[Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: WILLIAM J. CLINTON (2000, Book I)]
[April 12, 2000]
[Pages 681-690]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]
Remarks at MSNBC's Townhall Meeting on Guns in Denver
April 12, 2000
Tom Brokaw. And to start our discussion here
at the University of Denver, the President of the United States, who
earlier today spoke at a rally here in Colorado organized by the
families of the victims of Columbine. Mr. President, what message do you
bring on gun control, not only to the citizens of Colorado but to the
rest of the Nation as well, with these appearances?
The President. Well, first of all, I wanted to come to express my
support for the people of Colorado who are trying to put this initiative
on the ballot to close the gun show loophole. A bipartisan effort led by
Governor Owens and Attorney General
Salazar failed to get the legislation
through the legislature, so the people are trying to put it on the
ballot, and I wanted to support it.
And secondly, I wanted to highlight the fact that even though
Colorado, Maryland, Massachusetts, California, and other States are
moving to increase gun safety, we really can't do what we need to do
until there is national legislation passed by the Congress to close the
gun show loophole, to require child safety locks, promote safe gun
technology, and stop importing the large capacity ammunition clips that
make a mockery of our assault weapons ban.
Mr. Brokaw. But do you think that this issue
has become so highly politicized, especially in a Presidential election
year--Governor Bill Owens, for example, didn't want to appear in this
hour with you; he'll be appearing later tonight on MSNBC--that it's
become so politicized that it's highly unlikely that we'll achieve any
consensus in this year?
The President. Actually, I think the fact that it's an election year
increases the chances that we can get something done. If it weren't an
election year, there would be no way, because the--in Washington at
least, the influence of the NRA is so great that even though some people
are afraid of them at election time, they know the public is for
commonsense prevention measures, overwhelmingly. So I think in a funny
way, the fact that it's an election year might help us to pass it,
especially since--you know, I'm not running for anything, so I'm just
out here trying to do what I think is right.
Mr. Brokaw. It seems that one of the real
hangups is this whole question of how long the waiting period should be
at a gun show for a background check. The NRA and other people who are
critical of your position say they would be willing to take the 24-hour
waiting period. You've been holding out for 72 hours.
The President. Here's the problem--and there may be a way to split
the difference--but 70 percent of these checks can be done in minutes.
Over 90 percent can be done in 24 hours. The problem is that the less
than 10 percent that can't be done within 24 hours, where you need 3
days, they have a rejection rate of 20 times the rejection rate of the
other 90-something percent.
So their position puts them in--I think it's a totally untenable
position. They're basically arguing for the group that is most likely to
have criminals in it. So there's got to be a way to do the checks, clear
them, let the people have their guns who clear, and still hold those
that can't be cleared and--in rural areas, for example, I've actually
been to very rural gun shows, because that's the kind we mostly had in
my State--there's got to be a way to find that common place to deposit
the gun and the check if it's over the weekend, and then do the
background check, and send for the gun--to the gun owner and the check
to the seller.
Mr. Brokaw. So there may be some room for
compromise in the 24 versus 72 hours if
[[Page 682]]
you can find, if in effect, what we would call an escrow for the gun?
The President. Sure. There are practical problems in these rural
gun shows, but they don't approach the cost to society of not doing the
background checks. And the problem is--again, once the background check
is done, people ought to be able to get their guns. But the problem is,
if you don't have the provision for 3 days for the small percentage of
buyers that can't be checked in a day, then you're giving up a huge
percentage of the people that have a criminal background.
Mr. Brokaw. Let's talk about the larger
picture when it comes to safety checks and gun controls and the question
of gun control versus gun safety. If you put all of that on the table,
and then you look at what happened in Columbine High School--and we know
what was in the minds of Harris and Klebold; we've heard the tapes--
there are no laws in the world that would have kept them from carrying
out that act.
The President. Well, you may be right. The young woman who provided one of the guns said that if she'd been
subject to a background check she wouldn't have purchased the gun at the
gun show. But you may be right about that. There's been a recent study
showing that a lot of these terrible instances don't necessarily fit a
profile, that young people nearly always give some heads-up to some peer
and never do it to their own families.
But one of the things we do know is, since we passed the Brady bill
and increased gun enforcement at the same time, a half-million people
who were felons, fugitives, and stalkers haven't gotten their handguns.
Gun crime is down 35 percent since I took office, and we've got the
lowest homicide rate in 31 years. So we know we can do better.
