    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1995, Book I)]
    [April 29, 1995]
    [Pages 610-611]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    The President's Radio Address
    April 29, 1995

        Good morning. America has been through a lot in the last week. But
    if anything good can come out of something as horrible as the Oklahoma
    City tragedy, it is that the American people have reaffirmed our
    commitment to putting our children, their well-being and their future,
    first in our lives.
        In that light, I was terribly disappointed that this week the
    Supreme Court struck down a law passed by Congress under President Bush
    and sponsored by Senator Herb Kohl of Wisconsin to keep guns away from
    schools. The law was a bipartisan approach to school safety based on
    common sense. Simply said, it was illegal to have a gun within 1,000
    feet of a school.
        We all know that guns simply don't belong in school. So Members of
    Congress of both parties passed the law. Unfortunately, the Supreme
    Court struck down the specific law. They said the Federal Government
    couldn't regulate that activity because it didn't have enough to do with
    interstate commerce.
        Well, this Supreme Court decision could condemn more of our children
    to going to schools where there are guns. And our job is to help our
    children learn everything they need to get ahead, in safety, not to send
    them to school and put them in harm's way. I am determined to keep guns
    out of our schools. That's what the American people want, and it's the
    right thing to do.
        Last year, I persuaded Congress to require States to pass a law that
    any student who brought a gun to school would be expelled for a year--no
    excuses, zero tolerance for guns in schools. But after Congress passed
    the law, I was worried that it would be hard to enforce. So I directed
    the Secretary of Education, Dick Riley, to withhold Federal aid from any
    State that did not comply with the law.
        The Supreme Court has now ruled we can't directly ban guns around
    the school. Therefore, today I am directing the Attorney General to come
    back to me within a week with what action

    [[Page 611]]

    I can take to keep guns away from schools. I want the action to be
    constitutional, but I am determined to keep guns away from schools.
        For example, Congress could encourage States to ban guns from school
    zones by linking Federal funds to enactment of school zone gun bans. At
    least we could tie the money we have for safe schools to such a ban. At
    any rate, I am confident that the Attorney General will give me advice
    about what action I can take. We must reverse the practical impact of
    the Court's decision. If young people can't learn in safety, they can't
    learn at all.
        Now, according to the Center for Disease Control in Atlanta,
    violence threatens schools in communities of all shapes and sizes.
    They've identified 105 violent school-related deaths in just the last 2
    years. And we know there are common elements to violent deaths among
    young people. Usually, the victim and the assailant know each other, the
    incident starts as an argument, and usually there is a firearm present.
        Schoolyard fights have been around as long as schoolyards. But it
    used to be that when kids got in fights, they fought with their fists,
    adults broke them up, and the kids got punished. Today, there are guns
    on the playground, guns in the classrooms, guns on the bus. In 1990, the
    CDC found that 1 in 24 students carried a gun in a 30-day period. By
    1993, it was down to 1 in 12. The number of high school students
    carrying a gun doubled in only 3 years.
        This is certainly a national crisis, and we must have a national
    effort to fight it. We need a seamless web of safety that keeps guns out
    of the hands of our children and out of our schools. That's why we
    fought for the provision in last year's crime bill which now makes it a
    Federal crime for a young person to carry a handgun, except when
    supervised by an adult. And that's why we must make sure that anyone who
    does bring a gun to school is severely disciplined. And that's why we're
    going to find a way to ban guns inside or near our schools.
        I'm committed to doing everything in my power to make schools places
    where young people can be safe, where they can learn, where parents can
    be confident that discipline is enforced.
        We all know that we have to work together to get this done.
    Principals and teachers must take the lead for safe schools and teaching
    good citizenship and good values. And parents have to recognize that
    discipline begins at home. The responsibility to raise children and to
    make them good citizens rests first on the shoulders of their parents,
    who must teach the children right from wrong and must get involved and
    stay involved in their children's education.
        I pledge that we'll do our part to help make our schools safe and
    the neighborhoods around them safe. But in the end, we'll only succeed
    if we all work together.
        Thanks for listening.

    Note: The address was recorded at 2:48 p.m. on April 28 in the Roosevelt
    Room at the White House for broadcast at 10:06 a.m. on April 29.