    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: WILLIAM J. CLINTON (2000, Book I)]
    [March 17, 2000]
    [Pages 481-483]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    Remarks on the Gun Safety Agreement With Smith & Wesson and an Exchange
    With Reporters
    March 17, 2000

        The President. Good afternoon. For 7 years, our administration has
    worked on every front to reduce violence and to keep our communities
    safer. That's why we've pushed for commonsense gun safety legislation,
    why I've taken executive action to crack down on bad gun dealers, and
    why in December I said we would engage gun manufacturers in ways to seek
    changes in how they do business.
        Today I am pleased to report that a key member of the industry has
    decided to set a powerful example of responsibility. Earlier today Smith
    & Wesson signed a landmark agreement with the Federal Government and
    States and cities across our Nation.
        For the very first time, a gun manufacturer has committed to
    fundamentally change the way guns are designed, distributed, and
    marketed. Under the agreement, Smith & Wesson will include locking
    devices and other safety features and will develop smart guns that can
    be fired only by the adults who own them. The company will cut off
    dealers who sell disproportionate numbers of guns that turn up in crimes
    and will require all its dealers not to sell at gun shows unless every
    seller at the shows conducts background checks. The company has also
    agreed to design new firearms that do not accept large capacity
    magazines and will work with ATF to provide ballistics fingerprints for
    all its firearms.
        This agreement is a major victory for America's families. It says
    that gunmakers can and will share in the responsibility to keep their
    products out of the wrong hands. And it says that gunmakers can and will
    make their guns much safer without infringing on anyone's rights.
        It has taken courage and vision for Smith & Wesson to be the first
    manufacturers to negotiate. And I applaud their determination to do
    right by their company and their country. As I've said all along, there
    are responsible citizens in the gun industry who do want to make
    progress on this issue. I hope today's announcement will encourage
    others to respond in kind.
        This agreement could not have come to pass without the leadership of
    many mayors, city attorneys, and State attorneys general. I'm glad to be
    joined today by Attorney General Eliot Spitzer
    of New York and Attorney General Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, as well as Mayors Alex
    Penelas of Miami, Bill Campbell of Atlanta.
        In a moment, I'll be telephoning some other mayors, Joe Ganim of Bridgeport, Dennis Archer of Detroit, Roosevelt Dorn of
    Inglewood, California, Marc Morial of New
    Orleans, Jimmy Yee of Sacramento, as well as city
    attorneys Jim Hunt of Los Angeles and Louise
    Renne of San Francisco and the city attorneys
    of Berkeley, California, Camden, New
    Jersey, and St. Louis, to congratulate them as well on joining this agreement
    and to urge them to continue to work to keep our children safe.
        I would also like to express my appreciation to former Congressman
    Mike Barnes, the new president of Handgun
    Control. I thank them all, as well as the members of our administration
    team who worked so hard on this: Treasury Secretary Larry
    Summers and Deputy Secretary
    Eizenstat, Attorney General Reno and Deputy Attorney General Holder, HUD Secretary Andrew Cuomo,
    and my Domestic Policy Adviser, Bruce Reed.
    They have also worked very hard to bring us to this historic moment.
        Let me say again today, the effort to reduce gun violence, to
    protect our children, to keep guns out of the hands of criminals and
    children,

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    is not about politics. It is about saving lives. This agreement shows we
    can get so much done when we find the courage to find common ground.
        Thank you very much.
        Q. What's the chance of other companies falling in line?
        The President. Well, I don't know. You know, Smith & Wesson is a
    real giant in this field. And as I said, it took a lot of courage for
    the company and its leader to do this. But I think the American people
    will have such an overwhelmingly positive response to what they have
    done, that I would hope the other manufacturers would follow suit.
        We have had some success, you know. A number of other manufacturers
    are already embracing the idea that new handguns ought to have child
    trigger locks. So I hope that they will do these things, the--continuing
    to work on smart gun technology. And I think saying that they won't
    continue to allow their guns to be sold by dealers that don't clearly
    follow the law and that they won't participate in gun shows that don't
    do background checks, that's a big deal. That's a very important thing.
        So I really--I'm very pleased by what they've done, and I think, as
    I said, I hope the American people will express their appreciation to
    Smith & Wesson, and I hope that others will follow suit.