You can't--there is no society that can prevent every tragedy, every
outrage. But you do--if you have sensible prevention measures, you save
more lives. That's what this is about. It's not being perfect; it's
about not making the perfect the enemy of the good.
Mr. Brokaw. You have a big deal on the table
at Congress. You want to get additional money for enforcement of gun
laws--1,100 new prosecutors, 500 new ATF agents, $10 million for smart
gun research. This comes at the end of your 8 years in office, and the
NRA has been after you for a long time about enforcing the gun laws that
are already on the books.
The President. Well, they say that, but they haven't endorsed this
measure yet. And look at the facts. Since I've been President, we've
increased Federal prosecutions by 16 percent; we've started operations
like the one in Richmond and here in Colorado; we have increased by 2
years the average sentence of a violator of a gun law. We've increased
enforcement. That is not an argument not to have prevention.
My argument with the NRA is not on enforcement. My argument is that
guns can't be the only area of our national life where we don't have a
balanced approach. I agree with them; we should do more to educate young
people about gun safety. I agree that the media and parents and
communities and schools have a responsibility.
But this shouldn't be the only area of our national life where we
don't have sensible prevention measures. We would never think of
applying this principle to airport metal detectors, to taking all of the
seatbelts out of cars or--that's what my problem is. Prevention ought to
be a part of our strategy. And the evidence of the Brady bill is, it
works, it drives down crime, and it saves lives. And we ought to close
the loophole. That's what I believe.
Mr. Brokaw. One of the interested observers
we have here is Gerry Whitman, who is the police chief, the acting
police chief of the city of Denver. Mr. Whitman, one of the claims that
the NRA makes is that around the country, law enforcement officers are
unhappy with the Federal Government for not doing enough to enforce the
Federal gun laws. Is that your judgment?
[Gerry Whitman said that Federal partnership
in law enforcement should go further and stressed the need for
consistency in the laws, in order to protect the officers on the
street.]
Mr. Brokaw. What happens when you have a gun
show here in the Denver area? In a number of other communities, they say
the crime rate goes up, crimes committed with guns. Has that happened in
Denver?
Mr. Whitman. Well, in 1989, the city
council and city government put into law an assault weapons ban in the
city, so we don't have gun shows in the city itself. I haven't noticed
any increase as a result of the gun shows outside
[[Page 683]]
the city limits with the crime rate in the city of Denver.
Mr. Brokaw. And we also have in the audience
Doug Dean, who is the majority leader in the Colorado State House of
Representatives.
You were among those who defeated your own Governor's gun control
bill that he put before the House. Why did you do that?
[State Representative Dean responded that the
legislation would not have had any effect on the Columbine tragedy since
Robyn Anderson, who purchased the guns for Eric Harris and Dylan
Klebold, would have passed the background check supported by the
President.]
The President. I agree with that. She would have passed the
background check. What she said was, if she'd been subject to one, she
probably wouldn't have bought the gun. But let me point out--again I
say, you can't solve--you can't refuse to vote for a law because it's
not perfect, it won't solve every problem.
Last year we had a study done by the Department of Justice and the
Department of the Treasury, involving over 300 sellers at gun shows--and
without background checks. Thirty-four percent of them resulted in sales
of guns that were later used in serious crimes, a total of 50,000-plus
gun crimes committed. Now, if there had been background checks, those
would not have occurred.
So to say, well, it wouldn't have solved every problem, therefore we
won't do it--I don't think that's a good answer.
Mr. Brokaw. Mr. Dean----
The President. If the Brady bill works, if you believe in the Brady
bill, if you accept the fact that it's kept a half-million felons,
fugitives, and stalkers from getting handguns, then it would by
definition work to have the same background check at the gun shows.
And let me just say one other thing. Everybody says, enforce the
law, enforce the law, enforce the law. The more we prosecute violations
of the Brady bill, the more we enforce the law, the more illegal people
will turn to the gun shows to buy their guns, unless we close the
loophole.
Mr. Brokaw. Mr. Dean, a question that I have
for you. Eighty percent of the Coloradans, in a survey about gun laws in
this State, said they really did want to crack down on gun shows; they
wanted to crack down on sales to 18-year-olds. All of this is possible--
and they wanted background checks for gun shows. So, are you
representing the people of Colorado when you defeat those very measures?
[State Representative Dean stated that the vast
majority of people in his district did not support the measures.]
Mr. Brokaw. But let me just ask you, so I
understand perfectly well your position personally. You think that there
can be unlicensed dealers at gun shows, and that background checks
should not be required at gun shows, and that guns can be sold to 18-
year-olds at gun shows. You're in favor of all three of those points?
