Machine Guns

In Chicago, met a subcommittee of the National Crime Commission. It examined an exhibit of gunman's gear. The ablest speaker present was Newton D. Baker, War-time Secretary of War. Said he:

"It is idiotic rubbish to talk of people protecting their lives with a pistol. A notion seems to be abroad in the land that the people have rights to protect themselves and must have a revolver to do so. We ought to ask the chiefs of police here if they know of a single case in which a citizen was helped in an encounter with a gunman by being armed himself."

Ogden Livingston Mills, defeated candidate for Governor of New York, and newly appointed Assistant Secretary of the Treasury, despatched a speech by mail:

"Machine guns are now being sold openly and without restriction by hardware and sporting goods dealers. I am informed that in Chicago a reputable hardware dealer bought two of these machines in Chicago and sold them to criminal gangsters there.

"There is no justification for such a state of affairs and I suggest that Congress be asked to place an embargo forbidding the importation of all machine guns except by the government. Further, that a 200% tax be put on all machine guns sold by American manufacturers."