Bill Clinton: “Thank you for coming tonight. And thank you for saying that. Let me say, first of all, the story you just heard…”

“Thank you for coming tonight. And thank you for saying that. Let me say, first of all, the story you just heard unfortunately is becoming all too common, and not just in California and not just in big cities. And we ought to start with first things first. This is the only country, the only advanced country in the world, the only country I know of where we would permit children access to weapons that make them better armed than police forces. So I'll tell you what we ought to do. I've asked the Congress to pass the Brady bill, which would give us a national system, a waiting period to check the backgrounds of people for age, criminal records, and mental health history before we sell weapons. There are several bills before the Congress which would ban assault weapons, which have no purpose other than to kill. We ought to pass one. We ought to do it this year. States all over the country are looking at ownership laws which make it illegal for minors to have guns unless they're in the presence of their parents, either hunting or on a target range. And we ought to do that in every State. And we ought to look at the laws by which we regulate gun sellers. We've got to get the guns out of the hands of the children. It is imperative. Now, in addition to that, I do have a part of this education bill that I just spoke to, safe schools initiative, which would give schools the ability to have more security forces. And in the crime bill, which includes the Brady bill, the waiting period, there are funds which would help people all over the country, cities all over the country, hire another 50,000 police officers which would allow hard-strapped cities to deploy these police officers around schools and at the places of greatest need. It makes a 50 percent downpayment on my desire and commitment from the campaign to put another 100,000 police officers on the street over the next 4 years. Now, let me just say one final thing. I also think--make them safe first. Make the schools safe, get the guns out of the hands of the kids, put more police on the beat. Start there. Then you have to take these young people who haven't had the family supports, the neighborhood supports, the community supports that a lot of us have had, that we've taken for granted, and realize they are the tip end of a generation of change. This has been going on for 30 years, getting worse every year. And we have got to find ways to give these kids a structure, an order, a hope to their lives. We have 10 closed military bases today around the country where we've got an experi- mental program going with the National Guard, teaching high school dropouts to go back and go to school and going through boot camp-like exercises. These are kids that didn't commit crimes. And we've been flooded with kids who want it, because they have no structure in their lives. We also have more boot camps in the crime bill for first-time offenders. You've got to give these kids something to say ``yes'' to instead of telling them ``no'' all the time. But first, there has to be a reestablishment of order and safety in the schools and on the streets. And I hope if you care about this--I know I'm going on a little long, but this is a big deal--the Congress should not drag its feet. They have been debating this for 2 years. It is time to pass a crime bill, it is time to pass the Brady bill, it is time to ban assault weapons, get them out of the hands of kids so the police can do their jobs, and put more police on the street. Mr. Atkinson. President Clinton, we're going to move even farther south. We're into San Diego now. Your audience awaits you at the studios of KNSD. Immigration [Marty Levine introduced a migrant rights activist who asked about blockades to control illegal immigration from Mexico.]”