[Representative Dean responded that 18-year-olds
were adults who could serve in the military and be sent to war. He said
he was concerned that regulation of every private firearm transaction
would create a Government registry of firearm owners. The program then
paused for a commercial break.]
Mr. Brokaw. Mr. President, we're back, and
these are just some of the Federal firearms regulations that we already
have on the books. If you could add just one or two that you think would
change the current climate in this country, what are the two priorities
that you have for the end of your term?
The President. I would close the gun show loophole, because the
Brady bill has worked superbly. It has given us a 35 percent drop in gun
crimes and a 31-year low in the homicide rate and kept a half-million
people--felons, fugitives, stalkers--from getting handguns. That's the
first thing I'd do. And then the second thing I would do is to require
safety provisions for children.
I also believe that the loophole in the assault weapons ban should
be closed; we banned assault weapons and then we still allow the import
of these large capacity ammunition clips. But I think that child safety
and doing more to keep guns out of the hands of criminals through
preventive measures that haven't delayed by a day or an hour a hunter
going to the deer woods, anybody going to a sport shooting contest, any
law-abiding person buying a handgun for safety at home--hasn't done any
of that--I think it is a tiny burden to pay to give lots of people their
lives back. So that's what I'd do.
[[Page 684]]
Mr. Brokaw. But do we have to get beyond the
laws and get to a dialog as well about the place of violence in our
culture?
The President. No, no, that should all be a part of it. I mean, I
think the media has a responsibility here. I'll say again, communities,
schools, and families have heavy responsibilities. I think when we've
got a lot of guns out there, we should do more to teach young people how
to use them safely. But you can't say that guns are the only area in our
life, because of the second amendment, where we're not going to do
prevention.
You know, the same people that are arguing now, we can't close the
gun show loophole, said to me 6 years ago when I signed the Brady bill
that it wouldn't do any good, it would just burden people, because all
the criminals bought their guns at gun shows, they didn't buy their guns
at gun stores. Turned out that wasn't right. Prevention makes sense in
every area of our national life. That's my message and my belief.
Mr. Brokaw. One of the places in America
where this dialog has been going on with a very, very heavy price, of
course, is Columbine, Colorado. And Lance Kirklin is with us today. He
was one of the students who was shot in Columbine. And Lance and his
family also still like to use guns.
Lance, what did you learn about guns in the last year, being a
victim of a gunshot?
Lance Kirklin. Well, I mean, it's not guns
that kill people; it's people who kill people. You don't see guns jump
off tables and start shooting people. It's people that have it in their
possession, and it's their mind that does the crime.
Mr. Brokaw. What would you change, however,
in the teenage culture, if you will, or in the culture of young people,
not just in Columbine but across the country, in terms of their
attitudes about violence and the use of guns?
Mr. Kirklin. I don't know.
Mr. Brokaw. Do you think that they are open
to change? Do you think that they learn--I mean, you go out hunting with
your father, for example, right? You shoot guns from him, and you've
learned from him. But how many other young people only know about guns
from video games or from some violent movie and don't really know what
the impact is?
Mr. Kirklin. I think a lot of people my
age know about guns from movies and video games and stuff, but they also
know the other side of it. You know, they are dangerous, and they also
can be used for hunting and good, I guess.
Mr. Brokaw. Would you be uncomfortable if the
gun show loophole were closed?
Mr. Kirklin. Kind of.
Mr. Brokaw. You would be uncomfortable?
Mr. Kirklin. Yes.
Mr. Brokaw. Let's ask Dave Thomas, who came
to be known nationally as well, who is the district attorney for the
county in which Littleton resides, about how his attitudes have changed
toward guns in the last year, or having to deal with the tragedy there?
[Mr. Thomas stated that he agreed with Lance
Kirklin, but that people's access to guns increased the lethality of the
acts that they might commit. He agreed that the Brady bill worked better
than anticipated and advocated closing the loophole, as well as
providing resources for investigations and prosecuting violators
aggressively.]
Mr. Brokaw. We also have--in that very area
is Diana Holland, who is the co-chair of the Littleton Community Task
Force. The task force is officially neutral on the whole question of gun
control. But I wonder, Ms. Holland, has your work, in effect, been
impeded some by the emotional divisions of gun control debates bring to
the table?
[Ms. Holland said that task force members left
their political and personal agendas out of their work. The program then
paused for a commercial break.]
