[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 30, Number 33 (Monday, August 22, 1994)]
[Pages 1676-1677]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Remarks on Crime Legislation

August 15, 1994

    Thank you. Thank you very much, Marc, Janice, Steve, and Dewey, and 
to all the rest of you who are here. We have just heard from the real 
American interests in the crime bill.
    Last week, the House of Representatives walked away from Polly Klaas 
and Jody Sposato and James Darby and all the law enforcement officials 
in this country who have worked so very hard for this crime bill. When 
you walk away from our police officers and from our kids, from our hard-
working citizens with their futures before them or our senior citizens 
who have given their lives to make this a better country, and you do it 
on a procedural trick so you can still go back home and pretend that you 
didn't vote

[[Page 1677]]

against the crime bill, and you would even have voted for it had it only 
come to a vote, there's something wrong with the American system of 
Government. And it finds its way into the lives of people that are still 
around. Polly's sister, Annie, told me she's still afraid of being 
kidnapped, so she's built an elaborate alarm system in her room with 
ropes and bells. There's something wrong when James Darby and his 
classmates who are still living were so afraid of violence that they had 
to participate in a special program to help them cope with it. And the 
worst part of their fears is that there's truth behind them.
    Yes, this is the greatest country in the world and the longest 
lasting democracy in the world. And none of us would live anywhere else 
for anything. But we have to face the fact that we have the highest 
murder rate in the world and that our children are more at risk here 
than they would be in most other countries and all other advanced 
countries, because we have simply failed to act with the discipline and 
determination necessary to preserve democracy's most fundamental 
obligation, the maintenance of law and order, without which freedom and 
progress cannot proceed.
    The crime bill makes ``three strikes and you're out'' the law of the 
land, puts 100,000 police on the street, builds more prisons to lock up 
serious offenders, takes handguns away from juveniles and bans assault 
weapons and provides investments and prevention to give our kids a 
better start in life, deals more sensibly with the terrible scourge of 
drugs that are responsible for so many of the crimes we have. These are 
things which ought to be done.
    How can the House explain to Marc Klaas why the law that might have 
saved his daughter's life, had it been enacted years ago, couldn't come 
up for a vote? How could a politician go to a little child like Meghan 
Sposato and explain that, well, they just couldn't figure out a way to 
bring to a vote a law that would have taken the deadly weapon that 
killed her mother out of the hands of a deranged person? And how could a 
Member of Congress explain to James Darby's mother why they won't put 
police on the street who might have allowed little James to complete his 
last walk home?
    If Washington had acted 6 years ago, some of these lives might have 
been saved. If Washington will act this week, a whole lot of lives can 
still be saved.
    Last Friday I met with some police officers in Minnesota. I told 
them that they had never walked away from us and that Washington should 
not walk away from them. Well, the parents of this country should have 
the same pledge, and the children of this country should have the same 
pledge. You heard Janice say that in James Darby's wonderful letter to 
me, which I have read over and over and over again since last Mother's 
Day, he said, ``I know you could do something about this, and I'm asking 
you nicely to do it.''
    Well, my fellow Americans, we have asked the Congress nicely long 
enough. There should be no more excuses, no more tricks, no more delays, 
and no more discussion about whether this bill is a Democratic bill or a 
Republican bill or a Clinton bill. I don't know when I will ever be able 
to get it across to people here that what we do here is not about us, it 
is about the rest of America. So let Congress hear this: Pass the Darby-
Klaas-Sposato crime bill, and do it now.
    Thank you.

Note: The President spoke at 1:55 p.m. in the Rose Garden at the White 
House. In his remarks, he referred to Marc Klaas, father of kidnap-
murder victim Polly Klaas; Steven Sposato, whose wife, Jody, was killed 
in a shooting; and Janice Payne, whose son, James Darby, was killed 
shortly after he wrote to the President about crime in his community.