    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1994, Book II)]
    [August 15, 1994]
    [Pages 1472-1473]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    Remarks on Anticrime Legislation
    August 15, 1994

        Thank you. Thank you very much, Marc, Janice, Steve, and Dewey, and
    to all the rest of you who are here. We have just heard from the real
    American interests in the crime bill.
        Last week, the House of Representatives walked away from Polly Klaas
    and Jody Sposato and James Darby and all the law enforcement officials
    in this country who have worked so very hard for this crime bill. When
    you walk away from our police officers and from our kids, from our hard-
    working citizens with their futures before them or our senior citizens
    who have given their lives to make this a better country, and you do it
    on a procedural trick so you can still go back home and pretend that you
    didn't vote against the crime bill and you would even have voted for it
    had it only come to a vote, there's something wrong with the American
    system of Government. And it finds its way into the lives of people that
    are still around. Polly's sister, Annie, told me she's still afraid of
    being kidnapped, so she's built an elaborate alarm system in her room
    with ropes and bells. There's something wrong when James Darby and his
    classmates who are still living were so afraid of violence that they had
    to participate in a special program to help them cope with it. And the
    worst part of their fears is that there's truth behind them.
        Yes, this is the greatest country in the world and the longest
    lasting democracy in the world. And none of us would live anywhere else
    for anything. But we have to face the fact that we have the highest
    murder rate in the world and that our children are more at risk here
    than they would be in most other countries and all other advanced
    countries because we have simply failed to act with the discipline and
    determination necessary to preserve democracy's most fundamental
    obligation, the maintenance of law and order, without which freedom and
    progress cannot proceed.
        The crime bill makes ``three strikes and you're out'' the law of the
    land, puts 100,000 police on the street, builds more prisons to lock up
    serious offenders, takes handguns away from juveniles and bans assault
    weapons and provides investments and prevention to give our kids a
    better start in life, deals more sensibly with the terrible scourge of
    drugs that are responsible for so many of the crimes we have. These are
    things which ought to be done.
        How can the House explain to Marc Klaas why the law that might have
    saved his daughter's life, had it been enacted years ago, couldn't come
    up for a vote? How could a politician go to a little child like Meghan
    Sposato and explain that, well, they just couldn't figure out a way to
    bring to a vote a law that would have taken the deadly weapon that
    killed her mother out of the hands of a deranged person? And how could a
    Member of Congress explain to James Darby's mother why they won't put
    police on the street who might have allowed little James to complete his
    last walk home?
        If Washington had acted 6 years ago, some of these lives might have
    been saved. If Washington will act this week, a whole lot of lives can
    still be saved.

    [[Page 1473]]

        Last Friday I met with some police officers in Minnesota. I told
    them that they had never walked away from us and that Washington should
    not walk away from them. Well, the parents of this country should have
    the same pledge, and the children of this country should have the same
    pledge. You heard Janice say that in James Darby's wonderful letter to
    me, which I have read over and over and over again since last Mother's
    Day, he said, ``I know you could do something about this, and I'm asking
    you nicely to do it.''
        Well, my fellow Americans, we have asked the Congress nicely long
    enough. There should be no more excuses, no more tricks, no more delays,
    and no more discussion about whether this bill is a Democratic bill or a
    Republican bill or a Clinton bill. I don't know when I will ever be able
    to get it across to people here that what we do here is not about us, it
    is about the rest of America. So let Congress hear this: Pass the Darby-
    Klaas-Sposato crime bill, and do it now.
        Thank you.

    Note: The President spoke at 1:55 p.m. in the Rose Garden at the White
    House. In his remarks, he referred to Marc Klaas, father of kidnap-
    murder victim Polly Klaas; Janice Payne, whose son, James Darby, was
    killed shortly after he wrote to the President about crime in his
    community; Steven Sposato, whose wife, Jody, was killed in a shooting;
    and Dewey R. Stokes, national president, Fraternal Order of Police.