[Congressional Record Volume 145, Number 69 (Thursday, May 13, 1999)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E956]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                   ASSAULT WEAPON BAN ENHANCEMENT ACT

                                 ______
                                 

                          HON. JERROLD NADLER

                              of new york

                    in the house of representatives

                         Thursday, May 13, 1999

  Mr. NADLER. Mr. Speaker, today I joined with several of my colleagues 
to introduce the Assault Weapon Ban Enhancement Act of 1999. This 
legislature is designed to strengthen the existing ban and to respond 
to efforts by gun manufacturers and importers to cosmetically alter 
their weapons to avoid the ban.
  I was a proud cosponsor of the Assault Weapon Ban Enhancement Act 
that passed in 1994, and I remain a strong supporter of that law. It 
specifically prohibited nine categories of pistols, rifles, and 
shotguns. It also had a ``features test'': that is, it bans 
semiautomatic weapons with multiple features (e.g., detachable 
magazines, flash suppressors, folding rifle stocks, and threaded 
barrels for attaching silencers) that appear useful in military and 
criminal applications, but that are unnecessary in shooting sports.
  The Department of Justice recently released a report on the ``Impacts 
of the 1994 Assault Weapons Ban: 1994-96.'' Among the report's key 
findings are that ``criminal use of the banned guns declined, at least 
temporarily, after the law went into effect.'' It said that further 
studies were needed to assess the long-term effects. It also stated 
that ``evidence suggests that the ban may have contributed to a 
reduction in the gun murder rate and murders of police officers by 
criminals armed with assault weapons.''
  But the report also observed that the ban could be easily avoided by 
gun manufacturers and importers. It said that ``shortening a gun's 
barrel by a few millimeters or `sporterizing' a rifle by removing its 
pistol grip and replacing it with a thumbhole in the stock, for 
example, was sufficient to transform a banned weapon into a legal 
substitute.''
  That is why we have to do more. We have witnessed, in gun shows and 
advertisements on the Internet and in magazines, a new brand of assault 
weapon, specifically designed to avoid the ban, but still lethal and 
potentially harmful to the American public. The BATF has recently 
approved a new weapon--the VEPR. We fear that gun makers will use the 
VEPR as a prototype of a new generation of weapons that seek to avoid 
the ban and flood the U.S. market with high-powered deadly assault 
rifles--assault rifles in fact; but evading the 1994 legal definition.
  Our gun import laws are like a series of sieves. The first sieve is 
the 1989 ban on the importation of assault weapons, and the 1994 ban on 
the domestic manufacture of assault weapons. But there are some holes 
in this sieve. The second sieve--the Clinton Administration's April, 
1998 ruling--has slightly smaller holes and blocks a few more weapons, 
including some guns that were cosmetically altered to avoid the first 
ban. The final sieve is the Nadler bill, which has the smallest holes. 
It stops guns that would have been determined to be assault weapons 
except for the fact that they had a thumb hole stock instead of a 
pistol grip. It stops guns that can be easily modified to accept high 
capacity magazines, or that use .22 caliber ammunition. Now, some guns 
will still make it through the Nadler sieve. Regular sporting rifles, 
and weapons that can't be modified to accept large capacity magazines 
would still be able to be imported. But the Nadler bill is designed to 
strengthen an already good law and to prevent manufacturers from 
evading the assault weapons ban.
  This legislation was designed to head off the influx of this next 
generation weapon, before these guns are used in the next round of 
deadly violence. This is a forward-looking bill, that will take strong 
preventive action now, so that we do not hear about another awful 
tragedy later. If we act quickly, we can do a world of good, and save 
countless lives.

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