[Congressional Record Volume 145, Number 59 (Wednesday, April 28, 1999)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4319-S4321]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                          VIOLENCE IN COLORADO

  Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I know you, the Senator from Arkansas, 
are familiar with tragedies in high schools involving our young people 
who create havoc and take the lives of fellow students and others. The 
event in Colorado is the most glaring and stunning example of the kind 
of violence that we are apparently capable of as a nation today. As 
chairman the Senate Judiciary Committee Subcommittee on Youth Violence, 
I have given an awful lot of thought to it. But I am perplexed. A few 
things occur to me. There is what appears to me a pattern here that 
would suggest how we have gotten to this point.

  It strikes me that an extremely small number of young people today 
have gotten on a very destructive path. They have headed down the road 
of anger and violence. They have not been acculturated with the kind of 
gentlemanliness and gentlewomanliness, not inculcated with religious 
faith and discipline, maybe a lack of values or whatever--somehow it 
did not take. Maybe their parents tried. Maybe they did not.
  But, in addition to that, they are alienated and angry. They are able 
to hook into the Internet and play video games that are extraordinarily 
violent, that cause the blood pressure to rise and the adrenalin level 
to go up, games that cause people to be killed and the players to die 
themselves. It is a very intense experience. They are able to get into 
Internet chatrooms and, if there are no nuts or people of the same 
mentality in their hometown, hook up with people around the country. 
They are able to rent from the video store--not just go down and see 
``Natural Born Killers'' or ``The Basketball Diaries''--but they are 
able to bring it home and watch it repeatedly. In this case even maybe 
make their own violent film. Many have said this murder was very much 
akin to ``The Basketball Diaries,'' in which a student goes in and 
shoots others in the classroom. I have seen a video of that, and many 
others may have.

  In music, there is Marilyn Manson, an individual who chooses the name 
of a mass murderer as part of his name. The lyrics of his music are 
consistent with his choice of name. They are violent and nihilistic and 
there are groups all over the world who do this, some German groups and 
others.
  I guess what I am saying is, a person already troubled in this modern 
high-tech world can be in their car and hear the music, they can be in 
their room and see the video, they can go into the chatrooms and act 
out these video games and even take it to real life. Something there is 
very much of a problem.
  All of us have to look for the signs of children who may be moving 
deeper and deeper into death, violence, nihilism, and other bad trends. 
We ought to say and we ought to encourage our teachers and our school 
administrators and our parents to intervene and to assert that life is 
better than death, that peace is better than violence, and honesty is 
better than falsehood; that respect for your brothers and tolerance and 
patience, even in the face of adverse actions by somebody toward you, 
is essential in a civilized society. I am concerned about that.
  What I really want to mention today, because I have been through this 
for a number of years, is the question of what we do about firearms in 
America. I was at a church event, not too many months ago, and the 
preacher prayed against guns. I thought that was odd for him to pray 
against an inanimate object that does what the holder tells it to do. 
But I think we would do well to focus on what it is that is eating at 
the soul of too many people in America today, No. 1.
  What about this problem with guns? I was a Federal prosecutor for 15 
years, 12 as U.S. attorney under Presidents Reagan and Bush. They 
created a program called Project Triggerlock. In that program, this 
Congress passed legislation that said if you are convicted of carrying 
a firearm during a crime, a felony, it is 5 years without parole 
consecutive for the underlying offense. If you are a felon and you 
possess a firearm and you are guilty of a felony, you can get 2 or 3 
more years in jail.
  Those are bread-and-butter gun laws focusing on people who commit 
crimes with firearms. There are a lot of others: having a firearm 
without a serial

