    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1999, Book I)]
    [May 22, 1999]
    [Pages 830-831]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    The President's Radio Address
    May 22, 1999

        Good morning. It's been just over a month since 15 students and a
    teacher lost their lives at Columbine High School. On Thursday Hillary
    and I traveled to Littleton, Colorado, to visit with the families of the
    victims and the students of Columbine. They're brave, good people, full
    of faith, determined that the children lost will not be forgotten,
    dedicated to doing whatever they can to make our schools and our
    children safe. All of us in Washington and in every community in America
    owe them the same dedication.
        As if we needed another reminder, on Thursday, as I was going to
    Littleton, a young man opened fire at
    his high school in Conyers, Georgia, wounding several of his classmates.
    No child should have to worry that a classmate is carrying a loaded gun
    to school. No parent should have to fear sending a child to school. And
    no American should tolerate this level of violence against our children.
    There is no task more urgent. Every one of us has a role to play.
        First, Government must do more to protect our children from guns.
    We're making progress. This week was a turning point in our long
    efforts. I'm so pleased that the Senate passed key elements of my
    commonsense plan to address gun violence: mandatory child safety locks
    with every new handgun; a lifetime ban on gun purchases by violent
    juveniles; a nationwide ban on the importation of high-capacity
    ammunition clips and juvenile possession of assault weapons; and
    finally, after a tie-breaking vote cast by Vice President Gore, mandatory background checks on gun sales at gun
    shows.
        I'm pleased that Speaker Hastert has
    agreed that we should also close that deadly loophole and also raise the
    age of handgun ownership to 21. Now I call on the House to take
    immediate action. I hope the House of Representatives will pass every
    one of these commonsense efforts that the Senate has passed to protect
    our children from guns. And I hope they'll do it before school lets out.

    [[Page 831]]

        Protecting our children from guns is important, but it's just one
    step. The media and entertainment industry have enormous power in our
    children's lives, and they must take responsibility, too. By the time he
    or she reaches 18 years old, the average child has watched 40,000
    killings over the media. There are now hundreds of studies that show
    that these viewings actually desensitize our children to the horror and
    the evil of violence and its consequences and that this has greater
    impacts on more vulnerable children.
        Now, here, too, we've made some progress, with the TV ratings and
    the V-chip to enforce them, with video ratings, with new screening
    devices for the Internet which parents can use. But we must do more.
    Last week I issued three specific challenges to the entertainment
    community, from keeping guns out of ads and previews that children might
    see, so that we don't market violence to children when we say we're not
    showing it to them in the programs; to strictly enforcing the ratings in
    theaters and video stores, where they're often not enforced at all; to
    reevaluating the PG rating itself, to ensure that movies approved for
    viewing by our children do not contain gratuitous violence.
        Schools must also do more with violence prevention and peer
    mediation efforts, with effective counseling programs and, when
    necessary, access to mental health services. Next month, under the
    leadership of Tipper Gore, we will host a White
    House Conference on Mental Health and talk about how we can reach out to
    troubled young people.
        Students should work harder to promote respect among all groups at
    schools, not the kind of hostility and demeaning conduct and remarks we
    too often see when groups become gangs or cliques.
        Finally, parents must take primary responsibility, paying attention
    to the shows their children watch, the webpages they visit, refusing to
    buy products that glorify violence, and, above all, staying involved in
    their children's lives, making sure that no child crosses the line
    between the healthy desire for independence and the potentially deadly
    alienation.
        Last week at the White House, we committed to launch a national
    campaign to turn back the tide of violence. We need a grassroots effort
    in every community, involving all sectors of society to connect every
    child, to help all parents do their jobs better, to use every known
    prevention technique, to lobby for sensible changes in the law and in
    practice. It worked when Mothers Against Drunk Driving, and then
    Students Against Drunk Driving, decided we didn't have to tolerate the
    death on our highways. It's working now with grassroots efforts on teen
    pregnancy all across America and with efforts among grassroots business
    people to hire people off welfare. It will work here if the American
    people determine to make it work.
        Now, here in Washington, we can't once again let the gears of
    politics as usual grind our urgency into dust. The signs of the past
    week are very hopeful, but we have to keep at it. We can't forget the
    children of Columbine and all the other children who were lost because
    their culture, their society, is too violent, their laws too lax.
        The American spirit is stronger than the forces of hate. This is a
    very good time for our country, and we have made so much progress. Now
    we must, and we will, find the strength to do whatever it takes to give
    our children a safer future.
        Thanks for listening.

    Note: The address was recorded at 1:20 p.m. on May 21 in the Oval Office
    at the White House for broadcast at 10:06 a.m. on May 22. The transcript
    was made available by the Office of the Press Secretary on May 21 but
    was embargoed for release until the broadcast. In his remarks, the
    President referred to Thomas J. (T.J.) Solomon, Jr., alleged gunman in
    the Heritage High School shooting in Conyers, GA, on May 20.