[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 35, Number 22 (Monday, June 7, 1999)]
[Pages 1009-1011]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Remarks Announcing a Study on Youth Violence and Media Marketing

June 1, 1999

    Give him another hand. He was great, Bravo. [Applause] Thank you.
    When I was listening to Arthur speak, I didn't know whether to offer 
him a job as a White House speechwriter--[laughter]--or just wait for 
the opportunity to vote for him someday. Let me say thank you very much. 
[Applause] Thank you.
    And we thank your mother for bringing you here, and congratulations. 
And Representative Mary Lou Dickerson, thank you, and Pam Eakes, founder 
of Mothers Against Violence in America, thank you.
    I thank the Attorney General and Chairman Pitofsky for their remarks 
and their commitment. I thank Mayor Corradini, Mayor Kaine, County 
Executive Curry, and County Executive Dutch Ruppersberger for the 
interest that our local government leaders have. I thank Representative 
Sheila 
Jackson Lee for her passionate commitment to this issue. And all of you, 
welcome to the White House.
    And most of all, I want to say again how much I appreciate Arthur 
Sawe for coming here, and for sharing a child's perspective. We have 
other children in this audience today, and we are really here about them 
and their future.
    As Hillary said, the tragedy at Littleton had a profound effect on 
America. It certainly had a profound effect on us and on our family, 
particularly after we had the chance to go to Colorado and visit with 
the families of the children who were killed and many of the young 
children who are still grievously wounded and the kids at the school 
with them, who are hurting still, and the teachers.
    I do think that what Hillary said is right: We sense a 
determination, not only in that community but throughout our country, 
not just to grieve about this but to do something about it. The national 
grassroots campaign against violence against children is rooted in our 
faith that we can do better.
    We know we can prevent more youth violence if we work together, 
across all the lines that divide us. We know we can do it if we're all 
willing to assume responsibility and stop trying to assign blame. Of 
course, the responsibility begins at home. It must be reinforced and 
supported at schools and houses of worship in the community as a whole. 
Those of us in public service must also do our part. There is broad and 
growing consensus for us to do more.
    Let me say I am also very grateful that the gun manufacturers came 
here last month and voiced their support for commonsense restrictions to 
make it more difficult for guns to get into the hands of children and 
criminals. I'm encouraged that the Senate acted to close the deadly gun 
show loophole, to require safety locks to be sold with every handgun, to 
ban the importation of large-
capacity ammunition clips, and ban violent juveniles from owning guns as 
adults. I hope the House of Representatives will pass these commonsense 
measures as soon as they return from the Memorial Day recess. We have a 
lot to do this year, but this should be put at the top of the agenda and 
not put on hold.
    As you have already heard, members of the entertainment industry 
must also do their part. They and the rest of us cannot kid ourselves. 
Our children are being fed a dependable daily dose of violence, and it 
sells. Now,

[[Page 1010]]

30 years of studies have shown that this desensitizes our children to 
violence and to the consequences of it.
    We now know that by the time the typical American child reaches the 
age of 18, he or she has seen 200,000 dramatized acts of violence and 
40,000 dramatized murders. Kids become attracted to it and more numb to 
its consequences. As their exposure to violence grows, so, in some 
deeply troubling cases of particularly vulnerable children, does the 
taste for it. We should not be surprised that half the video games a 
typical seventh grader plays are violent.
    Anyone who doubts the impact of the cultural assault can look at 
what now, over 30 years, amounts to somewhere over 300 studies, all of 
whom show that there is a link between sustained exposure, hour after 
hour, day after day, week after week, year after year, to violent 
entertainment and violent behavior.
    What the studies say, quite simply, is that the boundary between 
fantasy and reality violence, which is a clear line for most adults, can 
become very blurred for vulnerable children. Kids steeped in the culture 
of violence do become desensitized to it and more capable of committing 
it themselves.
    That is why I have strongly urged people in the entertainment 
industry to consider the consequences of what they create and how they 
advertise it. One can value the first amendment right to free speech and 
at the same time care for and act with restraint. Our administration has 
worked to give parents more tools to protect their kids, to block 
violent programming from entering their living room with the V-chip and 
the rating system. We've made progress on parental screening for 
Internet and ratings for Internet game sites.
    Still, when violent entertainment made for adults is marketed to 
children, it undermines the rating system designed to protect them. And 
if you look at some of these ads, it's hard to argue with a straight 
face that the games were made for adults in the first place, like the 
one Arthur mentioned.
    Advertisements have a particular role here. They have the power to 
egg children on and lure them in. Every parent knows what response a 
commercial for sugar cereal or the latest ``Star Wars'' toy will get 
from their children. People advertise because it works. They want that 
product, and one way or the other, they're determined to get it. So we 
ought to think twice about the impact of ads for so-called ``first-
person shooter video games,'' like the recent ad for a game that invites 
players to, and I quote, ``Get in touch with your gun-toting, cold-
blooded murdering side.''
    I was given--today Arthur brought me the magazine with the ad that 
he mentioned, and he was kind enough to mark it for me. There really is 
a gun here. It says, ``More fun than shooting your neighbor's cat.'' I 
was given another ad that says, ``What kind of psycho drives a school 
bus into a war zone?'' And here's a school bus, heavily armed. This came 
out right after the incident in Springfield, Oregon.
    Here's an ad that turns the argument I just made on its head: 
``Psychiatrists say it's important to feel something when you kill.'' 
And then it goes on to say, ``You ought to get this technology because 
it bumps, and you feel it.'' It says, ``Every sensation, every 
vibration, every mutilation, nine programmable weapons buttons. 
Customizable feedback software. Push the stick that pushes back, and 
feel your pain.'' And here's one that's the most unbelievable of all. It 
says, ``Kill your friends guilt-free.''
    Now, obviously, Arthur has the inner strength and the good 
upbringing to reject that kind of violent appeal. Most of our children 
do, but not all of our children do. We cannot be surprised when this 
kind of thing has an impact on our most vulnerable children. Is it 100 
percent to blame? No. It's easier to get guns in this society. Parents 
on average spend 22 hours a week less with their children than they did 
30 years ago because of the demands of work and commuting, the busyness 
of daily life.
    But when you put it all together, there are bound to be explosive 
negative consequences. That's why today I am asking the Department of 
Justice and the Federal Trade Commission to study the extent to which 
the video game, music, and movie markets do actually market violence to 
children, and whether those industries are abiding by their own 
voluntary systems of regulations.