[[Page S4320]]

number, having a sawed-off shotgun, a fully automatic weapon, and now 
assault weapons. There are literally hundreds of gun laws.
  The directive came down from the President of the United States that 
he wanted these people prosecuted for violating those gun laws. I took 
the directive. I was one of the lieutenants in the war, and we went to 
work. I created a newsletter and sent it to every sheriff. I said: If 
you have the kind of criminal that needs prosecuting under Federal gun 
laws, you bring those cases to me and we will prosecute them.
  Our numbers went up tremendously, and the word began to get out. The 
word got out in the streets: If you have a gun, they will take you to 
Federal court.
  By the way, most people do not realize that some good laws have been 
passed for Federal court. Ask your sheriffs and police chiefs which has 
the fastest justice system, which has the most severe punishment and 
the most certainty of punishment, which one is the felon least likely 
to get out of jail on parole, and every one of them will tell you the 
Federal system is tougher than any State. Whatever State you are in, 
the Federal justice system is tougher: We have a 70-day speedy trial 
act; whatever the sentence is, you have to serve at least 85 percent of 
it.
  The Federal Sentencing Guidelines mandate tough sentences. The judges 
have to impose them. If not, the prosecutor can appeal, and they go to 
jail. They do not want to go to Federal court for a gun violation. I am 
telling you, the word gets out, in my professional opinion, having been 
a prosecutor, as I said, for 15 years in the Federal system and two as 
Attorney General. I actually believe there was a deterrence in the 
number of people carrying guns in criminal activities. That is where 
people get killed.

  When I was elected to the Senate in 1996 after I left as a Federal 
prosecutor in 1992, I began to look at the Department of Justice 
statistics on the kinds of cases they are prosecuting, because I served 
15 years in the Department of Justice, and I know how to read those 
numbers.
  I want to show you what we discovered. What we found is in 1992, when 
President Bush's U.S. attorneys left office, they were prosecuting 
7,048 gun cases each year in 1992. They prosecuted over 7,000. Notice 
this chart shows the decline in those cases. It was 3,800 in 1998, a 
40-percent decline.
  This is particularly shocking to me because this President is always 
talking about guns and how we need to have more laws and we need to 
prosecute more people for guns, and they are not doing it. His own 
Attorney General, Janet Reno, has overseen a 40-percent decline.
  This is not a secret. Since I have been here, for 2 years, when the 
Attorney General has come before our committee, the Deputy Attorney 
General, Eric Holder, the Chief of the Criminal Division for 
confirmation and other hearings, I have pulled out this very chart. I 
have gone over these numbers with them and have asked them why they are 
not prosecuting these cases. I have not yet received a good answer, 
other than they are just not putting the message out to the U.S. 
attorneys that they expect them to enforce these laws.
  But what we have is a President who wants to call press conferences, 
as he did yesterday, to announce more laws; that we need to pass more 
laws. The bread-and-butter laws are already on the books, and we have 
added scores of other laws, which I support and I willingly prosecuted 
aggressively.
  It concerns me that people say, ``Oh, you just don't believe in gun 
laws, Jeff. You are just NRA bought and paid for and you don't want to 
do this.'' They believe in the second amendment right to bear arms, and 
so do I. If you want to change it, let's talk about changing it, but 
there is a constitutional right to bear arms. There also is a right for 
the Government to place reasonable restrictions on the right to bear 
arms.
  I have spent a big part, a major part of my professional career 
actively engaged with people who violate those reasonable restrictions. 
Machine guns, fully automatic weapons have been outlawed since the 
thirties, the Al Capone days. Sawed-off shotguns have been outlawed for 
many years. Bombs are outlawed today and have been for many years.
  First of all, it concerns me, and I think it is hypocritical and 
really dishonest for the President to suggest that the way to deal with 
violations of gun laws is to pass more laws, if you are not prosecuting 
the ones we have. But, oh, that is the big deal: Are you for coming a 
little further to that second amendment core principle that protects 
the right to bear arms? Let's see how far we can go and make people 
vote against it because they have a concern for the Constitution and a 
general belief that the Government has gone too far and then say they 
don't care about guns, all the time presiding over an administration 
that is showing this dramatic decrease, a 40-percent decrease in the 
prosecutions. That is not an imaginary number. I have raised it with 
the Attorney General, and we pulled it out of their statistics.
  In addition to that, we have in the last several years, at the behest 
of gun control advocates, passed a number of bills, some of which are 
good, some of which are marginal, but we passed them. We were told that 
these were critical to prevent violence in America. And we need these 
gun laws.

