    [Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 36, Number 15 (Monday, April 17, 2000)]
    [Pages 788-791]
    [Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

    <R04>
    Remarks at a Maryland State Bill Signing Ceremony in Annapolis, Maryland

    April 11, 2000

        Thank you very much, Governor and Mrs. Glendening, Lieutenant
    Governor Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, Secretary of State Willis, Attorney
    General Curran, Mr. Speaker, President Miller. I also want to
    acknowledge the Members of Congress who are here, who are on the right
    side of this fight, Senator Mikulski, Representative Morella, and
    Representative Wynn. You can be very proud of what all three of them are
    doing on this issue.
        I thank the members of the legislature, the overwhelming numbers of
    Democrats and the brave Republicans who joined you to pass this
    legislation. I thank the students from the Young Kids Against Violence
    and the Students Together Against Guns and from Largo and Potomac
    schools for their work. And I want to say a little more about each of
    you in a moment.
        Let me say, I think it is fitting that we are here today in this
    magnificent old place where our forebears walked the halls more than 200
    years ago. It's a site of firsts. The Speaker mentioned George
    Washington resigning his commission just a few steps from here. The
    State House was also the site of the ratification of the Treaty of
    Paris, which officially put an end to the Revolutionary War and marked
    the birth of our new Nation.
        Today we are trying to end another kind of war, an ongoing struggle
    to reduce the staggering toll of violence on our citizens and especially
    on our children. The Maryland Legislature once again has made history,
    and I just want to thank you from the bottom of my heart. I came up here
    today more than anything else to say thank you.
        I applaud first your Governor. I remember after I first met him--you
    know, he's sort of low-key; you have to keep listening to Parris
    Glendening. [Laughter] But I must say, he wears well. The more I watched
    him--I remember once, a couple years ago, I was talking to people at the
    White House about what was going on in the States about a completely
    different issue. And I said, ``You know, it is astonishing; in almost
    everything I have tried to accomplish as President, Maryland has been
    out there on the forefront of change, ahead of the other States in
    virtually every area.'' And I might say, in the area of gun safety, it's
    worth pointing out for the record that Maryland has already banned
    assault weapons, cheap handguns known as Saturday night specials,
    already limited handgun sales to one per month, and with this new law,
    you are again leading the way.
        Last year California passed legislation to limit handgun sales to
    one a month, to ban

    [[Page 789]]

    junk guns, new generations of assault weapons. Last week Massachusetts
    began enforcing consumer product safety rules for guns, to ban junk
    guns, and to adopt devices to prevent children from firing guns.
        Tomorrow I'm going to Colorado to support a citizen ballot
    initiative to close the gun show loophole and require background checks
    on all gun sales.
        We ought to talk for a moment about how this came to be. I was
    looking at Mike Miller up here, and I've had the privilege to know him
    well for many years now. I know what kind of district you represent;
    this can't have been an easy fight for him. I heard the Speaker talking.
    I used to go down to the Eastern Shore when I was a student at
    Georgetown. I've had the privilege of spending a little time at Camp
    David since I've been President, traveling in the neighborhood. I know
    not all of Maryland is Baltimore, and I know what the Speaker was
    saying. I know how hard this vote was for a lot of you.
        And I know something else, too. None of us want to really pay
    tribute to the people who are truly responsible for us all being here
    today. We thanked each other. The truth is, we're all here because too
    many children got killed. And I was so moved by what Kathleen said, and
    I couldn't help thinking how proud her father would be of her today.
        Most of the history of the United States to bring sanity to our gun
    laws has been a sad history, littered with the lost lives of people we
    could ill afford to lose. President Johnson, to his everlasting credit,
    proposed sweeping gun legislation in the aftermath of the deaths of
    Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy. He got something passed the
    Congress in 1968, which was better than nothing but woefully weak. I
    will remind you that that law only required gun sellers to ask but not
    to verify whether purchasers had a criminal record or a mental health
    history.
        And then, somehow, we just forgot about it. And a lot of people like
    me who came from places like Arkansas and Maryland, who always knew we
    ought to be doing something, just didn't. I remember in 1982, when I ran
    for Governor, I actually blurted out what I thought. I said I would
    support a waiting period and background checks for gun sales, handgun
    sales, 18 years ago. It sparked a withering firestorm. And when I got
    elected, I saw there was no support for it. So I just walked away and
    went on to other things.
        My life was changed when a friend of mine who ran a hardware store
    in a small mountain town of about a thousand people--a man, I knew him
    and his family very well--was in his store one day, and a guy came in he
    hadn't seen in a long time, and he said, ``Where you been?'' And he
    said, ``Well, I went away to the service, and then I lived in other
    States, and I just got back. I want to buy a gun. I want to do some
    target practice.'' And he kind of joked about the gun control form,
    ``Well, have you ever been in prison, ever had a background check, a
    mental health history?'' And the guy said, ``No, no.'' He handed him the
    gun; 18 hours later 5 people were dead. He had broken out of the State
    veterans mental hospital that morning.
        And it nearly destroyed my friend. He lost years of his life trying
    to get over what had happened. He was not responsible. The law, in any
    case, would not have found out what had to be found out. It was totally
    inadequate. But he lived with the nightmares of those people.
        And then the NRA started trying to pass legislation all over the
    country to actually require States to keep cities from having gun
    control laws more stringent than the State did, and I vetoed it a couple
    of times--and had some rather interesting exchanges with them.
        Then, when the Brady bill was vetoed in 1991 or '92, whenever it
    was, I just promised myself if I ever had a chance to start again, I
    would. And unfortunately, our cause has been aided by the deaths of all
    these children in all these schools and in other settings. And I think
    we should pay tribute to them. They are why we're all here today. You
    know it, and I know it. They are what made our constituents in places
    like rural Arkansas and rural Maryland--who now know, because of the
    experience of the Brady bill and the assault weapons ban, we have no
    intention of interfering with hunting season or sport shooting events or
    any other lawful activities--they made those folks willing to say, ``You
    know, this is something we probably ought to do.''