Mr. Brokaw. Mr. President, I know it's no
surprise to you that you have been a very large target for the National
Rifle Association and its spokespeople in political arenas and on
television. We're going to share a couple of the ads that they've been
running so that you can respond to them and so that we can talk to some
people here who are supporters of the NRA.
Let's see one of those ads.
[A videotape was shown.]
Mr. Brokaw. Pretty harsh language, Mr.
President.
The President. Well, actually, Mr. Heston is right, I guess. If you say something is wrong
unintentionally, it's a mistake; and when you know it's wrong, it's a
lie. That's what he said.
[[Page 685]]
Now, when that child--when the one child killed the other child, I
said, A, there ought to be child safety locks. And B, another provision
of my bill, which I couldn't get through either House, was to hold
people like the people in that crackhouse criminally responsible when
they allow children like that little boy to have access to guns. That
was a provision of my law. That was my position. And actually, I believe
they supported me. So they knew I was for that, because they supported
it. But he didn't say that on the airwaves.
Now, I'm not going to call him a name,
like he did. I still like his movies, actually. [Laughter] But this is
not about me and him. You have to understand--the NRA, if they can make
a demon out of me, then they can raise more money. If they can terrify
people who live in a district like the house majority leader there, where there really is a cultural divide here--
because they don't have many people in his district who would ever
violate the gun laws, and they have a lot of people who own guns, they
use them safely, they taught their kids to use them safely, and they
can't imagine the kind of culture that a lot of these kids live in,
these urban cultures. So they don't understand what the deal is, and
they're afraid it's a slippery slope.
So that's what this is about. They just keep everybody all agitated,
and they raise a lot of money, and maybe they beat the bill. But again I
say, let's calm down here. Since I've been President, gun crime is down
35 percent, nobody's missed a day in the deer woods, nobody's been
unable to go to a sport shooting contest, and the prevention has worked.
And what we need is more prevention that doesn't unfairly burden the
right of hunters and sports people and people who want guns for their
own safety. Those are the facts.
The gun death rate in America is still higher than any other country
in the world. And I want to say this: The accidental gun death rate of
children under 15 is 9 times higher here than in the next 25 largest
countries combined. We could use a little more prevention. That's what
this is about. That's all it's about--not about a fight with the NRA--
it's about a fight to save lives.
Mr. Brokaw. We had hoped in our next hour,
which we'll play tonight, to have Wayne LaPierre, who is a very
conspicuous officer of the NRA, appear with us. And he had accepted, but
then cited a scheduling conflict, so he won't be with us later tonight.
But we do have in the audience, I know, some people who are not only
enrolled members of the NRA but are outspoken proponents of the NRA's
position on a lot of things.
Bob Ford is the president of Rocky Mountain Arms, Inc. He is a gun
dealer, and he joins us now. Mr. Ford, right here. Mr. Ford, Wayne
LaPierre has said two rather provocative things about the President, in
addition to the Charlton Heston commercial that we just saw. He said the
President ``has blood on his hands'' as a result of what happened to the
coach that was tragically shot in the hate crime shooting in
Northwestern. And he said that this President wants a ``certain level of
violence in America to further his political agenda.'' Do you agree with
that?
[Bob Ford disagreed and said there was too much
rhetoric on both sides. He emphasized that felons must get the message
that if you use a gun, you will go to prison.]
Mr. Brokaw. And what about gun shows in
places like Colorado and across the American West and across the
American South, for that matter, where they're so popular? You're a
regular gun dealer and represent gun dealers. Do gun shows unfairly
compete with people who go out and set up their shop in a brick-and-
mortar operation?
[Mr. Ford stated that individuals selling private
or estate gun collections were engaged in business transactions and thus
should have to apply for a license to sell firearms or get out of
business, and the ATF should enforce that position.]
The President. I agree with that.
Mr. Brokaw. But this administration raised
the standards for licensing. And here in Colorado, just this week, after
I arrived, many Colorado Republican legislators were saying they've made
it too hard to get a license. They only raised the price from $10 to
about $30 and put some additional standards in there. Wasn't that the
appropriate thing to do, or not?
[Mr. Ford said some dealers who used to have
Federal firearm licenses were liquidating their personal inventory, but
ATF was requiring them to get a license and perform background checks.
He emphasized that no dealer in the country objected to performing
background checks.]
[[Page 686]]
Mr. Brokaw. Were you surprised when the
Colorado Legislature defeated the attempts to tighten the laws governing
gun shows?
Mr. Ford. No, I was not. Our members of our
Colorado Legislature are responsive to their constituents.
