[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 111 (Friday, August 7, 1998)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E1574-E1575]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                    ISSUES FACING YOUNG PEOPLE TODAY

                                 ______
                                 

                          HON. BERNARD SANDERS

                               of vermont

                    in the house of representatives

                        Thursday, August 6, 1998

  Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Speaker, I would like to have printed in the Record 
these statements by high school students from my home State of Vermont, 
who were speaking at my recent town meeting on issues facing young 
people today.

           Statement by Abigail Nesson Regarding Gun Control

       Abigail Nesson: I believe that our forefathers had the 
     right idea. Their wish was to create a safe and free nation 
     for all of us to live in, and they wrote this to prove it: 
     ``We the people of the United States, in order to form a more 
     perfect union, establish justice, ensure domestic 
     tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the 
     general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to 
     ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this 
     Constitution for the United States of America.''
       These are beautiful words. But more than beautiful, they 
     can be used and enforced to create a more perfect union. But 
     our country is at a time in its history when the words 
     ``domestic tranquility'' and ``general welfare'' seem to 
     signify things of the past.
       I am here today to talk to you about guns. The widespread 
     availability of these weapons is frightening and wrong. 
     Thousand are killed every year in our country by guns bought 
     legally, guns made not to hunt animals but to hunt humans. 
     Many have killed or have been killed by the time they reach 
     my age, if they ever do.
       I am a strict constructionist when it comes to the preamble 
     and the Second Amendment, meaning I believe that our 
     forefathers wrote just what they meant. They meant for the 
     Constitution to create domestic tranquility and general 
     welfare and, especially, common defense. I believe--I know--
     that the guns that are available today do none of these 
     things. I believe and I know that our forefathers would 
     agree, because I refuse to think that the intentions of the 
     ones who wrote the Constitution was to put lethal weapons in 
     the hands of every person who wanted one. That is not ``a 
     well regulated militia.'' No, their intention was to ensure 
     the safety and freedom of us, their posterity.
       I propose that we follow the words of the preamble and of 
     our constitution. I propose that we take a step to make our 
     nation safe again, for me and for the children I want to have 
     some day. I propose we remove the guns from our streets, our 
     homes and our hands.
       Congressman Sanders: Thank you very much.


       
                                  ____
        Statement by Abe Klein Regarding Campaign Finance Reform

       Abe Klein: The issue I am choosing to bring up today is 
     that of campaign finance reform. You mentioned a moment ago, 
     it is really quite a simple process, to some extent, for 
     getting people elected to the smaller, local levels, 
     including in Vermont, our state Congress and the senate, as 
     well. But once you go beyond that, it is really a different 
     story, and it takes a lot of money for people to get elected 
     to office, as I'm sure you are aware of.
       Congressman Sanders: Tell me about it. Yes, I know.
       Abe Klein: You are the only person in the entire Federal 
     Government of our nation who has been elected without the 
     monetary support of the Democratic or Republican party. And I 
     feel that this requisite amount of money required for people 
     to attain office is really limiting who can be elected to 
     office and who can hold power in our country, and the other 
     real issue behind this problem is that, though people can get 
     elected with the support of the democratic and republican 
     parties, both of these parties get a large amount of their 
     support from large corporations throughout the nation, and it 
     seems to hold a really evident influence on the policies of 
     our nation, and I think to the detriment of the people.
       The one I am working with, there was a proposal, and there 
     have been many proposals since 1974 when the first campaign 
     finance reform proposal was passed, after the Nixon 
     administration, but that particular proposal left a lot of 
     gaps, including allowing organizations or PACs, these PAC 
     organizations, to gather money for the political parties 
     without restrictions. And a number of people in the Congress, 
     including you, have attempted to reprimand that with new 
     proposals, to no success.
       I really wanted to bring that issue up as a discussion, 
     because I feel that it's really limiting the viewpoints and 
     the opinions of people in Congress, and who can get elected 
     to Congress. I mean, people continue to work on it, but it 
     really--I don't know--I think that, at some point, maybe with 
     large amounts of grassroots support, it could be brought up 
     as an issue for serious debate, and it could be really 
     brought into a forefront, and it needs to be done in a manner 
     which does not limit people's free speech. And that is a 
     serious issue as well, because a lot of people claim that 
     their ability to spend money for political elections is 
     representing their free speech, and any limits on their 
     ability to spend money is therefore infringing on their First 
     Amendment.
       I am not sure. I guess I would ask you, actually. Have you 
     found any ways in which a seriously extensive limitation on 
     who and how much money can be spent, or who can spend this 
     money to elect people to federal office without infringing on 
     their First Amendment.
       The Court: Abe, thank you very much.


