[Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1998, Book II)]
[December 5, 1998]
[Pages 2129-2130]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]



The President's Radio Address
December 5, 1998

    Good morning. In 1993 I took office determined to get our country 
moving again, to provide opportunity for all responsible, hard-working 
citizens, and to create the conditions of a genuine community in our 
country.
    First, we had to get the economy going. Yesterday we got the good 
news that unemployment is down to 4.4 percent, the lowest in 28 years, 
with 17.3 million new jobs. But America needs more than jobs to really 
work. Our country also has to be safer. And we've worked very hard to 
make our streets, our schools, our neighborhoods safer places to live, 
work, and raise families. We've put in place a comprehensive strategy of 
more prevention, strong enforcement, tougher punishment. We've taken 
more guns and criminals off the street and put more police on the beat. 
Crime has dropped for 6 years in a row now, to a 25-year low.
    This week America launched a new effort to keep guns out of the 
hands of criminals and make our streets safer. For the first time ever, 
the Justice Department, working with the States, conducted computerized 
background checks on all firearm purchases. In its first 4 days, the new 
national instant check system reviewed more than 100,000 prospective gun 
sales to make sure only law-abiding citizens took home new guns. And in 
just 4 days, we stopped more than 400 felons, fugitives, stalkers, and 
other prohibited purchasers from walking away with new guns. That's more 
than 100 illegal gun sales blocked each day. Who knows how many lives 
were saved.
    But within just 24 hours after the instant checks went into effect, 
the National Rifle Association went to court to stop the new system. The 
gun lobby's goal is plain. As the NRA's executive director himself put 
it this week, they want to ``scale back'' the Brady law.
    Five years ago, as the Brady bill was nearing passage in Congress, 
the gun lobby spent more than a million dollars in a desperate effort to 
kill it. Fortunately, the good sense of Congress and the will of the 
American people prevailed. The gun lobby lost. But the American people 
won. Unfortunately, as we saw this week, they'll stop at nothing to gut 
the Brady law and undermine our efforts to keep more guns from falling 
into the wrong hands, even though we now have 5 years of evidence that 
it works.
    We can't turn back. In these last 5 years, Brady background checks 
have stopped nearly a quarter of a million illegal handgun sales. We 
can't go back to the days when dangerous criminals walked away from 
stores with new guns, no questions asked.
    Police, prosecutors, and the American people they protect have made 
it clear they want to strengthen, not weaken, the Brady law. That's why, 
when the new Congress goes into session next month, one of my top 
priorities will be to pass legislation to require a minimum waiting 
period before a handgun sale becomes final. This ``cooling off'' period 
will help prevent rash acts of violence and give authorities more time 
to stop illegal gun purchases.
    I also call on Congress to ban juveniles convicted of violent crimes 
from owning guns for life. There's no reason why young people convicted 
of violent crimes should be allowed to buy guns on their 21st birthday. 
And I want to thank Senator Bob Dole for his recent strong public 
support of this idea.
    Finally, we must make sure that firearms sold at gun shows are not 
exempt from background checks, that gun shows do not circumvent our

[[Page 2130]]

gun laws. Last month I asked Treasury Secretary Rubin and Attorney 
General Reno to find ways to close this loophole.
    Reducing crime has been one of the American people's greatest 
achievements in recent years. A decade ago no one thought we could do 
it. But we did. We must not retreat on this hard-won progress. Instead, 
we must do even more to support the people and the laws that protect our 
children and families.
    Thanks for listening.

Note: The address was recorded at 6:54 p.m. on December 4 in the 
Roosevelt Room at the White House for broadcast at 10:06 a.m. on 
December 5. The transcript was made available by the Office of the Press 
Secretary on December 4 but was embargoed for release until the 
broadcast.