[Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: WILLIAM J. CLINTON (2000, Book I)]
[May 12, 2000]
[Pages 915-918]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]



Remarks Following a Meeting With Million Mom March Representatives and 
an Exchange With Reporters in Akron, Ohio
May 12, 2000

    The President. Good morning everyone. I have just had the 
opportunity to meet this fine group of mothers who are leading Ohio's 
participation in Sunday's Million Mom March for commonsense gun safety 
laws. I want to thank them for their commitment, their determination, 
and their courage. What they are doing is profoundly important.
    Like millions of mothers all over America, they are outraged by the 
senseless acts of gun violence that continue to plague our communities, 
and they are determined to do something

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about it. Every day, nearly a dozen of our children are killed by guns. 
Twelve families suffer a wound that never heals. What is almost as 
senseless is the fact that Congress refuses to act on legislation that 
would prevent many of these shootings.
    These moms will be marching in Washington and in more than 60 other 
cities on Mother's Day to say to Congress, enough is enough. It is 
unconscionable that over a year after Columbine, over 10 months since 
they've had a chance to send me meaningful legislation, Congress still 
refuses to act.
    Well, they can ignore my request to move. They can ignore the 
evidence that commonsense prevention won't cost any law-abiding citizen 
a gun but will save lives. But this Sunday they will not be able to 
ignore the fact that the voices of more than a million moms across 
America will be demanding action.
    The great sociologist Margaret Mead once said, ``Never doubt that a 
small group of thoughtful citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is 
the only thing that ever has.'' The women who are organizing this march 
are such a group of thoughtful citizens. They understand they have to be 
in this for the long haul. They understand that they have a lot of work 
to do.
    But the evidence is on their side. The arguments are with them. And 
the power is on the other side. The whole story of America is the story 
of bringing down established walls of power in the face of argument and 
evidence and passionate commitment to liberty and to the dignity of 
individuals. That's what the Million Mom March represents. I'm honored 
to be here with them today, and again, I thank them for what they will 
be doing in Ohio.
    Thank you.
    Q. Mr. President, do you think that the march will have the kind of 
impact that will break this logjam and get some gun control legislation 
through this Congress?
    The President. The honest answer to that is, I don't know. But I 
think it will have a seminal impact in the nature of this debate 
because, for a very long time now, large majorities of the American 
people have been for commonsense prevention legislation that has nothing 
to do with infringing on the right to keep arms, to bear arms, to hunt, 
to sport shoot, to keep weapons in self-defense, but has everything to 
do with keeping guns out of the hands of criminals and children. 
Notwithstanding the fact that lopsided majorities of our people favor 
these specific measures, they don't pass because of the intensity, 
power, and wealth of the organized opposition to it.
    So I think what these folks are saying is, you know, we want to save 
more lives. We're not trying to take anything away from what those 
people legally have who disagree with us. But we don't intend to let 
them take away our chance for prevention and safety anymore. And that is 
the beginning of the shift in the balance of forces in our society. 
That's how change always occurs.
    So if they stay at this, they will prevail, because the evidence is 
on their side, the human element is on their side, and because they're 
not trying to take anything away from the other people. All they're 
trying to do is to protect our society from criminal acts and from 
avoidable accidents.
    There are lives at stake. I think they will prevail. I hope they 
will prevail this year. I hope we will be able to prevail upon the 
leaders of the conference to meet and work again. But even if they don't 
win this battle, they'll win over the long run, because they are 
galvanizing public opinion around specific reforms that will make 
America a better place and will give a lot of kids their lives.

Smith & Wesson/Gun Safety Legislation

    Q. Mr. President, a $300,000 grant was given out to Smith & Wesson 
to do research on smart gun technology. Aren't some folks who see that 
as a payoff to that company for signing--what do you see as the status 
of that----
    The President. Well, I think first of all, Smith & Wesson did a good 
thing in making this agreement. And I think it's very--if you look at 
what they--what did they agree to do? They agreed to attach child safety 
locks; they agreed to make internal child safety lock mechanisms on 
their guns as soon as they could do so technologically, which could not 
be dismantled by the kids; and to work on smart gun technology, which 
would enable guns to be fired only by the adults who lawfully own them.
    They agreed to--this is perhaps most important in the short run--
they agreed to change the way they market and distribute their guns to 
avoid that relatively small number of dealers who sell a very high 
percentage of the guns that go to people who use them in crimes. Now, I 
would think that that would have been well-