  I want to show you this chart. We pulled it out of the Department of 
Justice statistics. And I questioned them about it in hearings before 
this tragedy, because this isn't a recent deal, this is something that 
has been going on for several years, and it is well known.
  One of the best things, I suppose, is, the possession of firearms on 
school grounds is a Federal crime. The First Lady, who sometimes it had 
been suggested was a de facto Attorney General at the beginning of this 
administration, yesterday was speaking about gun laws. And that is all 
right. But she has not had the experience I have had in prosecuting 
these cases. And she talks about, we need more of them. And this is one 
of them they highlighted.
  But look at this. In 1997, the Clinton administration nationwide 
prosecuted five. In 1998, they prosecuted eight.
  ``But we're committed, Jeff.'' But they said--the First Lady did in 
her speech yesterday--that there were 6,000 incidents last year in 
schools of weapons being brought to school. So how come her prosecutors 
are prosecuting so few of them? Let me ask you. I think it is a good 
question.
  Unlawful transfer of firearms to juveniles. I support that. And right 
now it is unlawful for a firearms dealer to transfer a pistol to a 
juvenile, a person under 21.
  Look at this. In 1997, they prosecuted five. In 1998, they prosecuted 
six. What difference does it make if we pass laws if nobody is being 
prosecuted for them?
  Possession or transfer of semiautomatic weapons. Those are the 
assault weapons. The assault weapon is a weapon that looks like one of 
these fully automatic military weapons; it has the handles on it, but 
it is really a semiautomatic weapon that fires one time when you pull 
the trigger. Traditionally, a lot of rifles are semiautomatic. But in 
that configuration it was made illegal.
  Remember all the debate about that? We had tremendous debate over the 
first time a semiautomatic rifle had been made illegal. But the 
administration's position was, it just had to have the law. They just 
had to have it. And it is an unpleasant weapon, I assure you. I do not 
think you have to have it to go hunting. But at any rate, in 1997, four 
of those cases were prosecuted in the entire United States; in 1998, 
four.
  I say all that to say this: I believe we have to quit doing symbolic 
things. We need to quit doing things for headlines. We need to sit down 
and figure out how to reduce crime in America.
  With regard to this very odd group of people we have seen in five 
States going on rampages in high schools, that is a unique and special 
group. And if they are determined to build a bomb, and can build one by 
looking it up on the Internet, whether or not they have to go down to 
the store to buy a weapon and give their name or whatever is not going 
to make much difference. That is real. And if they are seeing this on 
television, in videos, whether or not there is a law about it, as 
clever as these kids are, it is not likely to make much difference.
  But I just say that that is a crucial matter for us. I would think, 
as one who has been at this for a long time, we need to maintain our 
discipline

[[Page S4321]]

now. And if something good can come out of this tragedy in Colorado, I 
pray that it will.
  When that young girl affirmed her faith with a gun at her head, 
subjecting herself to summary execution by a laughing, diabolical 
shooter, I think we ought to take time to pause a minute and think 
about that, because this is really serious. It is deeper than whether 
or not you prosecute with 4 or 20 gun laws in the United States. It is 
deeper than that. That is what I am saying. But it does not mean that 
effective prosecutions of gun laws can't reduce crime.
  Let me tell you this story.
  Within the last month I, as chairman of the Judiciary Subcommittee on 
Juvenile Crime, called a hearing. We were going to discuss a program 
known as Project Exile in Richmond which the leader of it called 
``Trigger Lock with Steroids.'' Not only did they prosecute every gun 
violation they could find in Richmond, they ran ads on television 
saying: ``We will prosecute you.'' They put up signs saying how long 
you would serve in the Federal slammer if you carried a gun during a 
crime or illegality.

