[Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1993, Book II)]
[August 11, 1993]
[Pages 1360-1363]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]



Remarks Announcing the Anticrime Initiative and an Exchange With 
Reporters
August 11, 1993

    The President. Thank you very much. Mr. Vice President and Attorney 
General, distinguished Members of the Congress, the law enforcement 
community, and concerned American citizens. I'm glad to have all of you 
here in the Rose Garden today for this important announcement. I want to 
say a special word of appreciation to Senator Biden and to Chairman 
Brooks, who have worked for a long time to try to get a good crime bill 
through the United

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States Congress. I hope today is the beginning of that.
    I'm proud to be here with representatives of the Nation's police and 
prosecutors and States' attorneys general with whom we have worked 
closely to fashion this bill. And it gives me particular pleasure to be 
here with some of the brave men and women who risk their lives every day 
to protect the people of this country and to preserve the law.
    The first duty of any government is to try to keep its citizens 
safe, but clearly too many Americans are not safe today. We no longer 
have the freedom from fear for all our citizens that is essential to 
security and to prosperity. The past 4 years have seen 90,000 murders in 
this country. Last month in this city, our Nation's Capital, in one week 
24 murders were committed. When our children must pass through metal 
detectors to go to school or worry that they'll be the victim of random 
drive-by shootings when they're playing in the swimming pool in the 
summertime, when parents are imprisoned in their own apartments behind 
locked doors, when we can't walk the streets of our cities without fear, 
we have lost an essential element of our civilization.
    Many of you have heard me tell many times over the last year and a 
half or so of the immigrant worker in the New York hotel who said that 
if I became President he just wanted me to make his son free. And when I 
asked him what he meant, he meant that his son couldn't walk to school 
two blocks without his walking with him, his son couldn't play in the 
park across the street from their apartment house without his father 
being there. He said his son was not free.
    It's time we put aside the divisions of party and philosophy and put 
our best efforts to work on a crime plan that will help all the American 
people and go beyond the cynicism of mere speeches to clear action.
    Today I'm proud to be here with the chairs of the House and the 
Senate Judiciary Committees to announce this plan. The plan is not--it's 
tough. It is fair. It will put police on the street and criminals in 
jail. It expands the Federal death penalty to let criminals know that if 
they are guilty, they will be punished. It lets law-abiding citizens 
know that we are working to give them the safety they deserve. It is the 
beginning, just the beginning but a major beginning, of a long-term 
strategy to make America a more law-abiding, peaceful place and to make 
Americans more secure and to give our young people, wherever they live, 
a better chance to grow up, to learn, to function, to work, and to have 
a decent life.
    This bill first addresses the most pressing need in the fight 
against crime. There simply are not enough police officers on the beat. 
The plan is designed to make the major downpayment on the pledge that I 
made in the campaign to put 100,000 police officers on the street. 
Thirty years ago there were three police officers for every violent 
crime. Today the ratio is reversed, three crimes for every police 
officer.
    Like so many of the best ideas, community policing was spawned in 
the laboratories of experimentation on the streets of our cities and 
towns. Then-commissioner Lee Brown of New York, now my Drug Director, 
sent some 3,000 additional police officers onto the streets of New York 
City, launching community policing in every precinct. Then shortly 
thereafter, for the first time in 36 years, crime rates went down in 
every major category. It's worked from Boston to St. Louis, to Los 
Angeles.
    The crime bill that will be introduced next month will include $3.4 
billion to fund up to 50,000 new police officers to walk the beat. It 
will also create a police corps to give young people money for college, 
train them in community policing, and ask them to return to their 
communities to serve as police officers in return for their education. 
This will add to the numerous community policing initiatives we have 
already undertaken. For example, earlier this year I signed a jobs bill 
that will make $150 million available right away to hire or rehire 
police officers. And I'm happy to report that the Labor Department will 
allocate $10 million to retrain newly discharged troops from the United 
States Armed Forces to become police officers. After defending our 
freedom abroad, they'll be given a chance to do so at home.
    Second, we must end the insanity of being able to buy or sell a 
handgun more easily than obtaining a driver's license. The Brady bill, 
which requires a waiting period before the purchase of a handgun, is 
simply common sense. I have said so before Congress and before the 
American people. It is long past time to pass it. If the Congress will 
pass it, I will sign it. I believe now that Congress will pass it. There 
is no conceivable excuse to delay this action one more day.

