Reprint

 Speech by Bill Bradley
at the Legal Community Against Violence Dinner

San Francisco, California
June 18, 1999

This speech is reprinted, not because I agree with each of Bill Bradley's positions, but because I believe it is a very good discussion of the need to balance the right to bear arms with the reality of our national need to reduce gun violence.

Two days ago, I talked about the four freedoms I believe we must commit ourselves to guaranteeing for our children: freedom from want, freedom from illness, freedom from ignorance and freedom from fear. Tonight, I want to talk about fear and the violence that has produced it

If you've read the newspapers, watched television, talked with parents,

 had a casual conversation with colleagues, or lived in America over the last two months, you know about the fear of violence that has left a trail of tears, along with broken dreams, broken promises, and broken hearts in communities all across America.

The fear is real. But what you don't hear as much about is the fact that a graduating senior today is less likely to have tried drugs and alcohol than twenty years ago. Today's senior is less likely to get pregnant while still a teen and more likely to believe in God. Our children are basically good children. Our parents are good parents, trying to raise good children. The American people are a good people.

So why is it so difficult in this country to have a rational dialogue about reducing gun violence, built around the commonsense notion that it is in the interests of our children and families to do so?  Why are our conversations based on what polls, focus groups, or political calculation tell us is the least likely to offend any voters? Why should our leaders self-censor their prospects on gun violence to what they think Congress might be willing to pass, as opposed to what might work?

I believe a president has to trust the American people enough to be honest about the issues facing our nation. And, let's be honest - any conversation about reducing violence has to begin with talking about guns.

Despite the assassinations of our political leaders and heroes over the last four decades, despite the fact that the number of Americans murdered in the last ten years is double the number killed in the Vietnam War, despite the fact that thirteen children every day are killed by guns - we have allowed the terms of the discussion to be defined within a narrow context that often has little to do with the realities of life in America. Often, it seems as though the only voices heard are the small numbers at either end of the spectrum - those who believe in no guns, and those who believe in no regulation of guns. We end up with a shrill and stale debate that offers false choices and little hope of reducing the carnage in America.

The source of this frustrating and, ultimately, tragic debate is the Second Amendment. The NRA and its allies take the view that the Second Amendment is absolute - that any regulation of any gun, regardless of how deadly or destructive, infringes on their individual right to "bear arms."  As a result, they have tenaciously and effectively fought all attempts to regulate the manufacture, distribution, registration, and licensing of guns. They have gone so far as to oppose the banning of assault weapons and cop killer bullets - all weapons that have no sporting or hunting purpose and exist for only one purpose: to destroy human life. They have resorted to slandering the ATF as "jack-booted government thugs" and falsely accused them of wearing "Nazi bucket helmets and black storm trooper uniforms." And just two weeks after the last funeral for the victims of the shootings in Littleton, Colorado, the NRA sent letters to its 2.6 million members warning that President Clinton would "demand that you pay the price for the insanity of the killers." 

On the other side, there are some in the gun control community who also have an absolutist view of the Second Amendment. They believe that the government has the right to regulate all guns out of existence. They sometimes seem to demonize all gun owners as an extreme faction aligned with the most radical elements of the NRA, when the truth is actually quite different.

So like two lumbering warriors, both sides have been fighting over the same sacred ground of liberty - brandishing the arguments of no guns versus no regulation of guns. The effect of this unproductive debate has produced policy choices that don't reflect the complexity of our jurisprudence or the texture of where we live our lives - in real communities with real people whose lives are shattered every day by the haunting hail of gun fire. And it has produced a thirty-year legislative roadblock that has prevented almost every effective and meaningful reform that would reduce gun violence from being adopted.

This I know for sure: In America, no individual or group can claim to have a monopoly on freedom. We have fought and struggled too long in our own country and around the world to preserve our basic freedom to allow it to be hijacked by any group who seeks to manipulate it for their own political gain at the expense of the public good.

Every now and then, a tragedy occurs like the school shootings and the bombing in Oklahoma City where we react collectively as one nation and one family. Where the event touches a deep chord in the American soul, and we begin to look inward at who we are and what we have become.

Now is such a time and here is what we see. We live in a society with over 200 million guns and where thirteen children a day are killed by them in homicides, suicides, or unintentional shootings. In 1996 alone, 4,643 children and teenagers were killed by guns. According to a 1997 Centers for Disease Control report, the rate of children up to fourteen years old killed by guns is nearly twelve times higher in the United States than in twenty-five other industrialized countries combined.

We see a society where, until recently, there were more gun dealers than gas stations and grocery stores. Where there are roughly seven gun dealers for every McDonalds. These dealers sell an estimated 7.5 million guns every year - of which 3.5 million are handguns. In 1996, handguns were used to murder two people in New Zealand, fifteen in Japan, thirty in Great Britain, 106 in Canada, 213 in Germany, and 9390 in the United States.

