual design, performance, and materials 
standards. The ATF classification scheme considers the quality of the 
metal used to construct the weapon, as well as the combined height and 
length, weight, caliber, safety features, and accessory features of the 
weapon. By the mid-1970's, ATF estimated that over half of all of the 
handguns produced domestically could not legally have been imported.
  Domestic Saturday night specials are cheaply made and unreliable. 
Large domestic handgun manufacturers--such as Smith and Wesson--produce 
small quantities of guns because their production process is labor 
intensive. On average, these guns retail for $600. By contrast, the 
Saturday night specials are assembled in mere minutes using cheap 
materials, yielding high volumes that sell for as little as $35 per 
gun. The results are predictable. For example, the zinc alloy used in 
many of the Saturday night specials is so soft that it can be shaved 
with a knife. Moreover, the alloy begins to distort at 700 
degrees Fahrenheit, compared to 2,400 degrees for the stainless steel 
in quality guns.

  In addition, while the Saturday night specials typically have minimal 
safety devices that block the trigger from being pulled, they lack 
safety equipment found on higher quality guns, such as firing pin 
blocks that help prevent accidental discharge. Indeed, officials at ATF 
have indicated that the Raven .25 ACP pistol produced by one of the 
southern California companies can discharge if it is loaded and dropped 
to the floor, thereby failing ATF's drop test. The quality and 
reliability of domestic Saturday night specials is so atrocious that 
Edward Owen, Jr., Chief of the Firearms Technology Branch at ATF, has 
stated: ``If someone gave me one as a gift, I would throw it away.''
  The unreliability of these guns, Mr. President, highlights the fact 
that they have no sporting purpose and cannot be depended on for self-
defense. This fact was illustrated in a May 1994 segment of ABC 
television's ``Day One''. A Colorado Springs gun shop owner is firing 
one of the domestic Saturday night specials when it jams. As she 
attempts to clear the weapon, the correspondent asks her what would 
happen at that moment if she was relying on the gun for protection. She 
answers, ``Well, I just got killed.''

[[Page S2803]]

  In independent tests of domestic Saturday night specials by ``Gun 
Tests'', Lorcin's .22 caliber pistol, the L-22, was found unacceptable. 
In test firing, evaluators ``experienced 20 misfires due to light 
firing-pin strikes and 36 failures to completely lock into battery, 
and--the gun--failed to feed truncated-nose ammunition about 25 percent 
of the time.'' Indeed, according to the Wall Street Journal, many gun-
store owners have decided not to sell domestic Saturday night specials 
because ``the quality is too poor, replacement parts are too hard to 
obtain, and the dollar profit per gun is too small.''
  Mr. President, since these weapons are useless for self-defense and 
have no sporting purpose, the present legislation would apply the Gun 
Control Act of 1968 to domestic Saturday night specials, thereby 
banning the possession and sale of these weapons shipped or transported 
in interstate or foreign commerce. Specifically, the present ATF import 
classification scheme--which considers the quality of the metal used to 
construct the weapon, as well as the combined height and length, 
weight, caliber, safety features and accessory features of the weapon--
would be applicable to domestic Saturday night Specials.
  Mr. President, the focus of this bill is to ban inexpensive, short-
barreled, easily concealed handguns that are made from inferior 
materials and lack any sporting purpose. Thus, this legislation would 
not ban high quality, domestic snub-nosed revolvers and derringers 
containing adequate safety features that would otherwise be banned 
because of their size. Moreover, this legislation would exempt from 
coverage those high quality, domestic handguns that meet the overall 
ATF size requirement, but would otherwise fail the ATF test because of 
their light weight and low caliber.
  Mr. President, the Justice Department recently released a report 
concluding that 86 percent of all firearm-related crimes occurring in 
1993 were carried out with a handgun. This represents an 18 percent 
increase from 1992. Also, of the more than 24,500 murders in 1993, 
16,189--(70 percent)--were committed with firearms, and four out of 
every five firearm murders involved the use of a handgun. The evidence 
is clear that domestic Saturday night specials--inexpensive, poorly 
made handguns that lack any sporting purpose--are disproportionately 
involved in criminal activity and pose a significant threat to the 
safety of American citizens. Mr. President, it is time to stop the 
carnage in our Nation's streets caused by these killing machines.
  Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be 
printed in the Record.
  There being no objection, the bill was ordered to be printed in the 
Record, as follows:

                                S. 1640

       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 ``Domestic Saturday Night 
     Special Act of 1996''.

     SEC. 2. PROHIBITION AGAINST POSSESSION OR TRANSFER OF NON-
                   SPORTING HANDGUNS.

       (a) In General.--Section 922 of title 18, United States 
     Code, is amended by adding at the end the following:
       ``(y)(1) It shall be unlawful for any person to possess or 
     transfer a non-sporting handgun that has been shipped or 
     transported in interstate or foreign commerce.
       ``(2) Paragraph (1) shall not apply to the possession of a 
     sporting handgun, or the continuous and otherwise lawful 
     possession of a non-sporting handgun by a person during any 
     period that began before the effective date of this 
     subsection.
       ``(3) Paragraph (1) shall not prohibit the sale and 
     transfer if--
       ``(A) a revolver with a barrel length of not less than 2 
     inches, if such revolver could otherwise be imported into the 
     United States on the basis of a determination by the 
     Secretary under section 925(d)(3); or
       ``(B) a handgun which, if designed to use a larger caliber 
     ammunition, could otherwise be imported into the United 
     States on the basis of a determination by the Secretary under 
     section 925(d)(3).''.
       ``(b) Non-Sporting Handgun Defined.--Section 921(a) of such 
     title is amended by adding at the end the following:
       ``(33)(A) The term `non-sporting handgun' means--
       ``(i) a firearm that--
       ``(I) is designed to be fired by the use of a single hand; 
     and
       ``(II) is not a sporting handgun; and
       ``(ii) any combination of parts from which a firearm 
     described in clause (i) can be assembled.
       ``(B) The term `sporting handgun' means a firearm that--
       ``(i) is designed to be fired by the use of a single hand; 
     and
       ``(ii) the Secretary has determined, using the criteria 
     applied in making determinations under section 925(d)(3), to 
     be of a type generally recognized as particularly suitable 
     for or readily adaptable to sporting purposes.''.
       (c) Penalty.--Section 924(a)(1)(B) of such title is amended 
     by striking ``or (w)'' and inserting ``(w), or (y)''.

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