April 22, 1999
Web posted at: 6:27 p.m. EDT (2227 GMT)

WASHINGTON (AllPolitics, April 22) -- President Bill Clinton will embrace several additional gun control measures next week, including new restrictions on purchases of assault weapons by juveniles and a major expansion of a federal program that traces used guns, sources tell CNN.

The proposals will be included in an omnibus crime bill the administration will offer next week. Following the fatal shootings at a suburban Denver high school, support for previously-stalled gun control proposals may gain some momentum.

Speaking to a group of northern Virginia high school students Thursday, Clinton said there was a limit on what the federal government could do to prevent incidents of school violence, but that he would push to enact restrictions that would keep weapons out of the wrong hands.

"This will be part of what we are trying to do," Clinton said, "to strike a better balance between making it harder for people who are violent to get guns and misuse them without interfering" with the constitutional right to bear arms.

Two students of Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado killed 12 of their schoolmates and one teacher Tuesday before killing themselves. Twenty-four other students were injured during the rampage.

Attorney General Janet Reno, who was in Littleton Thursday to meet with many involved in the tragedy, also pledged to do what she could to push preventative measures. She urged lawmakers to "come up with solution" to deal with the problem instead of politicizing the issue of school violence.

Most of the items the Clinton Administration will offer are recycled initiatives that have languished in the GOP-majority Congress.

Among the proposals is one to revive the waiting period in the so-called Brady handgun law. The five-day waiting period expired when a new instant-computerized check was put in place, but the White House supports a new three-day "cooling off" period in addition to the instant check.

Proposed controls focus on juveniles

Others include legislation holding parents criminally liable if their children gain access to household guns; a requirement that manufacturers put child safety locks on guns; a lifetime ban on gun ownership by juveniles convicted of violent crimes and an end to the gun show exemption to the instant check provision.

In addition to those recycled proposals, sources tell CNN the president will endorse expanding a ban on juvenile handgun purchases to prohibit individuals under the age of 21 from purchasing assault-style weapons that were in circulation before a ban on such weapons was instituted. Under current law, those 18 and over can purchase assault-style weapons manufactured before the ban took effect September 13, 1994.

Also, the administration wants to at least double the number of cities participating in a federal youth crime and drug interdiction program that helps local law enforcement mobilize against gangs and other sources of juvenile violence. Roughly 30 cities take part now.

The sources told CNN additional proposals may result from an interagency review being conducted as the new legislation is drafted. Among the items under discussion, the sources said, are any steps the federal government can take to limit access to explosives like the ones used in the Littleton, Colorado, school tragedy.

"We want to ... ensure that young people who have been convicted of serious crimes don't have access to guns, in the way that we now, under the Brady law, prevent adults who convicted of serious crimes from ever possessing guns," Deputy Attorney General Eric Holder said earlier in the day. "If a person, however old, commits a violent crime, that person should not be allowed to possess a gun."

Also, the sources said the president is leaning in favor of endorsing a congressional proposal, by Rep. Carolyn McCarthy (D-New York), to increase from 10 years to 20 years the maximum federal sentence for adults convicted of illegally giving or selling handguns or assault-style weapons to juveniles.

The president plans to unveil the anti-crime proposal late next week; earlier in the week he will propose additions to the Safe and Drug Free Schools Act. In that proposal Clinton will push for additional federal help to place police officers in schools, among other things, administration officials say.

Although some of the proposals have been unsuccessful in previous sessions of the GOP-run Congress and are opposed by the wealthy and powerful National Rifle Association, Holder says "the public polls always show the vast majority of the American people support reasonable restrictions placed on the possession of guns."

Reno in Littleton

Reno was in the suburban Denver-area to meet with groups providing victims' assistance and law enforcement officials investigating the shooting.

Reno said she had met with "SWAT team members who went into that school with short notice to save lives. I've met victims' advocates. The district attorney's office has been magnificent here."

The attorney general praised the work of state and local law enforcement officials, saying "they have been magnificent in this effort. It has been, to me, a text book of how to conduct an investigation -- how to do it the right way."

"It has just been an extraordinary effort on the part of so many," Reno said.

The Justice Department is also ready to offer assistance to the victims and their families.

Kathryn Turman, acting director of Justice's Office for Victims of Crime, says her office is ready and waiting for a call for funds to provide victim compensation from those in Colorado.

The Office for Victims of Crime still has the lions share of a $50 million fund for victims of terrorism or mass violence. The fund was created after the federal building in Oklahoma City was bombed in 1995 and can be used to pay for the lost wages of parents' who were caring for injured children, funeral expenses, uninsured medical care and private mental health counseling.

"As a result, Denver is one of the most prepared cities in the nation for an event like this," Turman says, explaining her office is three years into a $1 million five-year demonstration program to create a model victim services organization in the Denver metropolitan area.

Thursday, April 22, 1999

• Clinton discusses school violence with high schoolers
• GOP congressman returns from Belgrade
• Gores to visit Littleton community
• Weston found incompetent to stand trial for Capitol shooting
• Juvenile justice bill passes House subcommittee
• Clinton Administration to push gun control measures
• Poll: More parents worried about school safety
• Mary Rockefeller, former first lady of New York, dead at 91
• Bill addresses health insurance cost
• Clinton picks new chiefs for Army and Marine Corps

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