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        And now, in truth, the people are ahead of most of the politicians.
    And what I would hope today is that we could just keep on. We could make
    it clear that we have no intention of undermining the legitimate
    interests of people who hunt and sport shoot. We can also make it clear,
    to go back to what one of the previous speakers said, that we think the
    NRA ought to join us in this. What possible interest could anyone have
    in being against child trigger locks or being for safe gun technology
    that would permit handguns to be fired only by the adults who own them?
        There is a need, as they say, for more training of people, for more
    sensible education to make sure that responsible conduct is the rule for
    people who do lawfully own these guns. And it's time for us to get
    together.
        There's just one other thing I would like to say. The Governor
    talked about the terrible toll of deliberate killing, handgun killing,
    and how the--if my math is right--the death rate is roughly 30 times in
    America what it was in the other countries that he mentioned. I think
    it's worth also mentioning that the accidental death rate of children
    from handguns is over 9 times that of the next 25 biggest industrial
    countries combined. And this is something else that's worth pointing
    out. We are here not just to prevent crimes; we are here to prevent
    accidents that also, tragically, take the lives of these children.
        I hope that the United States Congress is paying attention to this
    event today, because every child in America deserves the protection you
    have given Maryland's children, and only Congress can provide that.
    There are very few people in Congress who represent districts any
    tougher, any more resistant to the argument that will be made against
    such legislation than some of you do who are sitting here, very few.
        There are more than enough people in the Congress who represent
    districts who would support this kind of action by more than 2 to 1, to
    pass this legislation in a landslide, legislation to require child
    safety locks, to ban the importation of large capacity ammunition clips,
    to close the gun show loophole. But for 9 months now, there has been no
    action. Oh, a good bill passed the Senate, as the Governor said, because
    the Vice President broke the tie. And a weaker bill passed the House,
    and we have been in conference. And the Democrats, through Congressman
    Conyers, have even offered a reasonable compromise. But nothing has
    happened.
        And I'll say again, every single day Congress waits, we lose 12
    children, nearly 90 people overall, to gun violence. Congress should
    follow Maryland's lead.
        Since the passage of the Brady bill, half a million felons,
    fugitives, and stalkers have been unable to get handguns at gun stores;
    gun crime is down by more than 35 percent. The people who opposed
    closing the gun show loophole 6 years ago said the Brady bill would be
    ineffective because criminals didn't buy guns at gun stores; they only
    bought guns at gun shows and urban flea markets. Now they say, well,
    even if that's true--which it wasn't entirely true--it's just too
    burdensome.
        But it isn't. It isn't. The modest amount of time that would be
    required at rural gun shows in the most isolated area where people drive
    the longest distances are more than worth it to save one child's life.
    Over 70 percent of these background checks can be done in about an hour;
    over 90 percent, in a day. People say, ``Well, why are you holding out
    for the other 8 or 9 percent?'' Because the rejection rate of the 8 or 9
    percent that can't be checked in a day is 20 times higher than the
    rejection rate of the 90 percent that can be checked in a day.
        So I say to you, we have got to do this. Do we need more
    enforcement? Of course, we do. We've increased enforcement, and I've
    asked for 500 new ATF agents and 1,000 new Federal, State, and local gun
    prosecutors.
        You mentioned the Smith & Wesson announcement where they agreed to
    change the way guns are manufactured, marketed, and sold. I hope that
    did help you. It was a courageous thing for Smith & Wesson to do. And
    let me just explain the practical issue here again. An enormous number
    of the guns used in crimes that are bought from stores are bought from a
    very small percentage of

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    the stores. That's what this is about, primarily. And I only hope that
    other gun manufacturers will follow their lead instead of excoriating
    them. They don't deserve to be condemned; they deserve to be applauded.
    And others ought to step up to the plate and do the same thing.
        Now, Governor, you said the NRA ought to stop attacking me. I'll
    tell you what, if they stop attacking this legislation, I'd be happy for
    them to attack me for the rest of my life. I've kind of gotten used to
    it. What we say about each other doesn't amount to a hill of beans. But
    whether all these kids here live to have their children standing on
    these steps some day fighting for some other issue, that's what matters.
    That's what matters.
        So again, I say a simple thank you. Thank you, once again, for
    leading the Nation to a better tomorrow. And again I say, Washington
    should follow Maryland's lead.
        Thank you very much.

     Note:  The President spoke at 12:04 p.m. in the Maryland State House.
    In his remarks, he referred to Gov. Parris N. Glendening, Lt. Gov.
    Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, Secretary of State John Willis, and Attorney
    General Joseph Curran of Maryland; Governor Glendening's wife, Frances;
    and Maryland State House Speaker Casper R. Taylor, Jr., and Senate
    President Mike Miller. The Maryland law was entitled, ``The Responsible
    Gun Safety Act of 2000.''