From: bhart@cyberramp.net (Michael Parks)
Newsgroups: alt.conspiracy.jfk
Subject: First Reports, DMN, 12-12-63C
Date: 7 Jul 1997 08:11:10 GMT

First Reports, The Dallas Morning News, 12-12-63C

All emphasis is my own..................Michael Parks

Start quote

PUBLIC HEARINGS PLANNED ON MAIL ORDER GUN BILLS

   WASHINGTON (AP) - The Senate Commerce Committee has decided to hold public hearings, probably 
Friday, on legislation to tighten controls on mail-order sale of guns.
   Aides said the committee hopes to complete the hearings before Congress starts its Christmas 
recess, so that Senate action on the legislation could be taken early next year.
   Since President John F. Kennedy's assassination, Sen. Thomas J. Dodd, D-Conn., has offered 
strengthening amendments to a bill he introduced last August and a similar measure has been 
introduced by Sen. Hugh Scott, R-Pa.
   Lee Harvey Oswald, Kennedy's accused assassin, bought an imported rifle by mail from a 
Chicago firm for $12.98.
   Dodd's bill, in its amended form, would require a person ordering firearms by mail to submit 
to a dealer or manufacturer a notarized statement that he is over 18 years of age, has no felony 
record and will not violate any local law by possessing the weapon.
   This statement would have to be accompanied by a certificate from the chief law enforcement 
officer in the locality that to the best of his knowledge the statements in affidavit were true.
   Scott's bill would require a person ordering a gun by mail to submit a certificate from a 
state or local law enforcement official setting forth the reason for acquiring the firearm, the 
criminal record, if any, of the purchaser, and any available information about the purchaser's 
mental competence and stability and his reputation for law observance.

End quote

Neither bill, had they been in effect, would have stopped Oswald from getting his weapons.  
(That's assuming he ever had any weapons)      MP