Interview With Jann Wenner of Rolling Stone Magazine - part 2 - President Bill Clinton - Interview

Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents, Dec 11, 2000

I saw a special--you may have seen it on television the other night on ABC. Peter Jennings actually went out and went to some of these gun shows. And he was talking to all these people who were absolutely convinced that we wanted to take their guns away. The NRA is great at raising money and building their organizational power by terrifying people with inflammatory rhetoric. I guess that's why, since LBJ passed the first law after Bobby Kennedy was killed, I was the first President to take him on.

Mr. Wenner. You got Brady and assault through, but why didn't you take the opportunity with this post-Columbine atmosphere? I mean, you called the White House Conference on Violence immediately -----

The President. Well, I did. I tried -----

Mr. Wenner. But it focused on, like, violence in the media -----

The President. Yes, but we also did lots and lots and lots of events -----

Mr. Wenner. ----- and then you thought you could reason with the NRA.

The President. No, I didn't think I could reason with the NRA. I thought Congress would be so shocked and the public was so galvanized that we had a window of opportunity.

Mr. Wenner. Right. And what happened to that, is my question.

The President. The Republican leadership just delayed until the fever went down. That's what happened. They knew that they couldn't afford to have their Members voting wrong on closing the gun show loophole or banning the importation of large-capacity ammunition clips, which allows people to get around the assault weapons ban.

Mr. Wenner. Were you powerless to do something about that?

The President. No, we had tons of events. And we got a vote--if you'll remember, we finally got a vote in the Senate, where you can bring things up, where we got a majority vote for it. Al Gore broke the tie--another reason he ought to be President, he broke the tie. But we couldn't get a bill out of a conference committee, that had it in there. If we could ever have gotten a clean vote--

Mr. Wenner. You would have won that vote.

The President. Oh, absolutely.

Mr. Wenner. And beat that-

The President. Absolutely. We could win the vote today if you could get a vote. But the leadership of the Republican Party, as long as they're in the majority in both Houses, they can control things, especially in the House. You can write the rules so that you can just keep stuff from coming up.

Mr. Wenner. So despite your power, despite that event-

The President. Yes. And we had lots and lots and lots of events at the White House, not just one. We had a ton of events. We brought people in. We talked about it. We pushed and pushed. We finally got the vote in the Senate. We got 50 votes. Then Al broke the tie. We got 51. And there's no question that we could pass it.

But I'll remind you that one of reasons that Democrats are in the minority today in the House is because of the Brady law and the assault weapons ban. And interestingly enough, we didn't--there is--not a single hunter has missed an hour; not a single sports shooter has missed an event--an hour hunting--I should have finished the sentence--or a single sports shooter has missed an event. But they acted like the end of the world, but a half million felons, fugitives, and stalkers haven't gotten handguns because of the Brady law.