Interview with Katie Couric of the National Broadcasting Corporation

Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents, May 3, 1999

April 29, 1999

Gun Control Legislation

Ms. Couric. Mr. President, first of all, thank you very, very much for talking with us this afternoon. We really appreciate it.

Senator Trent Lott called your proposed gun control legislation the typical knee-jerk reaction, and Congressman Tom Delay accused you of exploiting the issue for political benefit. You would say to them?

The President. That's ridiculous, and down deep they know it. I think - you know, what I tried to say the other day is that we have a culture with too much violence in it for our children, and we need to address that, television, the Internet, the whole range of things. But we also have a culture in America full of good people who are devoted to hunting and sport shooting, whose political views on these issues, I think, have been manipulated to create a movement that has terrified a lot of Members of Congress from taking the most elemental precautions to keep criminals and keep children from having guns that they shouldn't have, that any other society in the world would take.

Ms. Couric. Good people -

The President. And that's why we have - well, what I mean is, most of the people that are involved in serious hunting and sport shooting, they're law-abiding; they pay their taxes; they do what they're asked to do for the country; they're fine people. But they have been convinced that the most modest, sensible ways of keeping society safer are some kind of camel's nose in a tent that will end up in the loss of their rifles, and that's ridiculous.

You know, the Brady bill has kept over a quarter of a million felons, fugitives, and stalkers from getting guns. Who knows how many people it saved. But we've got loopholes in the Brady bill. We've got loopholes in the assault weapons ban. We've got loopholes in the restrictions on these bit ammunition clips. We don't apply background cheeks at gun shows, which we ought to. We don't apply background cheeks to the purchase of explosives, which we ought to. These are sensible measures that will keep people alive.

Ms. Couric. Who are these people being manipulated by? The National Rifle Association?

The President. The National Rifle Association and some of these other groups as well.

Ms. Couric. The NRA, by the way, Mr. President, is getting ready to meet in Denver. If you could have a cap of coffee with Charlton Heston before that meeting gets underway, what would you say to him?

The President. I would say it's - you ought to he Moses and lead your people out of Egypt into the Promised Land. You ought to think about how we can protect the rights of hunters and use the good things the NRA's done to educate children, young people on gun safety, for example, and stop wasting your energy when we try to say that a juvenile that commits a violent crime shouldn't have a gun. Stop wasting your energy when we try to reinstitute the waiting period for the Brady' bill or close the assault weapons loopholes or close the loopholes in the Brady bill - or, say that we ought to have a background check for explosives or a background check at these gun shows. That's what we ought to do.

This is designed to keep people alive, for goodness sakes. This has nothing to do with the right to hunt or to engage in sporting contests.

Ms. Couric. Mr. President, do you believe any elements of your gun control package might have prevented the tragedy in Littleton?

The President. Well, we have to have all the facts. We know that they were involved with explosives. We know they had an assault pistol. We also - ne of the things we didn't talk about is that I want to strengthen the tracking - weapons tracking capacity of the Government when weapons pass through multiple hands. There may have been a gun show sale involved here. Depending on who bought it, we don't know what the background cheek would have occurred.

What we do know is that if all these proposals were in place, they would save more lives more places. Just the Brady bill alone has kept a quarter of a million people from getting guns who had questionable backgrounds. There's no doubt in my mind that a lot of lives were saved. The assaults weapons ban is a good thing, but there are too many loopholes in it, and we want to close them. This just makes sense.

Parents' Responsibilities

Ms. Couric. President Clinton, you've admitted that access to guns is just part of the problem. Another part is parenting in this country, or lack thereof. What are parents doing wrong?

The President. Let me tell you a story,, because I don't think it's so much as what they're doing as maybe as what they're not doing. A Member of the Congress, who is a friend of mine, and I had a conversation the other night, and he had just been with a high school, and he asked the students at the high school - this was a few clays after Littleton - how many of them had talked to their parents about this. And he said only a small minority raised their hands. And one young woman stood up and said, "I had to stand in front of the television and tell my parents we were going to not watch any more television until we talked about this, because I think they were afraid. They didn't want to deal with the fact that this could happen in other places in America."