Mr. Brokaw. Thank you very much.
Matt Bai is a colleague from Newsweek magazine, and he has been
covering extensively this whole question of the gun culture in America,
the gun laws, and the political debate that has heated up across
America. Matt?
Matt Bai. Well, Mr. President, the NRA, in a
letter to gun dealers last week, called you ``the most antigun President
in history.'' That may or may not bother you, but along the same lines
of what we've been watching, there are a lot of gun owners and gun
dealers who believe that you won't stop until you get an outright ban on
handguns, and that whatever you get, you're going to want more. I'd like
to know what specific provision, of the ones you've outlined today, it
would take for you to go away and leave the gun companies and the gun
dealers alone.
The President. Well, first of all, I have said specifically I would
not support a ban on handguns. You may know that a major newspaper in
Washington, DC, the Washington Post, has actually advocated that. And so
we were all asked about it, and I said, no, I wouldn't support that.
I would go further than my proposals here. I also think that it's
all right to register these sales the same way we register cars, because
what I'm trying to do is improve the ability of law enforcement to trace
weapons when they're used in a crime. And none of this in any way
interferes with the second amendment. You know, historically there were
a lot of people who had to have a license to carry a concealed weapon.
No one ever thought that interfered with the second amendment.
So my basic view is, I am for anything that will increase our
capacity to prevent guns from going into the wrong hands. But I'm not
for preventing law-abiding people from having a gun that they have the
right to have, to hunt, to sport shoot, or, if they choose, to protect
themselves in their own homes.
I do think, in addition to that, we should invest a lot more in this
smart gun technology. We will be able--within 3 years, we will have guns
on the market that can only be fired by their lawful owners. I think we
ought to have internal as well as external child trigger locks. I
believe that. That's what I--and I believe when we do that, you will see
a much safer country. I think that if you look at the evidence here,
there have been no assaults on hunting; there's been no assaults on
sport shooting. But we do have a safer country than we did because I've
taken on these fights.
And so I think that the fears are unfounded. We should take--instead
of getting into big verbal battles, we ought to look at the specifics of
every proposal and debate it and decide whether it's right or wrong.
Mr. Brokaw. As you know, many people believe
that if you register every handgun, that's going to be a national
registry, and the Government someday is going to show up at your door
and say, give me your guns.
The President. Well, I don't agree with that. But that wasn't my
proposal. I think first of all, that's impractical, because there are
already over 200 million guns out there. And now, that just scares a lot
of people. The truth is that the vast majority of them are in the hands
of collectors and law-abiding hunters and sports people. There are too
many that are kind of floating around on the streets and in the criminal
culture, but the answer to that, I think, is aggressive local buyback
programs, which we've tried to support.
But if you registered new gun sales, then they could be--the guns
could more easily be traced in the event of a crime. That's all I'm
interested in. I would oppose any effort to say that people couldn't
have firearms in this country. You know, maybe others disagree, I
suppose, but it's part of the culture I grew up in, and I'm still a part
of it. But I also think that the people--most of the folks I grew up
with, if I have a chance to talk to them, and they understand we're
trying to save kids' lives and trying to prevent crimes from happening
in the first place, and it doesn't burden their ability to do what they
want to do lawfully with their guns, will support these specific
measures. That's the direction I think this debate ought to take.
Mr. Brokaw. You've tried to make it a local
State option as well. Would that be the answer, that gun owners would be
more inclined to trust their State governments than the Federal
Government? The Federal Government can provide the appropriate
incentives for the States to install those kinds of laws?
[[Page 687]]
The President. Well, they probably would. But to me, how it's done
is not as important as whether we have done everything we possibly can.
Look, let me just say this. When I started in '93 as President, we
had a rising crime rate. Most people didn't think you could drive it
down. Now, the Congress not only passed the assault weapons ban and the
Brady bill, they put 100,000 police on the streets. They put more
resources into law enforcement. They did more to help local agencies, as
well as to strengthen our Federal efforts. And crime is at about a 25-
year low, the murder rate at a 31-year low. But I won't be satisfied
until America's the safest big country in the world.
And if I were running the NRA, I would love--I'd have a whole
different take on this. I would be for all this prevention business,
because I would want to prove that a country where lots of people hunt,
sport shoot, and have guns for their home protection could also be the
safest country in the world. So I would have a totally different take on
this. I might not raise as much money through the mail, but I think it
would be better.
Mr. Brokaw. Let me just be absolutely clear
about this. You're going to be out of work in less than a year. Does
that mean that you're thinking about running for the NRA presidency?