  Their prosecutions went sky-high. But there were questions in the 
Department of Justice. The program was not supported because it was not 
the trend with this Department of Justice. But they kept doing it. And 
just last year they found they had over a 40-percent reduction in 
violent crime in Richmond. And the U.S. attorney, appointed by the 
President of the United States, President Clinton, testified and others 
involved with it--the chief of police in Richmond--testified that they 
were convinced that aggressive criminal prosecutions in a trigger-lock-
type fashion of violent criminals, and other criminals who carried 
guns, helped drive down the murder rate.
  I thought we ought to have a hearing about it. I wanted to highlight 
that and encourage it. What I want to say to you is funny, almost; and 
maybe something good came from that hearing. The hearing was set for 
Monday in our little, lowly committee, the Senate Judiciary Committee 
Subcommittee on Juvenile Crime. On Saturday, before that hearing, the 
President went on his national radio show and said he wanted to adopt 
the Richmond project and promote and expand it.
  So I hope maybe our hearing had something to do with getting the 
attention of the Department of Justice. But I have not seen any numbers 
to indicate that. It is easy to say words. But what we most often heard 
is that, we want new laws--which are not being prosecuted--and if we 
can pass a law, then we can say we did something.
  I have been in this body just 2 years. I think there is a real 
problem here. Whenever there is a national matter of intense interest, 
what happens? We up and pass a law and say we did something. ``Hey, 
give me a medal. I passed a law. I am against assault weapons. I am 
fighting crime.'' If you have been in the pit and dealt with criminals 
professionally for a long time, you know it takes more than that. It 
takes a sustained effort.
  If you do it consistently and aggressively, and you crack down on gun 
violations, you can in fact reduce the crime rate. Ask the U.S. 
Attorney and the chief of police in Richmond if it is not so.
  I do hope the statement that the President made in his radio show 
really indicates a commitment to get these numbers up, because this is 
not acceptable for any administration, but particularly one which 
claims that the prosecuting of criminals and violations of Federal gun 
laws is a high priority of theirs. Obviously it is not. We have a 40-
percent reduction.
  So, maybe somebody says, ``Jeff, that is just political.'' It is not 
political with me. It is something I have lived with. I prosecuted 
these kinds of cases. I believe it reduces murders. I believe it saves 
the lives of innocent people. And I would like to see an effective 
program conducted by this administration. And it has in fact been 
demolished, as these numbers show. It undermines the effectiveness of 
that effort.
  There are innocent people, I will assure you, today who have been 
shot and wounded--some people who have been killed--who would not have 
been had the Triggerlock Project continued.
  So it is something that I have been raising since I first got to this 
Senate--at virtually every Judiciary Committee hearing I have had. I 
hope this tragedy will do one thing: It will get the attention of the 
President and the Attorney General and the Chief of the Criminal 
Division and the Associate Attorney General and Deputy Attorney 
General, and they will start sending the word out to their prosecutors. 
And they have more of them now than they had in 1992 when I was there. 
They ought to be putting more of these people in jail. If we do, they 
will make some difference. But I really don't think even those 
prosecutions are likely to have any significant impact on the bizarre 
few people who are willing to go to a school and slaughter their own 
classmates, commit suicide, worship Adolf Hitler, and think of Marilyn 
Manson as something cool. That is a different matter with which we have 
to deal.

  I hope as a nation we will confront it honestly and directly and 
begin to bring back in every school system, because some parents 
apparently are not doing it, a program that teaches character and good 
values like we are used to in America. There are those who say, well, 
you cannot do that, that is violating civil liberties, you cannot 
express a concern about right and wrong in a classroom because that is 
a value judgment.
  Well, we are suffering today from 30 or 40 years of liberalism, 
relativism, that anything goes. Well, some will say that is just old-
fashioned talk.
  No, it is not. No nation, in my view, can remain strong in which 
there are no values which we can affirm. If we can't affirm that Adolf 
Hitler is bad, what are we? If we can't affirm that Charles Manson is 
not a fit person to emulate, then what are we as a nation? If we can't 
say that telling the truth is more important than telling a lie, that 
reality is better than spin, then we are in trouble.
  I hope we have not reached that. I think the American people are 
good. I hope this tragedy has some ability to cause us to confront that 
and, if so, our Nation would be better for it.
  Mr. President, I thank the Chair for allowing me to address this body 
on this important issue. I have shared with the Senate some thoughts 
and concerns of mine that have been a part of me for a long time. I 
believe it is something our Nation has to consider, and I hope and pray 
we will.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a 
quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Burns). The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative assistant proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

                          ____________________