    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1993, Book II)]
    [November 30, 1993]
    [Pages 2079-2081]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    Remarks on Signing Handgun Control Legislation
    November 30, 1993

        Thank you very much, Sarah and Jim and General Reno, Mr. Vice
    President, Mrs. Musick. Thank you for your wonderful remarks.
        There were two Members of Congress who inadvertently were not
    introduced. I want to recognize them because they've played a major role
    in this: one of our Democratic leaders in the House, Steny Hoyer, and
    Senator Herb Kohl from Wisconsin, who also sponsored the bill to make it
    illegal for minors to possess handguns, and I thank you for that, sir.
        Senator Metzenbaum, Congressman Schumer, Senator Mitchell; and
    others who gave birth to this great effort; to all the law enforcement
    rep-

    [[Page 2080]]

    resentatives, the Governors, the mayors, the folks from Handgun Control
    who are here; to the families whose lives would have been changed for
    the better if the Brady bill had been law; Mrs. Musick and my friend
    Cathy Gould and her children, Lindsey and Christopher who lost a husband
    and father who would be here today if the Brady bill had been law, I am
    honored to have all of you here in the White House. I also want to say a
    special word of thanks to the Members of Congress who were out there
    early on this, when there was some considerable political risk either
    attached to it or thought to be attached. The Brady bill was first
    introduced almost 7 years ago by Congressman Ed Feighan of Ohio on
    February 4th, 1987. I can't resist saying a special word of thanks to
    the Members who come from difficult districts who voted for this bill.
    My good friend and Congressman, Beryl Anthony from Arkansas, lost a
    tough race in 1992, and part of the reason was that he voted for the
    Brady bill. And the NRA came after him in an unusual election. He said
    to me on the way in here, he said, ``If it cost my seat, it was worth
    it.''
        Everything that should be said about this has already been said by
    people whose lives are more profoundly imbued with this issue than mine.
    But there are some things I think we need to think about that we learned
    from this endeavor as we look ahead to what still needs to be done.
        Since Jim and Sarah began this crusade, more than 150,000 Americans,
    men, women, teenagers, children, even infants, have been killed with
    handguns. And many more have been wounded--150,000 people from all walks
    of life who should have been here to share Christmas with us. This
    couple saw through a fight that really never should have had to occur,
    because still, when people are confronted with issues of clear common
    sense and overwhelming evidence, too often we are prevented from doing
    what we know we ought to do by our collective fears, whatever they may
    be.
        The Brady bill has finally become law in a fundamental sense not
    because of any of us but because grassroots America changed its mind and
    demanded that this Congress not leave here without doing something about
    this. And all the rest of us--even Jim and Sarah--did was to somehow
    light that spark that swept across the people of this country and proved
    once again that democracy can work. America won this battle. Americans
    are finally fed up with violence that cuts down another citizen with
    gunfire every 20 minutes.
        And we know that this bill will make a difference. As Sarah said,
    the Washington Post pointed out that about 50,000 people have been
    denied the right to buy a handgun in just four States since 1989. Don't
    let anybody tell you that this won't work. I got a friend back home who
    sold a gun years ago to a guy who had escaped from a mental hospital,
    that he hadn't seen in 10 years. And he pulled out that old form from
    the 1968 act and said, ``Have you ever been convicted of a crime? Have
    you ever been in a mental hospital?'' The guy said, no, no and put the
    form back in the drawer. And 12 hours later six people were dead, and my
    friend is not over it to this day. Don't tell me this bill will not make
    a difference. That is not true. It is not true.
        But we all know there is more to be done. The crime bill not only
    has 100,000 new police officers who, properly trained and deployed, will
    lower the crime rate by preventing crime, not just by catching
    criminals. It also has a ban on several assault weapons, long overdue; a
    ban on handgun ownership and restrictions on possession of handguns by
    minors; the beginning of reform of our Federal firearms licensing
    systems; and an effort to make our schools safer. This is a good
    beginning. And there will be more to be done after that.
        But I ask you to think about what this means and what we can all do
    to keep this going. We cannot stop here. I'm so proud of what others are
    doing. I'm proud of the work that Reverend Jesse Jackson has been doing,
    going back now to the streets and talking to the kids and telling them
    to stop shooting each other and cutting each other up, and to turn away
    from violence. I'm proud of people like David Plaza, not so well-known,
    a former gang member who has turned his life around and now coordinates
    a program called gang alternative programs in Norwalk, California,
    telling gang members they have to take personal responsibility for their
    actions and turn away from violence; Reverend William Moore, who
    organized parents and educators and other clergy in north Philadelphia
    to provide safety corridors for kids going to and from school--160,000
    children stay home every day because they're scared to go to school in
    this country--and all the police

    [[Page 2081]]

    officers on the street who have restored confidence in their
    neighborhoods, becoming involved in ways that often are way beyond the
    call of duty, people like Officer Anthony Fuedo of Boston, who took a
    tough section of east Boston and transformed it from a neighborhood full
    of fear to one which elderly people now feel safe sitting on benches
    again.
        We can do this but only if we do it together. And I ask you to think
    about this: I come from a State where half the folks have hunting and
    fishing licenses. I can still remember the first day when I was a little
    boy out in the country putting a can on top of a fencepost and shooting
    a .22 at it. I can still remember the first time I pulled a trigger on a
    .410 shotgun because I was too little to hold a .12 gauge. I can
    remember these things. This is part of the culture of a big part of
    America. But people have taken that culture--we just started deer
    season--I live in a place where we still close schools and plants on the
    first day of deer season, nobody is going to show up anyway. [Laughter]
    We just started deer season at home and a lot of other places. We have
    taken this important part of the life of millions of Americans and
    turned it into an instrument of maintaining madness. It is crazy. Would
    I let anybody change that life in America? Not on your life. Has that
    got anything to do with the Brady bill or assault weapons or whether the
    police have to go out on the street confronting teenagers who are better
    armed than they are? Of course not.
        This is the beginning of something truly wonderful in this country
    if we have learned to separate out all this stuff we've been hearing all
    these years, trying to make the American people afraid that somehow
    their quality of life is going to be undermined by doing stuff that
    people of common sense and good will would clearly want to do and every
    law enforcement official in America telling us to do it.
        So, I plead with all of you today, when you leave here to be
    reinvigorated by this, to be exhilarated by the triumph of Jim and Sarah
    Brady and all these other folks who didn't let their personal losses
    defeat them but instead used it to come out here and push us to do
    better.
        And each of you in turn, take your opportunity not to let people
    ever again in this country use a legitimate part of our American
    heritage in ways that blinds us to our obligation to the present and the
    future. If we have broken that, then there is nothing we cannot do. And
    when I go and sign this bill in a minute, it will be step one in taking
    our streets back, taking our children back, reclaiming our families and
    our future.
        Thank you.

    Note: The President spoke at 1 p.m. in the East Room at the White House.
    In his remarks, he referred to former White House Press Secretary James
    Brady, who was wounded in the 1981 assassination attempt on President
    Ronald Reagan; his wife, Sarah, head of Hand Gun Control, Inc.; and
    Melanie Musick, who became a supporter of the Brady bill after her
    husband was shot and killed in 1990. H.R. 1025, ``To provide for a
    waiting period before the purchase of a handgun, and for the
    establishment of a national instant criminal background check system to
    be contacted by firearms dealers before the transfer of any firearm,''
    approved November 30, was assigned Public Law No. 103-159.