[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 111 (Thursday, July 25, 1996)]
[Senate]
[Page S8926]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         BOONDOGGLE FOR THE NRA

 Mr. SIMON. Mr. President, the Senate recently approved a 
Defense authorization bill for fiscal year 1997 that includes an 
indefensible allotment of tax dollars to a slightly camouflaged version 
of the earlier Civilian Marksmanship Program.
  I have written on this subject in a column that is sent to newspapers 
in Illinois, and I ask that it be reprinted here to call the attention 
of my colleagues to this questionable line item.
  The column follows:

  An Incomprehensible, Irresponsible, Baffling Boondoggle For the NRA

                        (By Senator Paul Simon)

       Buried in the annual Defense Department authorization bill 
     is an outrageous gift of $77 million that will benefit 
     something called the Corporation for the Promotion Rifle 
     Practice and Firearms Safety.
       This corporation is the new ``private'' incarnation of the 
     old National Rifle Association-backed Civilian Marksmanship 
     Program. This program was intended to make sure people could 
     shoot straight in case they entered the military. In recent 
     years, however, it has simply funneled cash, weapons and 
     ammunition to private gun clubs, thanks to the power of the 
     NRA. Until a federal judge ruled it unconstitutional in 1979, 
     gun clubs which participated in this program were required to 
     be NRA members.
       Under public pressure to eliminate this useless and 
     wasteful program, Congress ``privatized'' the program last 
     year.
       In fact, the corporation is private in name only. When the 
     corporation becomes fully operational in October of this year 
     it will be given by the Army:
        176,218 rifles the Army views as outmoded, but valued at 
     $53,271,002.
        Computers, vehicles, office equipment and other related 
     items valued by the Army at $8,800,000.
        146 million rounds of ammunition valued by the Army at 
     $9,682,656.
        $5,332,000 in cash.
       That totals $77,085,658.
       Our friends in the National Rifle Association strongly back 
     this measure and it appears to be a boondoggle for them.
       What the Army should do with outmoded weapons is to destroy 
     them. Our government has a theoretical policy that it does 
     not sell federally owned weapons to the public. The Civilian 
     Marksmanship Program violates this policy, and the new 
     corporation would continue to violate it.
       Why we should be subsidizing rifle practice--which is the 
     theory behind this--baffles me. Hardly any of those who will 
     use the weapons will enter into the armed forces. The Defense 
     Department did not request this.
       I had never fired a rifle or handgun before entering the 
     Army, and with minimal training I became a fair-to-good 
     marksman.
       Sen. Frank Lautenberg of New Jersey and I tried to 
     eliminate this incomprehensible expenditure from the bill and 
     we got only 29 votes for our amendment. The NRA still has 
     power.
       We should be reducing the numbers of weapons in our 
     society, not increasing them.
       A government policy of destroying weapons and not selling 
     outmoded guns to the public is sound.
       While rifles are not the primary weapons for crime--pistols 
     are--some of those 176,000 weapons will get into the hands of 
     people who should not have them. If 1 percent reach someone 
     who is irresponsible, that is 1,760 weapons.
       Let me in advance extend my sympathy to the families of the 
     people who will be killed by these weapons. The will be 
     needless victims of this folly.

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