[Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1994, Book I)]
[April 25, 1994]
[Pages 772-775]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]



[[Page 772]]


Remarks Honoring the 1994 Victim Service Award Recipients and an 
Exchange With Reporters
April 25, 1994

    Thank you very much, Attorney General Reno, Secretary Bentsen, 
ladies and gentlemen. Before I go any further, because they had to 
introduce other people, I don't know that we appropriately thanked 
Lieutenant Bean and Steve Sposato for their--just their sheer courage 
for coming here and telling their stories. And I think we ought to 
recognize that.
    As has already been said, just before we came out to the Rose Garden 
I was in the Oval Office, proclaiming this week National Crime Victims' 
Rights Week and, again, recognizing the 11 people who have already stood 
up and been recognized for what they've done in the cause of victims' 
rights. I want to wish all of them well and encourage them to continue 
their important work. I want to assure them that the Justice Department 
and the Office of Victims' Rights and Aileen Adams, the new Director, 
we're all going to do everything we can in this regard.
    The visit of the victims' rights advocates is especially important 
here today because, as everyone has already said, we are at a pivotal 
point in the fight for the crime bill. One of the reasons that I ran for 
President--I was glad to hear Mr. Sposato say he was a registered 
Republican--because one of the reasons I ran for President is I couldn't 
imagine how it seemed to me from a distance every problem in Washington 
became a subject of partisan dispute, no matter how much it seemed to 
all of us who lived out there in the hinterland to be a human problem 
that ought to bring people together, not divide them.
    It took 7 years to pass the Brady bill after Jim Brady was nearly 
killed with President Reagan. It's already beginning to save lives, 
because the background checks do make a difference. For 5 years the 
crime bill has been paralyzed and defeated time after time in the 11th 
hour because of some partisan dispute. Now it appears clearly that 
gridlock has been broken. The crime bill passed with an overwhelming 
bipartisan majority in the Senate in its first forum and then another 
bill in the House also with a bipartisan majority.
    We think we're closing in on a bill that will make our streets, our 
homes, our schools, our lives safer. Victims' concerns are a centerpiece 
of the crime bill. They include the development of State registries for 
convicted child abusers, the expansion of programs to combat violence 
against women, the imposition of life sentences for three-time repeat 
violent offenders.
    But I also say to you today that we should take this opportunity to 
end the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction on our streets. 
People say the President should stop the proliferation of weapons of 
mass destruction around the world. Why don't we start with the streets 
of the United States of America?
    I have asked Attorney General Reno, a former prosecutor, and 
Secretary Bentsen, an ardent hunter who's also in charge of registering 
the gun dealers of this country--the licensed gun dealers--to spearhead 
this effort. I have asked our Drug Policy Director, Lee Brown, who just 
came in and is a former Chief of Police in Atlanta, in Houston, in New 
York City, to reach out and mobilize the law enforcement support that we 
need. It's not just Lieutenant Bean, every major law enforcement 
organization in this country has said we should ban semi-automatic 
assault weapons. And most importantly, I want to ask the law-abiding 
citizens of this country to tell Congress that it's okay to vote for 
this and take these kinds of weapons off our streets.
    I know there are those who oppose any effort to ban assault weapons. 
I've heard all the arguments. There's the camel's-nose-in-the-tent 
argument: ``Today the assault weapons, tomorrow my .22.'' There's the 
argument that, ``Yes, there are a million of these weapons in 
circulation and 80-some percent of them belong to criminals, but what 
about the other 10 or 12 percent?'' There's the argument that, ``Well, 
maybe it'll save some lives, but all those people will go out and get a 
revolver and kill somebody.''
    I hate to be crass about it, ladies and gentlemen, but I'll bet you 
if Steve could get up here and say again, he would gladly trade his 
wife's chances for that maniac with a six-shooter revolver over what she 
and the lawyer and all the other people in that office building had to