[[Page 1011]]

    To any company that sells violent products, I say, children are more 
than consumers. I understand nobody made anybody buy any of this stuff. 
But every day, a responsible society declines to do some things for 
short-term gain that it can do. And that is what we have to think about. 
These children are our future, our most precious resource. Raising them 
is any society's most important job.
    Don't make young people want what your own rating systems say they 
shouldn't have. I might say again, as has already been acknowledged, 
many, many people in the entertainment industry have worked with us on 
this, on the ratings system, on the V-chip, on the screening technology 
for the Internet.
    I noticed one network executive, a few days ago, actually canceled a 
program because its violent content was inappropriate, and I applaud 
that. But I also read with concern the news that some of the new 
programming coming up for this fall on some networks will be even more 
violent than last year's. The time has come to show some restraint, even 
if it has a short-term impact on the bottom line.
    I also want to challenge the owners of movie theaters and video 
stores, distributors, anyone at any point of sale, enforce the rating 
systems on the products that you sell. Check the ID's. Draw the line. If 
underage children are buying violent video games or getting into R-rated 
movies, the rating system should be enforced to put a stop to it. And 
if, as many of us suspect, there is still too much gratuitous violence 
in PG-13-rated movies, the rating systems themselves should be 
reevaluated.
    I want to thank Senators Brownback, Lieberman, Hatch, and Kohl for 
the bipartisan work they have done on this issue. Again, I want to 
commend State Representative Mary Lou Dickerson from Washington, who 
read about young Arthur, helped to create a task force on video game 
violence; and thanks to her work with Pam and the Mothers Against 
Violence in America and the Washington Retailers' Association, who are 
all represented here today, video game retailers in Washington State now 
voluntarily sign a pledge to parents, committing themselves to check 
ID's and block sales of violent games to minors. That's something that 
ought to happen in every State in the United States of America.
    Again I say, we can do something about this. It will take a 
grassroots campaign. It will take everybody doing his or her part. This 
is a problem we face together, a problem America can solve together. 
There is no more urgent task for our future.
    You were all looking at this young man speaking today, thinking, 
what a wonderful thing that a person that young could speak so clearly, 
so confidently, about things that are so right. You look around at the 
other young people here today who are involved in this effort in some 
way or another, and you thank God that we have this legacy of children.
    A lot of those kids that haven't made it through all these school 
violence incidents were just as good, just as fine, had just as much to 
give the world. We've got to quit fooling around with this. We've got a 
chance. Our hearts are open. Our ears are open. Our heads are thinking.
    I know this stuff sells. But that doesn't make it right.
    Thank you, and God bless you.

Note: The President spoke at 11:46 a.m. in the Rose Garden at the White 
House. In his remarks, he referred to Arthur Sawe, who introduced the 
President, and his mother, Caroline; Mayor DeeDee Corradini of Salt Lake 
City, UT, president, U.S. Conference of Mayors; Mayor Timothy Kaine of 
Richmond, VA; and Maryland county executives Wayne Curry, Prince Georges 
County, and C.A. (Dutch) Ruppersberger, Baltimore County The transcript 
made available by the Office of the Press Secretary also included the 
remarks of the First Lady.