    [Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 29, Number 32 (Monday, August 16, 1993)]
    [Pages 1602-1605]
    [Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

    <R04>
    Remarks Announcing the Anticrime Initiative and an Exchange With
    Reporters

     August 11, 1993

        The President. Thank you very much. Mr. Vice President and Attorney
    General, distinguished Members of the Congress, the law enforcement
    community, and concerned American citizens. I'm glad to have all of you
    here in the Rose Garden today for this important announcement. I want to
    say a special word of appreciation to Senator Biden and to Chairman
    Brooks, who have worked for a long time to try to get a good crime bill
    through the United States Congress. I hope today is the beginning of
    that.
        I'm proud to be here with representatives of the Nation's police and
    prosecutors and States attorneys general with whom we have worked
    closely to fashion this bill. And it gives me particular pleasure to be
    here with some of the brave men and women who risk their lives every day
    to protect the people of this country and to preserve the law.
        The first duty of any government is to try to keep its citizens
    safe, but clearly too many Americans are not safe today. We no longer
    have the freedom from fear for all our citizens that is essential to
    security and to prosperity. The past 4 years have seen 90,000 murders in
    this country. Last month in this city, our Nation's Capital, in one week
    24 murders were committed. When our children must pass through metal
    detectors to go to school or worry that they'll be the victim of random
    drive-by shootings when they're playing in the swimming pool in the
    summertime, when parents are imprisoned in their own apartments behind
    locked doors, when we can't walk the streets of our cities without fear,
    we have lost an essential element of our civilization.
        Many of you have heard me tell many times over the last year and a
    half or so of the immigrant worker in the New York hotel who said that
    if I became President he just wanted me to make his son free. And when I
    asked him what he meant, he meant that his son couldn't walk to school
    two blocks without his walking with him, his son couldn't play in the
    park across the street from their

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    apartment house without his father being there. He said his son was not
    free.
        It's time we put aside the divisions of party and philosophy and put
    our best efforts to work on a crime plan that will help all the American
    people and go beyond the cynicism of mere speeches to clear action.
        Today I'm proud to be here with the chairs of the House and the
    Senate Judiciary Committees to announce this plan. The plan is not--it's
    tough. It is fair. It will put police on the street and criminals in
    jail. It expands the Federal death penalty to let criminals know that if
    they are guilty, they will be punished. It lets law-abiding citizens
    know that we are working to give them the safety they deserve. It is the
    beginning, just the beginning but a major beginning, of a long-term
    strategy to make America a more law-abiding, peaceful place and to make
    Americans more secure and to give our young people, wherever they live,
    a better chance to grow up, to learn, to function, to work, and to have
    a decent life.
        This bill first addresses the most pressing need in the fight
    against crime. There simply are not enough police officers on the beat.
    The plan is designed to make the major downpayment on the pledge that I
    made in the campaign to put 100,000 police officers on the street.
    Thirty years ago there were three police officers for every violent
    crime. Today the ratio is reversed, three crimes for every police
    officer.
        Like so many of the best ideas, community policing was spawned in
    the laboratories of experimentation on the streets of our cities and
    towns. Then-commissioner Lee Brown of New York, now my Drug Director,
    sent some 3,000 additional police officers onto the streets of New York
    City, launching community policing in every precinct. Then shortly
    thereafter, for the first time in 36 years, crime rates went down in
    every major category. It's worked from Boston to St. Louis, to Los
    Angeles.
        The crime bill that will be introduced next month will include $3.4
    billion to fund up to 50,000 new police officers to walk the beat. It
    will also create a police corps to give young people money for college,
    train them in community policing, and ask them to return to their
    communities to serve as police officers in return for their education.
    This will add to the numerous community policing initiatives we have
    already undertaken. For example, earlier this year I signed a jobs bill
    that will make $150 million available right away to hire or rehire
    police officers. And I'm happy to report that the Labor Department will
    allocate $10 million to retrain newly discharged troops from the United
    States Armed Forces to become police officers. After defending our
    freedom abroad, they'll be given a chance to do so at home.
        Second, we must end the insanity of being able to buy or sell a
    handgun more easily than obtaining a driver's license. The Brady bill,
    which requires a waiting period before the purchase of a handgun, is
    simply common sense. I have said so before Congress and before the
    American people. It is long past time to pass it. If the Congress will
    pass it, I will sign it. I believe now that Congress will pass it. There
    is no conceivable excuse to delay this action one more day.
        The effort to keep handguns out of the hands of criminals cannot and
    should not wait for the passage of this legislation. Today I will sign
    two Presidential directives that fight gun violence. I am ordering that
    the rules governing gun dealers be reviewed to make sure that only
    legitimate gun dealers are in the business of selling guns. And I am
    ordering the Treasury Department to take the necessary action to suspend
    the importation of foreign-made assault pistols, which have become the
    weapons of choice for many gangs and drug dealers. Too many weapons of
    war are making their way onto our streets and turning our streets into
    war zones. Let me also say that this effort against crime will not be
    complete if we do not eliminate assault weapons from our streets. No
    other nation would tolerate roving gangs stalking the streets better
    armed than the police officers of a country. Why do we do it? We
    shouldn't, and we ought to stop it.
        Finally, if we are to take back the streets of America from the
    gangs and the drug dealers, we must do what has not been done before: We
    must actually enact a crime bill. This legislation will be introduced by
    Chairmen Biden and Brooks, and it will build upon a lot of good ideas
    from around the country, including one I worked hard on when I was

