    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1998, Book I)]
    [June 13, 1998]
    [Pages 960-961]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    Remarks at Thurston High School in Springfield, Oregon
    June 13, 1998

        Thank you. First of all, I want to thank all of you for coming
    today, and I want to particularly thank the families who just met with
    me whose children were wounded and, in two cases, killed.
        I thank Mr. Bentz and Superintendent
    Kent and Mr. Petersen
    of the school board and Mayor
    Morrisette. I'd like to thank the members of your congressional
    delegation who came down with me today, Senators Wyden and Smith and Representatives
    Hooley and Blumenauer who came with me, and of course Congressman
    DeFazio, who represents this community.
        I was, frankly, glad but somewhat concerned when you--some of your
    leaders were kind enough to invite me to come down here today, because I
    didn't want to do anything to add to your burdens, and I was afraid all
    I could do was to tell you that your country has been thinking about you
    and praying for you and pulling for you. But after I had the chance to
    spend the time I did with the families, I'm very, very glad I came. And
    I thank you for giving me the chance just to meet all of you and to
    listen to you.
        Let me say that this has been not only a horrible and traumatic
    experience for you; this has been a traumatic experience for all of
    America. As all of you know, there have been a series of these school
    shootings with terrible consequences, in Paducah, Kentucky; in Pearl,
    Mississippi; in Edinboro, Pennsylvania; and in my home State, in
    Jonesboro, Arkansas.
        The first thing I'd like to tell you is that I am immensely
    impressed and proud of you for the way you're coming back from this and
    going on, the way you're determined to rebuild your communities, the way
    the school began to function again, the way you held your commencement
    and started your athletic competitions again.
        The second thing I would say, that I know from my own experience
    with the community in Arkansas, which I know very well and I know a lot
    of the people who were involved there, you should feel good about your
    community and good about your school. And you should know that these
    terrible acts of violence are occurring at a time when the overall
    juvenile crime rate is actually going down in America, where our young
    people on the whole are doing better and doing better at staying out of
    trouble, getting into more positive endeavors.

    [[Page 961]]

        I think we have to be honest, though, and see, as so many of the
    families said to me today, including the fathers of Mikael and Ben, we want
    something constructive to come out of this. Well, we have to acknowledge
    the fact that what we have is, in America, a very small number--nobody
    knows how many--of kids that are really troubled and disturbed and may
    have a lot of rage, with easy access to guns, in a culture where they've
    been exposed to lots and lots and lots of violence--and there are
    literally scores and scores of serious studies which show that the
    younger you are and the more you're exposed to it, the more kind of
    desensitized you are to it. And those three things can be a combustible
    combination.
        So what I hope we can do is to do a better job of kind of alerting
    ourselves and identifying kids that may have problems, before these
    things happen, and then acting with greater strength and discipline to
    go forward. Many of the parents today gave me a lot of specific
    suggestions. I thank you for those. I know that Senator Wyden and Senator Smith just yesterday
    introduced a bill that said that any young person who brought a gun to
    school, which is in violation of Federal law, should be held for a 72-
    hour period of evaluation. And I think that's a very good suggestion.
        Today I instructed the Secretary of Education and the Attorney
    General to prepare a guidebook to be ready when school opens next year
    in every school in America, for teachers and parents and for students as
    well, to describe all the kinds of early warning signals that deeply
    troubled young people sometimes give, not just bringing a gun to school
    but maybe the other things as well.
        Not to scare our people all across America or to trouble them, but
    everybody who has looked at you knows that this is a good community that
    they'd be proud to live in, and therefore, it could happen anywhere. So
    what we have to try to do is to, all of us, learn more about the people
    with whom we live and the kinds of signals that are coming out. And then
    we've got to make sure that we have the capacity to actually do
    something about these problems, if we can find them out, before they get
    out of hand.
        And I know that--I believe, at least, that's what your commitment
    is. That's what a lot of people have told me, as I worked my way around
    the room today, as I met with your officials at the airport.
        And so all I can tell you is, we'll do our very best to continue to
    help with whatever residual challenges you have here. And I'll do my
    very best to listen to what you have said to me today, and then to make
    something really positive happen in the country to increase our ability
    to prevent such things in the future.
        I hope you will go on with your healing and go on with your lives
    and take a great deal of pride in the way your school and your community
    has responded to a terrible thing, in a human, strong, very positive
    way. For me and for all the people who came here with me today, this has
    been a great inspiration that we will never, ever forget.
        Again, I thank all of you for coming out. And more than anything,
    let me say again to all the families who came to meet with me, I know it
    couldn't have been easy, but it meant more to me than I can possibly
    convey.
        God bless you all, and good luck. Thank you very much.

    Note: The President spoke at 3:25 p.m. in the gymnasium. In his remarks,
    he referred to Larry Bentz, principal; Jamon Kent, superintendent, and
    Alan Petersen, school board chairman, Springfield Public Schools; Mayor
    William W. Morrisette of Springfield; and Michael Nickolauson, father of
    Mikael E. Nickolauson, and Mark Walker, father of Benjamin A. Walker,
    whose sons died as a result of a May 21 attack in the high school
    cafeteria.