A r c h i v e d  I n f o r m a t i o n

THE WHITE HOUSE  Office of the Press Secretary ______________________________________________________________________  For Immediate Release                                  July 15, 1999 

PROTECTING CHILDREN FROM GUN VIOLENCE

July 15, 1999

Today, President Clinton will meet with over 80 high school students from Littleton, Colorado and the Denver area to discuss the importance of enacting common sense gun legislation. The President will insist that Congress send to his desk for signature - without further delay -- the reasonable gun measures already passed by the Senate.

Last month, House leaders, bowing to the gun lobby, tried to pass a bill that would have weakened current gun laws instead of strengthening them. Since then, House and Senate leaders have failed to name conferees to resolve issues surrounding the juvenile crime bill - allowing the gun lobby even more time to try and stop common sense gun legislation from becoming law.

After the meeting, the President will urge Congress to listen to these students - instead of the gun lobby -- and to act to strengthen our gun laws before the start of the next school year. Specifically, the President will ask Congress to send him legislation that will:

• Close the gun show loophole. To stop firearms from being sold at gun shows on a "no questions asked" basis, we must extend the same Brady background checks that have proven effective in keeping guns out of the hands of many thousands of felons to all sales at gun shows.

• Require child safety locks with every handgun sold. To reduce the unauthorized use of handguns by a curious child or a teen looking to commit a crime, federally-licensed firearms dealers should be required to provide a child safety lock or device with every handgun they sell.

• Ban violent juveniles from owning guns as adults. There is simply no reason for youths convicted of a violent crime in juvenile court to be able to purchase a gun on their 21st birthday.

• Ban the importation of all large capacity ammunition magazines. We should close the loophole in current law that allows the continued importation of large numbers of high capacity ammunition clips that were generally banned by the 1994 assault weapons ban.

Keeping guns out of the hands of criminals and children has been a key priority of the Clinton Administration. Since the President took office, gun-related crime has dropped by over 25 percent. Administration accomplishments include:

• Blocking over 400,000 illegal gun sales with Brady background checks;

• Banning the juvenile possession of handguns;

• Enforcing zero tolerance for guns in schools;

• Combating illegal gun trafficking by tracing more crime guns to their source; and

• Banning the 19 deadliest assault weapons and their copies.

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