[[Page 773]]

face. I mean, who are we trying to kid? There is an air of unreality 
about this debate in Washington that has very little to do with the 
reality of what Lieutenant Bean and his deceased partner and all the 
other law enforcement officials in this country face day in and day out 
on the street, every single solitary day.
    Do I believe that there's a right to keep and bear arms in this 
country? You bet I do. I also believe there's something wrong with our 
country being the site of 90 percent of the youth homicides in the 
entire world, don't you? I think there's something wrong when one in 20 
teenagers carriers a gun to school and 160,000 a day--a day--stay home 
because they are afraid to go to school. I think there's something wrong 
with that. I think the American people have a right to be safe and 
secure. How can we pursue life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness if 
we don't have the most elemental security?
    The weapons of choice for drug traffickers, gang members, 
paramilitary extremist groups are these assault weapons. This ban in the 
bill, as the Secretary of the Treasury said, specifically excludes from 
banning over 600 sporting weapons, including Remington and Browning 
rifles that have a semi-automatic firing mechanism with relatively few 
shots that are exclusively used for hunting. This is a very carefully 
drawn piece of legislation. It does not include protections for the AR-
15, the AK-47, and the Uzi, to name just a few. These weapons were 
designed for the battlefield, not for the streets of America.
    This is a real test for us. What will the Members of the House be 
thinking of when they vote on this bill? The letters they will surely 
get if they vote for it, Secretary Bentsen described, or will they think 
of the man who had a modified AK-47 who went into a schoolyard at recess 
time in Stockton, California, 5 years ago and in less than 2 minutes 
killed 5 kids and wounded 29 others? Will they think of what happened to 
Steve Sposato's wife and the other people who were in that building? 
Will they think of the 23 people who were killed in that cafeteria in 
Killeen, Texas, or the 4 Hasidic students who were shot on the Brooklyn 
Bridge?
    You know, we have a lot of freedom in this country. And I was always 
raised to believe that with that freedom goes responsibility. I would 
argue to you, my fellow Americans, that as a people, individually and 
through our elected representatives, we have been woefully irresponsible 
in permitting the spread of these kinds of weapons to make police 
officers outgunned and ordinary citizens in more danger than they would 
have been anyway.
    Now, this crime bill also contains a prohibition on the ownership 
and possession of handguns by minors unless they are under the 
supervision of a responsible adult, out for an approved legal purpose. 
If we can do that, surely we can do this. This is a big deal, not only 
because of the weapons involved but because it will tell us whether we 
are really going to continue to keep working on this problem. The crime 
bill will make a difference. The police will make a difference. The 
prevention money will make a difference. The victims' assistance efforts 
will make a difference. The tougher penalties will make a difference. 
But we have to change the rules of the game.
    Today, in a free and open society, the presence of these assault 
weapons drastically tilt the rules of the game against the innocent and 
the law-abiding and the law-enforcing. And it is wrong.
    Let me just close very briefly with this story. In 1992, early in 
the year, I was in New York one night to give a speech to a dinner which 
had been organized in behalf of our campaign. And I was going through 
the back way of this hotel and through a kitchen, and one of the 
gentlemen who was on the hotel staff came up to me and told me he was an 
immigrant. And he said, ``In the country where I came from, we were very 
poor, and I was glad to come to America where I do better. My 10-year-
old boy is a student in school, and he is studying this election. He 
thinks I should vote for you. But before I say I will, I want to ask you 
something. I want you to make my boy free.'' He said, ``You see, we have 
more money here than we had at home, but at home we were free.'' I said, 
``What do you mean?'' He said, ``How is my boy free when he cannot walk 
to school by himself, when there is a beautiful park across the street 
from our apartment, but he cannot play there alone unless I am there 
with him? So if I give you my vote, will you make my boy free?''
    Freedom is an empty word to people who are not even gifted with 
elemental safety. And I urge you to help us make sure that when the 
Members of the United States House of Representatives vote on this bill, 
they are thinking about that freedom for all Americans.
    Thank you all very much.

[[Page 774]]

China

    Q. [Inaudible]--think you'll grant MFN to China now that they've 
released the dissident Wang Jontao?
    The President. Well, I'm very pleased about that. I'm very pleased 
about it. And it's a good step.

