Edward M. Kennedy: “I understand the sense of my good friend from North Dakota about the use of guns in schools. We want to try and deal…”

“I understand the sense of my good friend from North Dakota about the use of guns in schools. We want to try and deal with the problems of violence in schools as we do violence in communities. Obviously, there should be no place for guns in the schools of this country. The tragic circumstance is that in many cases where children have guns in schools, it is for self-protection. They are not the ones who perpetrated the violence. Clearly, those individuals who have been exploited, who have been in some instances beaten and treated harshly, and who in many cases are extremely young--those individuals feel that their only way to protect themselves, tragically, is through the possession of a gun. We are sympathetic to their plight. I would like to try to see if we cannot work with the Senator on this issue. I have great respect for him. It is rarely in this body that I am put in a position of not being stronger on the issues of guns than my colleagues. But this is one that I would like to try to see if we cannot work out a process for dealing with the central thrust of the Senator's amendment.”