[Laughter]
The President. I think--you know, somehow I think I'd have a better
chance of getting elected to the school board at home than I would to
the NRA presidency. [Laughter] But I'm just trying to say--again I will
say, let's go back to what the gun dealer there said. We don't need to
turn this into personal animosity. We need to debate every single one of
these issues, bring out all this stuff, and figure out how we can make
America the safest big country in the world. That's really what we all
want, isn't it? Wouldn't you like it if your country was the safest big
country in the world? I mean, that's what we all want.
Mr. Brokaw. I think we have a question from
the audience for you, Mr. President.
Q. I'm a junior here at the University of Denver. I have a question
I'd like to direct to the President. Sir, do you believe the second
amendment is absolute or something that can be limited by gun control
legislation?
The President. Well, there is no such thing as an absolute, if you
mean it can never be restricted. The first amendment, which most people
believe is the most important one, let's say freedom of speech--the
Supreme Court has said there's a limit on the freedom of speech.
Pornography is not protected; you can't shout ``fire'' in a crowded
theater when there's no fire. Freedom of religion--the courts have
upheld that people who want to join the United States military, for
example, may not be able to have beards, even if their religion says
they're supposed to have one.
So all of these amendments have to be interpreted over time in terms
of the real circumstances. If you look at the history of the second
amendment and what led to its adoption, there is--it's my view--nothing
in there which prevents reasonable measures designed to keep guns out of
the hands of criminals and kids. To say that criminals have an absolute
right to get guns and we're just going to throw the book at them if we
catch them, but we can't prevent them from committing a crime in the
first place, I think is wrong.
Mr. Brokaw. Mr. President, we have in the
audience a group of women who are interested on both sides of this
issue, and one of them is Robin Ball, who is a spokeswoman for the
Sisters of the Second Amendment. Is Robin here? I was misinformed.
[Laughter]
Tom Mauser is here, though, from Columbine. He lost his son at
Columbine, and he appeared, obviously, at the State of the Union speech,
and you came out here to speak to this group today. Mr. Mauser, have you
been surprised, in the almost year now since the tragedy at Columbine
and the loss of your son, by the divisions in the Colorado community
generally, and specifically in Littleton, about how to resolve these
issues of violence in America and especially what we do about guns?
Tom Mauser. No, I haven't been that
surprised, because I think Littleton is no different than any other
community. There are differences of opinion of how we deal with this
terrible epidemic of gun violence.
Mr. Brokaw. And where do you think it will
lead to in Colorado, given how the Colorado Legislature voted this time?
Mr. Mauser. Well, clearly, where it's leading
to right now is that we're taking--my organization, SAFE Colorado, is
taking a ballot initiative to the people to close the gun show loophole.
And I think, clearly, the polls show that people see that it's
reasonable common sense.
[[Page 688]]
Mr. Brokaw. We also have in the audience
Richard Gephardt, who represents your party in the House of
Representatives. There is a letter, Mr. Gephardt, that we got a copy of
just today. It may come as some surprise to you. It's signed by--Henry
Hyde is the Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, and John Conyers,
who is the ranking Democrat on that committee, and they're sending it to
Orrin Hatch, saying they want to request a juvenile conference meeting
as soon as possible, because they think that they have agreed on some
terms of where they can get to in closing these loopholes. For example,
on gun shows, John Conyers is signing off on a 24-hour check. Does that
have any chance of passing?
Representative Richard A. Gephardt.
Well, I hope that that can happen. We've been trying to, on a bipartisan
basis, get this conference to meet and get them to bring out something
that we can get a vote on in the House and the Senate. I'm very
optimistic that we can get this done. And as the President has said, we
all have our eye on safety, and this bill would help.
Mr. Brokaw. Twenty-four-hour checks would be
okay with you?
Representative Gephardt. If it can
be done feasibly, if we think that we can catch the people. As the
President said, even under the 72-hour rule, 90 percent of the people
passed the check; we're only inconveniencing about 10 percent, and a
large portion of them are the people that we're trying to stop from
getting guns.
So if we can work it out to get a 24-hour check, clear everybody or
not clear everybody in that period of time, that would be great.
Mr. Brokaw. Would you sign that bill?
The President. Well, I want to see the details, but I almost
certainly would sign anything that had the support of both Mr.
Conyers and Mr. Hyde and, therefore, got a majority of both their caucuses.