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received by everybody. But instead, the other gun manufacturers and 
their allies have subjected Smith & Wesson to withering, withering 
criticism.
    But the answer to your question is no. I don't think it'll be seen 
as a payoff, because it's nowhere near as much money as it will cost 
them, given the reaction of the rest of the gun industry to what they're 
trying to do. And we have to have someone who's in the industry help us 
with this research; just by the nature of it, it has to be done. And I 
can assure you, there was never any quid pro quo or discussion of it. 
This all came up later. We need to have some allies in the gun industry 
who really do believe that prevention is an important part of a safe 
future for America.
    And I hope that Smith & Wesson will keep all the components of the 
agreement they made. They have certainly paid an enormous price for 
doing it. I mean, it's truly been breathtaking to see the reaction 
against them by the other gun manufacturers and their allies.
    Yes, sir?
    Q. Mr. President, is there room for any compromise in this 
legislation? And if so, in what area?
    The President. Well, let me give you an example of what I--what 
we've got before the Congress right now. I think we can work out 
language on the child trigger locks. I would hope that we could get a 
big majority for banning the import of large capacity ammunition clips. 
Surely there is not a constituency for that. There has been absolutely 
no disruption whatever from our banning of assault weapon. But if you 
let them import these large capacity ammunition clips, then you can 
modify existing guns here and turn them into assault weapons.
    The hangup--and this is interesting to me--the hangup is that the 
NRA is basically opposed to doing the background checks at gun shows 
unless they're insta-checks. Now, Ohio is a big State, with a lot of 
large cities spread across the State, and then an awful lot of small 
towns and rural areas. Their argument is, a lot of these gun shows are 
held on the weekend. You know, if somebody comes in and wants to buy a 
gun, it's a real hassle to wait 3 days for the background checks. Is 
there a way to work this out?
    Well, here's my theory about it. Everybody who clears the insta-
check, let them buy the gun. Seventy percent of the people clear the 
insta-check in a couple of minutes; 90-plus percent within a day, same 
day as the gun show occurs. But of the less than 10 percent who don't 
clear it, their rejection rate, because of a problem in their 
background, principally, a criminal problem, is 20 times higher than the 
90 percent of the people that do clear.
    So what we've been unwilling to do so far is to say if we don't 
clear--see, what the NRA position is, if they don't clear in a day, we 
ought to give that last 9 percent or 8 percent or however many--they 
ought to be able to take the guns home, even if they don't clear within 
a day. And my position is, why would we defend a population that's less 
than 10 percent of the total, that's more than 20 times likely to have 
committed a crime and be ineligible to get a gun than the rest of the 90 
percent?
    So it looks to me like we could work an agreement that covers the 
rest of the 90 percent, and then on the 9 percent, it seems to me it's 
quite important to do that. And--you know, let me tell you, that would--
even that is a compromise from what would be the optimal, and here's 
why. Suppose a custody order or a stop order is listed in a domestic 
dispute that's very violent, on a Friday afternoon. It can't possibly be 
in anybody's computer yet. If you let the insta-check control that, then 
a lot of people will get cleared--not a lot, but a small number that 
could be violent--could be cleared anyway.
    So our people, representing our position through Mr. 
Conyers from Michigan, have, I think, made 
quite a reasonable proposal. And I'm hoping that we'll keep working on 
it. I think if we just had to work it out in the House, we could 
probably do it. But right now, the Senate--where, ironically, where we 
passed a stronger bill--but Senator Hatch and 
the Senate conferees are essentially refusing to go forward with us on 
this.
    So--I didn't mean to give you too long and detailed an answer, but 
you need to know that what's so sad about this is I think we could do 
the child trigger locks; I think we could do the assault weapons ban. 
And I think--it seems unbelievable to me that we would be hung up here 
on this background check at the gun shows in a way that affects less 
than 10 percent of the gun buyers, but they're 20 times more likely to 
have a problem in their background. It's very important that everybody 
understand that. If we could just get focused on

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that. I can't believe we couldn't figure out a way to work this out.
    Now, there's much bigger opposition to what--the larger legislative 
goals of the Million Mom March, but I think they're absolutely right. As 
you know, I favor--for example, I think if somebody buys a handgun, they 
ought to get a license, like a car license. It ought to be a photo ID 
license. It ought to show that they passed a background check and that 
they passed a gun safety check, just like you do when you get a car. 
That's what I think.
    So I'd like to see the short-term goals resolved this year, and I 
want them to keep on pushing, because there is so much we can do. We can 
make America the safest big country in the world and still have people 
out there hunting and sport shooting, even having weapons for protection 
if they thought they needed them in their homes. But we can't do it 
without more prevention.
    Q. Mr. President, what do you think of polls which suggest that 
support for gun restrictions are wavering among men, and they tend to be 
more sympathetic to----
    The President. If you read--let me just say this. First, I agree 
with that. But I think we've got to put it into some perspective.
    If you go back and look at the data from the Pew Research survey, 
they do show that men, particularly men over 55, have been affected by 
the claims of the NRA and the advertising that the rights of legitimate 
gun owners are threatened. But they also show that a majority, a 
significant majority of the people, still respond that we need further 
gun control measures.
    The real problem is whether you talk in general terms about gun 
control, or whether you talk in specific terms about closing the gun 
show loophole, banning large capacity ammunition clips, imposing child 
trigger locks, or licensing gun owners. If you give people the 
specifics, there are still 70 percent of the people with us, maybe more.
    But the labeling fears--because it scares people. I said the other 
day to our staff, I said, this is weird. That's why the people who 
oppose our position, they always want to talk about more gun control and 
imply that the rights of hunters and sports people are threatened. And 
they use that label.
    But you know, when we talk about the speed limits on automobiles or 
people having to get a license to drive their cars or laws that require 
you to use your seat belts or put in the right kind of baskets, child 
safety restraint seats--you know, all those things are laws. You want to 
drive a car, and you want to put your child in the car. They're all 
laws. Nobody talks about car control. And you have a constitutional 
right to travel, too, you know. The Supreme Court says you've got a 
constitutional right to travel. No one says car control is threatening 
our constitutional right to travel.
    So I think that what we should do is, instead of having these label 
wars, we should calm down, lower the rhetoric, and say, what is it that 
we have proposed? What is it that they are advocating? Would it make us 
safer? Would it prevent more crimes and more accidental deaths and 
injuries? Does it infringe the Constitution?
    My answer is, look at the facts of what they're advocating. Would it 
make us a safer country? Absolutely. Would it infringe the Constitution? 
Absolutely not. Therefore, we ought to do it. I think if we just calm 
this down and look at the facts, we'll prevail.
    Thank you very much.

Note: The President spoke at 10:35 a.m. outside the Ohio Army/National 
Guard Facility.