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    Governor, community boot camps for young offenders, boot camps which
    give young people the discipline, the training, the treatment they need
    for a second chance to build a good life. When it comes to hardened,
    violent criminals, society has the right to impose the most severe
    penalties, but I believe we should give young people a chance to make
    it.
        As I said during the campaign and as I said during my tenure as a
    Governor, I support capital punishment. This legislation will reform
    procedures by limiting death-row inmates to a single habeas corpus
    appeal within a 6-month time limit but also guaranteeing them a higher
    standard of legal representation than many have had in the past. Both
    elements are important if this is to be genuine reform. And it will
    provide the death penalty for some Federal offenses, including killing a
    Federal law enforcement officer.
        As I said, this is just the beginning of our efforts to restore the
    rule of law on our streets. To do this we must work with thousands of
    law enforcement officials around the country who risk their lives every
    day. We must work with the mayors, with the Governors; we must work with
    the people who deal with children before they become criminals. We must
    have a broad-based assault on the terrible things that are rending the
    fabric of life for millions of Americans.
        But we in Washington must work together, too. For too long, crime
    has been used as a way to divide Americans with rhetoric. It is time--
    and I thank the Republican Members of Congress who are here today--it is
    time to use crime as a way to unite Americans through action. I call on
    the Democrats and the Republicans together to work with us and with the
    law enforcement community to craft the best possible crime legislation.
        Last week we began to break the gridlock with a new budget and an
    economic plan. Now we can do so again in ways that unite us as
    Americans. And I pledge to you my best and strongest efforts to pass
    this bill at the earliest possible time. There are good things in it. It
    will make our people safer. It will shore up our police officers. It
    will move America in the right direction.
        May I now introduce the person who has done a great deal to do all
    those things just in the last few months, our distinguished Attorney
    General, Janet Reno.

    [At this point, Attorney General Janet Reno, Senator Joseph Biden,
    Representative Jack Brooks, Mississippi attorney general Mike Moore,
    National Association of District Attorneys president William O'Malley,
    and Boston, MA, police commissioner William Bratton made brief remarks.]

    Meeting With Pope John Paul II

        Q. [Inaudible]--your visit with the Pope tomorrow, what you
    anticipate from it?
        The President. [Inaudible]--I'm really very, very excited. I'm
    looking forward to the visit, and I'm honored that he's come to the
    United States.

    Gun Control

        Q. Mr. President, there are all sorts of attempts to water down the
    Brady bill. Are you one of those purists that Chairman Brooks talked
    about, or would you consider amendments to water it down?
        The President. That bill shouldn't be amended. It's a modest bill,
    and I think it ought to be passed like it is. We would like to see the
    Senate go on and do it. I feel very strongly about it. I also associate
    myself with the other remarks of the Attorney General. I think it's the
    beginning. It's not the end of the process by any means.
        Q. What would you like to see on handguns?
        The President. Well, I think extending the ban on imported handguns
    is important, which I will do today. Then Congress is debating this
    whole issue of assault weapons generally, broad definition, and we'll
    see what we can come out with. But you know, there's a bill in the
    House; there's a bill in the Senate. And I'd like the crime bill to
    pass, and then I'd like for that to be debated.
        Q. Would you do the Brady bill separate?
        Q. Yes, would you do the Brady bill separately or as part of the
    crime----
        The President. It's fine with me, whatever--done. I would prefer to
    get it as quickly as possible, but I think the important thing is that
    it be passed in a strong and clear and unambiguous form.

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    Note: The President spoke at 9:43 a.m. in the Rose Garden at the White
    House.