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While it is necessary to discount such hysteria and maintain a sound historical perspective, it is still obvious that the U.S. must have gun legislation. Though states and localities have a bewildering crazy quilt of 20,000 weapon laws, only two are on the federal books. One is the National Firearms Act of 1934, taxing interstate shipments of such gangster-style weapons as machine guns and sawed-off shotguns. The other is the pallid Federal Firearms Act of 1938, prohibiting interstate gun shipments to felons. In 30 years, Congress has failed to enact a single new gun bill, thus allowing, as the President declared, "the demented, the deranged, the hardened criminal and the convict, the addict and the alcoholic" to order weapons by mail with no questions asked.
Toothless Answer. Attempts to tighten the absurdly loose laws have repeatedly been defeated, largely due to the efforts of the 1,000,000-member National Rifle Association. Two years before he became President, John F. Kennedy unsuccessfully sought a ban on imports of foreign weapons—which would have kept out of the U.S. the $12.78 Mannlicher-Carcano Italian rifle that killed him in 1963. Senator Robert F. Kennedy, declaring that "It is past time that we wipe this stain of violence from this land," testified in favor of a bill to tighten controls on handguns —such as the .22-cal. Iver-Johnson eight-shot revolver that felled him on June 4.
Pollster George Gallup maintains that in his very first opinion sampling on gun control 34 years ago, 84% of the nation favored strong legislation. The figure has remained at or near that level ever since. Yet Congress has assiduously ignored such evidence of public opinion. John Kennedy's assassination did not goad Capitol Hill to act. There was a brief flurry, centering around Connecticut Senator Thomas Dodd's bill to ban the mail-order sale of all guns, but as soon as the N.R.A. started moving, Congress stopped. Its paralysis persisted after last April's slaying of Martin Luther King. Robert Kennedy's murder in Los Angeles brought an appeal from the President for an end to the "insane traffic" in guns, but Congress responded by completing action on a measure so toothless—it provides for little more than a ban on mail-order handguns—as to please even the N.R.A. Johnson scorned it as "watered-down" and "halfway," dropped hints that he might veto the entire crime bill of which it is a part.
Pop a Bag. But things are changing. In the past, Congressmen were swamped with mail from self-styled "gun nuts" whenever even the most limited controls were proposed. Now the rest of the nation has been making itself heard.