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    The effort to keep handguns out of the hands of criminals cannot and 
should not wait for the passage of this legislation. Today I will sign 
two Presidential directives that fight gun violence. I am ordering that 
the rules governing gun dealers be reviewed to make sure that only 
legitimate gun dealers are in the business of selling guns. And I am 
ordering the Treasury Department to take the necessary action to suspend 
the importation of foreign-made assault pistols, which have become the 
weapons of choice for many gangs and drug dealers. Too many weapons of 
war are making their way onto our streets and turning our streets into 
war zones. Let me also say that this effort against crime will not be 
complete if we do not eliminate assault weapons from our streets. No 
other nation would tolerate roving gangs stalking the streets better 
armed than the police officers of a country. Why do we do it? We 
shouldn't, and we ought to stop it.
    Finally, if we are to take back the streets of America from the 
gangs and the drug dealers, we must do what has not been done before: We 
must actually enact a crime bill. This legislation will be introduced by 
Chairmen Biden and Brooks, and it will build upon a lot of good ideas 
from around the country, including one I worked hard on when I was 
Governor, community boot camps for young offenders, boot camps which 
give young people the discipline, the training, the treatment they need 
for a second chance to build a good life. When it comes to hardened, 
violent criminals, society has the right to impose the most severe 
penalties, but I believe we should give young people a chance to make 
it.
    As I said during the campaign and as I said during my tenure as a 
Governor, I support capital punishment. This legislation will reform 
procedures by limiting death-row inmates to a single habeas corpus 
appeal within a 6-month time limit but also guaranteeing them a higher 
standard of legal representation than many have had in the past. Both 
elements are important if this is to be genuine reform. And it will 
provide the death penalty for some Federal offenses, including killing a 
Federal law enforcement officer.
    As I said, this is just the beginning of our efforts to restore the 
rule of law on our streets. To do this we must work with thousands of 
law enforcement officials around the country who risk their lives every 
day. We must work with the mayors, with the Governors; we must work with 
the people who deal with children before they become criminals. We must 
have a broad-based assault on the terrible things that are rending the 
fabric of life for millions of Americans.
    But we in Washington must work together, too. For too long, crime 
has been used as a way to divide Americans with rhetoric. It is time--
and I thank the Republican Members of Congress who are here today--it is 
time to use crime as a way to unite Americans through action. I call on 
the Democrats and the Republicans together to work with us and with the 
law enforcement community to craft the best possible crime legislation.
    Last week we began to break the gridlock with a new budget and an 
economic plan. Now we can do so again in ways that unite us as 
Americans. And I pledge to you my best and strongest efforts to pass 
this bill at the earliest possible time. There are good things in it. It 
will make our people safer. It will shore up our police officers. It 
will move America in the right direction.
    May I now introduce the person who has done a great deal to do all 
those things just in the last few months, our distinguished Attorney 
General, Janet Reno.

[At this point, Attorney General Janet Reno, Senator Joseph Biden, 
Representative Jack Brooks, Mississippi attorney general Mike Moore, 
National Association of District Attorneys president William O'Malley, 
and Boston, MA, police commissioner William Bratton made brief remarks.]

Meeting With Pope John Paul II

    Q. [Inaudible]--your visit with the Pope tomorrow, what you 
anticipate from it?
    The President. [Inaudible]--I'm really very, very excited. I'm 
looking forward to the visit, and I'm honored that he's come to the 
United States.

Gun Control

    Q. Mr. President, there are all sorts of attempts to water down the 
Brady bill. Are you one of those purists that Chairman Brooks talked 
about, or would you consider amendments to water it down?
    The President. That bill shouldn't be amended. It's a modest bill, 
and I think it ought to be passed like it is. We would like to see the

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Senate go on and do it. I feel very strongly about it. I also associate 
myself with the other remarks of the Attorney General. I think it's the 
beginning. It's not the end of the process by any means.
    Q. What would you like to see on handguns?
    The President. Well, I think extending the ban on imported handguns 
is important, which I will do today. Then Congress is debating this 
whole issue of assault weapons generally, broad definition, and we'll 
see what we can come out with. But you know, there's a bill in the 
House; there's a bill in the Senate. And I'd like the crime bill to 
pass, and then I'd like for that to be debated.
    Q. Would you do the Brady bill separate?
    Q. Yes, would you do the Brady bill separately or as part of the 
crime----
    The President. It's fine with me, whatever--[inaudible]--done. I 
would prefer to get it as quickly as possible, but I think the important 
thing is that it be passed in a strong and clear and unambiguous form.

Note: The President spoke at 9:43 a.m. in the Rose Garden at the White 
House. The memorandums on gun dealer licensing and importation of 
assault pistols are listed in Appendix D at the end of this volume.