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TALKING IT OVER
HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON
April 28,
1999
RELEASE: WEDNESDAY, APRIL 28, 1999, AND THEREAFTER
When I first heard the news that students had opened fire on their
classmates at a high school in Littleton, Colo., last week, I prayed, "Please,
God, don't let this be happening again."
My heart breaks for every family
that lost a son or daughter, for the family of Dave Sanders, the teacher who
died saving the students he loved, for the entire Littleton community, where
every life has been touched, and for our nation, which must find a way to say,
"Enough."
We are neither helpless nor hopeless in the face of this tragedy.
There are answers, but they are not easy.
First, we must acknowledge that
too many of our children are growing up alone. Of course, parents have the
primary responsibility for raising safe, healthy and happy children, but we all
must be involved. Teachers and counselors, police officers and coaches,
religious leaders and even elected officials all have a role to play. Last
October, the President and I hosted the first-ever White House Conference on
School Safety, where we heard from parents, students, law-enforcement
personnel, local community leaders and other experts that the most important
way to keep our schools and communities safe is to make sure responsible adults
are involved in the lives of our children. At the President's direction, the
Departments of Education and Justice issued a guide to help school officials
identify students who are feeling isolated and troubled and get them help. He
also launched the Safe Schools/Healthy Students initiative to develop
comprehensive community-wide responses to school and youth violence, with a
particular focus on providing schools with appropriate mental health
services.
In a world that can feel overwhelming and out of control,
children need help managing their anger, resolving their conflicts and solving
their problems with words instead of weapons. To this end, the President has
also dramatically increased federal funding for children's mental health
services and asked Tipper Gore to host a White House Conference on Mental
Health in June.
We all need help coping with the culture of violence that
has become so much a part of American life. Too many TV shows, movies, songs
and Internet sites romanticize and glorify violence. There are even video games
where the winner is the one who kills the most people. It is time we
acknowledge that this violence is having a profound effect on our children and
resolve to change it. The President has worked tirelessly to focus attention on
this problem.
In 1996, he met with entertainment industry leaders, who
agreed to air more educational children's programs and to establish a rating
system to help parents make choices about what their children watch. Soon,
parents will have more help in the form of the V-chip, technology that can
actually block certain shows.
Finally, it is time for us to acknowledge
that we must get guns out of the hands of children and criminals. The vast
majority of gun owners in this country are law-abiding citizens. Defending the
right of these citizens to keep and bear arms does not mean defending shooting
sprees in our schoolyards or military-style assault weapons in our communities.
Nor does it mean defending those who would fight against simple precautions
like child safety locks and background checks.
This week, the President and
I stood with over 40 members of Congress from both parties to announce the most
comprehensive measure ever proposed for reducing the intolerable toll of gun
violence in this country, including raising the legal age for handguns to 21
and limiting purchases to one a month. This proposal builds on the President's
already strong record in this area. In 1994, he fought for and won passage of
the Brady Law, which has kept handguns away from 250,000 felons, fugitives and
stalkers. And he worked to ban the import and sale of 19 different types of
assault weapons.
Every day in this country, 13 children die from
gun-related violence. For every child killed by a gun, four are wounded. The
rate of firearm deaths of children under 15 in the United States is nearly 12
times higher than in 25 other industrialized countries combined. Seven times in
the last two years, children have been gunned down in cold blood by
classmates.
How many more statistics like this do we have to hear? How many
more children have to die? How many more funerals of students and teachers do
we have to watch? It's time for our national leaders to act. It's time for each
of us to say, "Enough."
To find out more about Hillary Rodham Clinton and
read her past columns, visit the Creators Syndicate web page at
www.creators.com.
COPYRIGHT 1999 CREATORS SYNDICATE, INC.
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