Bosnia

    Q. Mr. President, are you satisfied with the chain of command now in 
Bosnia after the confusion over the weekend? And exactly what was that 
confusion, and did the White House contact Boutros-Ghali to try to get 
it straightened out?
    The President. Let me answer the first question first. I believe 
that the chain of command and more importantly the understandings about 
what would or would not trigger air strikes are in proper order now. And 
I think what happened over the weekend, I believe, was reported 
essentially at the time the ultimatum took effect. There's no question 
that there was still some shelling going on in violation of the 
ultimatum. The U.N. forces on the ground there felt that there had been 
some command-and-control problems on the part of the Serbs, but they did 
intend to comply and they would in fact comply. And therefore they--it 
was their judgment that there should be a delay even though the 
ultimatum was enforced to see if they were right.
    And that is why they delayed. There was not a big argument about 
what the rules were or the conditions were. All were agreed on the fact; 
all were agreed on the rules. They believed that the Serbs did intend to 
comply and had gotten strict instructions not just from their political 
but also from their military commander within Bosnia. And of course, as 
it turned out at least to date, that seems to be the case. I think we're 
all together from here on in.
    Q. So you don't think this bolsters the argument of some that this 
is too cumbersome a chain of command, that it's too bureaucratic?
    The President. Well, it's somewhat cumbersome--it's a little less 
cumbersome than it was before--that is, we hammered out some better 
procedures. But I think--we'll continue to try to work to streamline and 
improve the procedures. But we're, after all, all of us trying to do 
something that has not before been done: put NATO in the service of 
preserving the peace in Europe outside the NATO membership area for the 
first time ever and to work with the United Nations when the United 
Nations forces are on the ground, but not combatants themselves. So this 
raises a whole series of delicate and not easy questions, difficult 
questions.
    I think that things are in proper order at this time. I have no 
reason to believe they're not and absolutely no reason to believe that 
the U.N. is anything but strongly supportive of the NATO air strike 
ultimatum there. I think that progress is being made.
    Q. And the Serbs shouldn't take any comfort in----
    The President. Absolutely not. It is exactly what I said, nothing 
more, nothing less. U.N. people on the ground said I believe they've 
had--[inaudible]--on their side. I believe they're going to stop. I 
believe they're going to withdraw. And of course, in effect, that's what 
happened during the course of the day. And that's all there was. There 
was not a difference of policy at all. And I think we're completely 
together now.

Anticrime Legislation

    Q. Mr. President, why won't you take a position, your 
administration, on the racial justice act in the House version of the 
crime bill?
    The President. I think that we--I was under the impression we had. 
We're going to have a position on everything in the House crime bill and 
some other things as well.
    I think we have some people--working on a racial justice--
[inaudible]. We think that you can absolutely have a racial justice 
provision that will do some good. I'm not--I don't want to get into--
this is a complicated piece of legislation, with two competing bills. 
But we will have positions on all those issues, so--I don't think it's 
accurate to say that we've not taken a position.
    Q. Mr. President, why would the assault weapons ban work better 
separately than part of the overall crime bill?
    The President. The administration liked it as part of the overall 
crime bill. We liked what the Senate did.
    Q. Well, why--now that it's no longer part of the crime bill?
    The President. Because we'll make it part of--[inaudible]--process 
separately in the House, then the conferees will put it into the crime 
bill.

[[Page 775]]

    Q. Realistically, politically, sir, what are the prospects?
    The President. I don't know yet. We're working it. We couldn't--
because the House was unwilling to consider it together, we had to work 
the crime bill and get it through before we could work the assault 
weapons bill, because they had made a decision to vote them separately. 
So I can't answer your question now because we're just now getting 
pounced in trying to get our teeth into the effort.
    Q. So you don't know yet whether the tide is turning on that?
    The President. I think we're in a lot better shape than we were a 
week ago. But I don't know yet that it'll pass. I'm working on it. I 
think--it certainly should pass, and we're in better shape than we were 
a week ago. We'll just keep working. I feel pretty hopeful about it. If 
these people are heard from, it will pass.

Note: The President spoke at 2:40 p.m. in the Rose Garden at the White 
House. In his remarks, he referred to Lt. Randy Bean, whose fellow 
police officer was killed during a routine traffic stop; Steven Sposato, 
whose wife was killed by a gunman in a San Francisco law office; James 
Brady, former White House Press Secretary who was wounded in the 1981 
assassination attempt on President Ronald Reagan; and former political 
prisoner Wang Jontao. A reporter referred to United Nations Secretary-
General Boutros Boutros-Ghali. A tape was not available for verification 
of the exchange portion of this item. The proclamation on National Crime 
Victims' Rights Week is listed in Appendix D at the end of this volume.