You know, we may never get a perfect bill, and I don't know what
they mean by 24 hours, because John Conyers had offered Henry Hyde 24 hours
before, but he wanted some provision for this group--small, small group
for whom there is a very large rejection rate. So I don't know where
they settled; I want to see the details. But if we could get a big,
bipartisan bill to come out of the House that would save people's lives,
even if I thought it weren't perfect, of course, I would sign it.
Mr. Brokaw. Would it be worth trying a
conditional bill--we'll try the 24-hour check for 2 years with a time
limit on it, and if it's not working, we'll come back to it again, just
so that we get some effort to begin to close the door on gun shows?
The President. I think we ought to do the very best we can on that.
The one thing I did not want to do that was suggested by some is that we
just go for the child trigger locks and leave the gun show loophole
alone altogether, just because it's almost impossible to come back. So
if we can make some progress, obviously I'm open to it. But I think that
even--without regard to party, what is uncomfortable is, everybody would
like--because a lot of these gun show are held on the weekend, and
people are passing on. And as a gun dealer, a gentleman pointed out, a
lot of these people are just getting rid of their own personal stock.
And I've been to gun shows way out in the country where you're 10
miles, 15 miles from the nearest town, and they're passing through. So
everybody would like to minimize the inconvenience. The real issue is,
what do we do about this very small percentage of people that don't
clear within a day and do have a 20 times higher rejection rate?
But I can't believe we can't find a fix for that so we can let
everybody else go in a day. Look, the ones that clear in 30 seconds, I'm
for letting them go in 30 seconds. I don't want--the Government should
never be in a position of imposing a burden for which there is no
benefit. I can't believe that we can't work this out, and I'm encouraged
by this letter.
Mr. Brokaw. Speaking of that, Smith & Wesson
recently came to you and volunteered to put in place a number of
guidelines that rankled other gun manufacturers in this country: not
only gun locks but they're not going to allow their guns to be sold at
gun shows; they're not going to allow multiple handgun sales in the
course of a fixed period of time. The NRA has already pointed out that
that's a foreign company, and it may be up for sale. Are you going to
put the pressure on other gun manufacturers to follow the Smith & Wesson
model, or are you going to leave it to them to do what they want to?
The President. Well, first of all, I think they did a good thing.
Second, let me tell you exactly what they did, because I think it's
important.
[[Page 689]]
And you might want to go back to some of the people in the audience.
What they said was, they would not allow their guns to be sold at
gun shows unless all the people selling at the gun show did a background
check. Then, they said they would require trigger locks, both internal
and external, and within 3 years would have smart gun technology. And
they said that they would not continue to distribute their guns through
dealers that had a bad record.
Another thing, a lot of these gun dealers get an unfairly bad name.
An extraordinary percentage of the guns sold to criminals by gun dealers
are sold by a tiny percentage of the dealers. Most of the dealers are
perfectly law-abiding and very vigilant. So Smith & Wesson said,``Hey, I
want to get in and support this process.'' And what I'm going to do is
encourage other manufacturers to do the same, and I think you're going
to see a lot of city and State governments that buy a lot of guns and
encourage other manufacturers to do the same.
Now, there is some evidence that a lot of the other manufacturers
are trying to gang up on Smith & Wesson, which I think is a mistake.
Again, what did they do that was wrong? All they did was to promote
prevention. And they're in the business of selling guns. They're
obviously not trying to ban guns; they're making money selling guns.
Mr. Brokaw. There's somebody in the audience
who has some pretty strong feelings about that. Paul Paradis is a gun
dealer here in the State of Colorado. You've decided, Mr. Paradis, not
to sell the Smith & Wesson weapons?
[Paul Paradis said that his store no longer
sold Smith & Wesson guns and noted that the agreement involved more ATF
inspections.]
Mr. Brokaw. Why do you think that selling
Smith & Wesson weapons would bring more ATF inspections?
Mr. Paradis. It's one of the things that
dealers have to do. There's a number of other things. I carry over 400,
500 guns in my store.
Mr. Brokaw. Right.
Mr. Paradis. One of the things that they
were requiring us to do is remove every gun from the shelf and lock it
up in a safe every night. Well, you take two employees, me and my wife,
usually, to spend a couple of hours unpacking and putting guns up and
next morning taking them out; that's a lot of money lost.
You know, the States, a short time ago, were very upset about
Federal unfunded mandates. Now, it's businesses, especially small
businesses like mine, that are receiving Federal unfunded mandates.
Mr. Brokaw. Do you have an answer to that,
Mr. President?