       
                                  ____
  Statement by Bridget Guilfoy, Michael Hastings, Kate Charlebois and 
            Mandy Collier Regarding Violence in the Schools

       Bridget Guilfoy: We are going to be talking about violence 
     in schools. And so a real important question to be asked 
     initially is: Has the violence actually increased over the 
     last few years, or several years? And it seems very obvious 
     that it has increased, but there is a surprising lack of 
     evidence and information about it. The last official national 
     study was done in 1978, and, since then, there has been no 
     national one to compare it with. The only ones that have been 
     done have been in smaller local settings. So all we can do is 
     really speculate, based on local studies to compare the 
     violence over the years.
       In 1978, 1.3 percent of students reported being attacked, 
     and 4 percent of those needed medical attention. And in a 
     survey in 1989 of 31 Illinois public high schools, 8 percent 
     of students reported being attacked, 8 percent of those had 
     been cut, and 4 percent shot. And in a 1990 report, 20 
     percent of students said that they had carried a weapon to 
     school within a month before the survey. So with these more 
     informal reports, it seems clear that the violence has 
     increased, but it is just very surprising and almost 
     disturbing that there have been no studies, because it seems 
     like there is a lack of interest.
       It is also very interesting that, in the 1978 report, 
     students reported 22 times the number of attacks and 
     robberies that their principals and teachers reported, and it 
     just is a shame, because it seems that if people are trying 
     to cover up the problem here, it will make it a lot more 
     difficult to actually get to the bottom of it and help it.
       For causes, one cause attributed to the violence is the 
     easy availability of guns. And another, violence is often 
     blamed on gangs and drug traffic, but, really, I mean, 
     violence occurs outside of major cities where gangs and drug 
     issues aren't as big of a problem, and these are also just 
     reasons that explain how the violence occurs and not why.
       Violent children are usually victims of abuse themselves, 
     and psychological studies have shown that child abuse is 
     invariably connected with child violence.
       Kate Charlebois: As Bridget was saying, there is a direct 
     relation between child abuse and violence among teenagers. 
     And recently, there was an article in The Burlington Free 
     Press which stated that the number of reported child abuse 
     cases is the lowest in 15 years. However, it has also been 
     reported that these cases that are reported tend to be much 
     more violent than ever before, which may be in relation to 
     why there is more guns and shootings happening, rather than 
     fights in schools.
       So we feel as though there is a real need for both more 
     child abuse programs as well as an increase in the 
     availability of these programs. Also, as a solution for this 
     problem, if I could just read a quote from Jimmy Foster, who 
     is the Mayor of Pearl, Mississippi, where, on October 1st of 
     '97, there was a shooting which killed two teenagers and 
     wounded seven others. And he said: ``You know the old cliche, 
     it happens to somebody

[[Page E1575]]

     else. It happened to us this time, and it was shocking. It 
     cut through the heart of the community. What happened to us 
     that morning was unthinkable.''
       And I think the main thing that we would like to do is to 
     have schools in Vermont be much more aware that this is a 
     problem that is not just happening in the big cities, it is 
     now moving to the suburbs. And Pearl, Mississippi, is only a 
     population of 22,000. So it is definitely not happening just 
     in the big cities.
       Mandy Collier: We wanted to try to offer some solutions 
     that maybe would help the problem. In doing that, we looked 
     at the urban schools where school violence has occurred many 
     times. And one of the solutions that they have been trying 
     for the past years is to install metal detectors and go 
     through, and in New York City they have 2,600 officers just 
     for their schools. And there are many problems with this, and 
     one of them is that it could take three hours to get all the 
     students to go through the metal detectors, which cuts into 
     the school time itself, and you end up spending half the day 
     making sure no one has weapons. The other problem is the high 
     cost, that these metal detectors range between $10,000 and 
     $20,000, and many school districts don't have the money, and 
     when they can afford it, then they have to rotate it between 
     the schools, so schools are only getting checked once a week, 
     and what happens the other four days when someone could bring 
     a gun to school? And in rural communities and areas like 
     these, it is a little unreasonable to spend that much money 
     when an incident may occur once, a random incident, and the 
     detector might not even be there.
       So as far as solution, Rebecca Coffee is a Vermont author 
     who has written a book on the subject and she suggests that 
     the kids need to be taught by their parents, by their school 
     community and by their leaders how to express themselves. 
     They need to know they have control, because many kids go 
     through and use guns as a way of gaining control, and they 
     also need to have a strong sense of community. To do this, I 
     think that parents need to be taught better and they need to 
     be aware of how to teach their kids these values. And I 
     think, also, that schools need to have more teachers and more 
     guidance counselors in them, because many times there are 
     only one or two per grade, which is one or two per a hundred 
     or two hundred students, which isn't enough.
       Michael Hastings: It seems that violence in schools is a 
     consequence of a much larger problem of education that 
     affects our society, and the question would be, why can't 
     every school be of the quality of a Phillip's Exeter Academy 
     or another elite institution like that. And if the answer is, 
     well, there is no money to give to the schools, then I would 
     have to consider the question, why does the government give 
     three times more money to corporations, corporate welfare, 
     than to social welfare programs.
       Also, why do we spend so much money on a massive military 
     budget, which shouldn't come as a surprise--the military is a 
     rather violent institution--that just breeds this kind of 
     mentality of violence. Also, why it seems that we have been 
     unable to mobilize this awesome American effort that was 
     shown when we helped win World War II, when we put a man on 
     the moon, and that we still use this American might to bully 
     other countries around the world, but why can't we use this 
     effort towards improving the conditions of our school 
     standards? Why do we seem to be unable to even feed the 
     children that go to school? That surely doesn't help the 
     problems of violence. And when the question comes to what is 
     the correlation between spending money and economic stability 
     have to do with violence in schools, I think if you compare 
     the amounts of shootings you have, say, in Andover, 
     Massachusetts to southeast Los Angeles, the results are 
     pretty clear-cut.

     

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