    Oil Prices

        Q. Mr. President, on the issue of oil, do you expect to announce any
    of the measures that you talked about yesterday that you hope to do in
    the next couple of days to reduce the effect of high oil, gas, and
    diesel prices before leaving for India? And the second question, if I
    may, on the same subject, did you discuss the oil market with Saudi King
    Fahd when you spoke to him yesterday or with any other Saudi officials,
    and did they give you any assurances regarding production increases in
    the March 25th OPEC meeting?
        The President. Well, the answer is yes, I expect to have something
    to say before I leave for India, and yes, I talked about the markets
    with His Majesty King Fahd. And I think it's
    appropriate for me to let the OPEC members make their own decisions. But
    the Saudis have already expressed their support publicly for a
    production increase.
        I think everybody's struggling now to find a consensus. The point
    I've been trying to make is that it is necessary, in order to get the
    oil prices down to an acceptable level but still have them at a high
    enough level to earn a fair return to the producing countries and to
    keep them from precipitously falling and destabilizing the world economy
    again as they did a couple of years ago--it's necessary to have a
    substantial production increase that will not only close the gap between
    production and consumption on a daily basis but also enable the stocks
    to be rebuilt, because a lot of the oil price stocks have been drawn
    down too low, and that's one of the things that spiked the market so
    significantly.
        But I think that in terms of the decision they will make, that's for
    them to make, and they'll have to announce it. I think they're
    struggling to try to get a consensus. But they are, I think, concerned
    because the last time they increased production, there was this really
    big fall in the oil prices to a level that even those of us in the
    consuming countries thought was too low.
        But the problem is, that time they increased production just as the
    global economy went down, the Asian financial crisis and other problems.
    This time, we had the reverse effect. Just as the global economy was
    coming up in Asia and the Europeans were growing, they cut production,
    which had exactly the reverse impact. So first, prices went too low.
    Now, they've gone way too high.
        In our country, for example, lower income motorists, other motorists
    who live in rural areas and places where they have to drive a long way
    to work, and a lot of truckers, particularly independent truckers, have
    really, really been hurt by this situation.
        So there is a stable, win-win situation here that--where the fuel
    prices will be affordable by the American people and others, and they
    will still be able to have a fair return on their production and not
    risk the precipitous fall that they endured over the last couple of
    years. So they've got to find the right balance. They can do that, but
    as I said, we need to have enough to meet daily consumption requirements
    and to rebuild the stocks.

    China and Taiwan

        Q.  Mr. President, any thoughts on China and the elections, on
    Taiwan?

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        The President. Well, we've already said publicly that we want to see
    a resumption of the cross-state dialog as soon as the election is over.
    But the election in Taiwan is for the Taiwanese people, and I don't
    think I should comment on it until they have all their votes in. And
    they'll elect a new President, and then we'll go from there.

    Northern Ireland/South Asia

        Q. Mr. President, from a foreign policy standpoint, what is your
    best hope for this series of meetings this afternoon with Irish leaders,
    and what is your best hope on your upcoming trip to India and Pakistan?
        The President. First of all, the good news about Ireland is that
    even though the institutions have been taken down over the difference
    between the parties on decommissioning, no one wants to go back to the
    way it was or give up the peace process. The voters in Northern Ireland
    in both communities have overwhelmingly voted for it. And I think
    there's no sense that I got yesterday, in my first round of encounters
    with the leaders, that there's any desire to go back to the way it was.
        I think what we've got to do is to find a formula by which the
    institutions can be restored, the people can get back to governing. They
    actually found out they were quite good at working together, and they
    were getting a lot done. And we need to restore that process, and we
    need to restore a process that will eventually lead to all the
    requirements of the Good Friday accord being observed. And we'll just
    keep working on it until we find that answer.
        And on South Asia, obviously what I hope to do first is to rekindle
    the relationship between the United States and India. It's the world's
    largest democracy. No President has been there in 22 years. We have a
    lot of things that we can do together, a lot of mutual interests. I want
    to do what I can to reduce tensions on the Indian subcontinent to reduce
    the likelihood of weapons proliferation and the likelihood of conflict.
    And I want to do what I can to support the restoration of democratic
    rule in Pakistan and to continue our cooperation with them against
    terrorism and in many other ways that we have both profited from over
    many decades. I also will be going to Bangladesh, and I'm looking
    forward to that. I have seen a lot of the initiatives taken in
    Bangladesh, particularly for the empowerment of poor people, that I
    think are important there and throughout the world.
        And if you look at the size and the potential of the Indian
    subcontinent, if they could find a way to manage their difficulties,
    there's probably no other place in the world with the capacity for
    growth and modernization over the next two decades that you will find
    there. If you look at the success of Indians, Pakistanis, and
    Bangladeshis in the United States, that's clear evidence of that. So I'm
    going to do the best I can.

    Syria

        Q. Do you have a meeting coming up with the Syrian President?
        The President. I don't have anything else to say about my foreign
    policy agenda today. But I will, in the next several days, continue to
    talk to you about all this stuff. And I thank you.

    Note: The President spoke at 2:20 p.m. in the Oval Office at the White
    House. In his remarks, he referred to city attorneys John A. Misci, Jr.,
    of Camden, NJ, Manuela Albuquerque of Berkeley, CA, and Dee Joyce-Hayes
    of St. Louis, MO; King Fahd of Saudi Arabia; and President Hafiz al-Asad
    of Syria.