The President. Well, I think what Smith & Wesson agreed to do,
though--and they kind of initiated a lot of this--was to try to make
sure that if a gun store was broken into at night, that it would be
harder to steal the guns, and if you left them all out in full view,
that it would be. But I can see--it's obviously some burden on them.
It's an extra lot of trouble for 2 people to store 400 guns. But again
you have to ask yourself, on balance, is this a good requirement if
these stores might be broken into?
Mr. Brokaw. I think a lot of people in
America probably don't realize that most gun manufacturers are now
shipping their guns with trigger locks.
The President. They are. They've been great.
Mr. Brokaw. Are they getting enough credit?
The President. No. But I've tried to give them credit. You know,
we've had at least two events at the White House to compliment and thank
the manufacturers who are putting trigger locks on their guns when they
ship them now, the new guns. And there are, I think, even--there are
some people I think out here that are even providing trigger locks to
people that can be applied to guns that they already have. And all this
is good. We should do more of it.
Mr. Brokaw. We have one quick question. I'm
sorry, it's going to have to be very quick.
Q. I am a sophomore here at DU. How many laws were broken last April
20th at Columbine, and why do you think one more will make a difference?
Mr. Brokaw. I think there were 18 broken, if
I can help you with that, Mr. President. [Laughter] Is that right?
The President. Well, as I said--let me go back to Columbine. If you
look at the troubled history of those young men, no one can be sure that
anybody could have done anything in law enforcement to stop it. And you
all know the facts better than I do. You must have all asked yourself a
thousand questions about whether anybody, including any of their
classmates, should have known, could have known, could have done
something. But the main thing is, you shouldn't
[[Page 690]]
evaluate these proposals solely in terms of Columbine. What you should
say is, would it make a difference?
Why do I think one more will make a difference? Because if you close
the gun show loophole, then all gun sales will be subject to the same
background checks the Brady bill imposes on gun dealers today, which has
resulted in a half-million felons, fugitives, and stalkers not getting
handguns. And the gun crime rate today is 35 percent lower than it was 7
years ago. That's my argument.
Mr. Brokaw. Mr. President, thank you very
much.
The President. Thank you.
Mr. Brokaw. On behalf of NBC News and MSNBC,
I certainly appreciate this attentive and very articulate audience, and
especially the President of the United States to take time out of his
busy schedule to address this issue that, clearly, so deeply divides so
many Americans. But I hope that with this dialog here today and many
others like this in the course of the coming months in Colorado and
across the country, we can take that one step toward some common ground.
This, after all, is a debate about much more than just gun safety,
gun laws; it's about who we are and what we want our children to think
of us in the future. Thank you all very much for joining us here today.
[Following a commercial break, Mr. Brokaw invited
the President to make further remarks.]
The President. I think this country would make better decisions
across the whole range of issues if we could all find a way to give each
other forums like this, because I have seen repeatedly how, on this gun
issue, each side--once one side strikes a personal blow, then the other
one wants to strike a personal blow back. And before you know it, we're
all into demonizing each other, which is--it may make for good
television--no offense--[laughter]--but it makes for bad decisions.
We're not talking about--there's no need in us demonizing each
other. And I think we have to recognize that most of the advocates of
strong gun control and most of the advocates--opponents of it really
come out of different cultures and have different experiences which lead
them to the positions they hold. And what we've got to do--I've spent a
lot of time, since I came out of--basically out of the hunting and sport
shooting culture, I've spent a lot of time explaining to the people on
my side of this why the people on the other side think the way they do
and argue the way they do and feel the way they do. And I think it's
important that we try to minimize calling each other names, and try to
hear what each other is saying. And I thought the gentleman who is the
gun dealer today made some particularly cogent points. And I appreciate
what you said.
And I also want to say, not every problem has an easy answer. I
don't have an answer to what the gentleman up there said, that he quit
using Smith & Wesson guns because he and his wife didn't want to spend 2
hours every night that they didn't have running their small business to
load up 400, 500 guns. There's not an easy answer to every one of these
things.
But we'll get through this, and we can make this the safest big
country in the world if we keep listening to each other and dealing with
each other respectfully, the way all of you have today. And I just want
to thank you. And I want to thank all the officials who came here today
for the role they played in this.
Thank you.
Note: The townhall meeting began at 1 p.m. at the University of Denver.
In his remarks, the President referred to Gov. Bill F. Owens and State
Attorney General Kenneth Salazar of Colorado; and Charlton Heston,
president, National Rifle Association. A portion of these remarks could
not be verified because the tape was incomplete.