Furthermore, we see a society where hamburgers and children's cribs have more regulations than guns. There are no federal manufacturing or safety standards that govern how guns are made or marketed. The TEC DC-9 semi-automatic pistol, one of the weapons that was used in the Columbine High School massacre, is made by a Miami-based company. Their ads bragged that the gun's finish is "resistant to fingerprints," a marketing campaign clearly targeted to those who engage in criminal activity.

By contrast, think about this: The Consumer Products Safety Commission requires that the slats on cribs be no more than two and three-eighths of an inch apart, to reduce the possibility of children getting stuck between them. The National Highway Transportation and Safety Administration recalls children's car seats that are found to be unsafe, or even just unreliable. And the Consumer Products Safety Commission mandates that safety caps be put on medicine bottles to prevent children from accidentally poisoning themselves.

We are willing to regulate our children in many areas - food, toys, clothing, and equipment. But not guns.

We have become a culture where in neighborhoods children once played in the streets, police now draw chalk silhouettes on the sidewalks. Where businesses once thrived, storeowners now speak to customers through grilles and bulletproof glass.

Where neighbors once left their doors unlocked, private security guards now patrol walled-in communities, protecting those who can afford it in gated citadels of illusory security.

The fear of violence stops people from going to a PTA or church meeting at night. It stops us from reaching out to our neighbor. It robs us of our liberty. It destroys the world of trust.

The effort to find a framework for what makes sense, what will work, what will save lives is lost on a Republican Congress consumed by partisan passions and special interest politics, more interested in issues to use in the next election than solutions that would make a difference today. The roar of the Columbine tragedy still echoes across the land. But the Congress, at a time of momentous opportunity, stumbles all over each other to weaken an already watered down background check for guns sold at gun shows. The gridlock persists, and reasonable people are left to wonder: What will it take to save our children's lives?

It's going to take leadership - leadership at every level of our society. Leaders in every community. Leadership that seeks to do big things, rather than nibble at the edges of a crisis. Leadership that gives people a reason to believe that we can begin to extinguish the epidemic of violence if we have the will to confront it honestly. And we need leaders who believe that, if politics is the art of the possible, it is the role of a leader to expand the possibilities.

It's going to take people like you here tonight and in communities all across the country to realize the power we possess if we work together toward a common goal. We are a strong and vibrant country, and we have fought the right fights before and won. State-sanctioned racism began to fall when we objected to its moral depravity and we furthered the cause of justice. Today, we have the power to save our children's lives and further the cause of liberty.

So let's talk about what makes sense for our children. Let's talk about how we might end the thirteen gun deaths a day - a daily Columbine, 365 days a year.

Every amendment of our Constitution is open to interpretation. Our most cherished amendment, our First Amendment guaranteeing freedom of speech, has restrictions. You can't yell fire in a crowded theater. You cannot commit perjury. You cannot slander or libel an individual.

There is no doubt in my mind that the Second Amendment confers rights on individuals to own guns. My reasons for supporting the rights of an individual to own a gun is based more on personal experience, and less on legal doctrine.

When I was a boy, I used to take my 22 and shoot targets along the Mississippi River with my grandfather. Millions of sportsmen and hunters use guns responsibly, and I see no reason why their passionate pursuit should not continue. Many sportsmen and sportswomen are concerned about government intrusion in their lives. But most of them would agree that there is no need for the junk handguns and assault weapons that are causing carnage in our communities.

A commonsense approach to what kind of gun regulation is needed must be built on the shoulders of the Second Amendment - by applying the same restrictions to it that are applied to other amendments. In our constitutional system, we must always balance the public safety of the people - especially children - against the rights of the individual. And in a society with over 200 million guns and thirteen children a day killed by them, I believe that the government has a legitimate interest in regulating guns.

That means we can decide who is safe to entrust with a gun, what kinds of guns may be manufactured or sold, and how those guns can be distributed. It means that we can pursue a goal of making our country safer from gun violence by applying principles like making guns safer, regulating the distribution of them more carefully, making owners more responsible, and giving police greater abilities to stop gun violence.

But it also means that if you use your gun responsibly, store it safely and use it lawfully - then your rights under the Second Amendment will continue to be protected.

This is the model I used in my attempt to grapple with these issues during my eighteen years in the Senate.

I sponsored the effort to limit the purchase of a handgun by any one person to one gun a month. The flood of illegal guns in our streets begins with middlemen known as straw purchasers who make legal buys of thousands of guns - which they turn around and sell illegally to street criminals. When Virginia passed a one gun a month law, the effect was felt in Philadelphia, New Jersey, and New York - because that's where the guns were going.

Then there is the question of handgun registration. There are some words that are so emotionally charged that they inhibit discussion of an issue, and this is one of them. Some gun owners hear this word, and fear unfair government intrusion in their lives. But most Americans would agree that those who own handguns should have to pass a basic safety course on instruction before they can operate them. Most Americans would agree that it is in our interests to know who owns handguns, and to be able to track where those handguns go. And I have supported efforts that would let us do just that.

I led an effort to eliminate junk handguns completely and permanently. Saturday Night Specials are 81% of the ten most used funs which are traced by the BATF. Many of these junk handguns are manufactured here in California by gun manufacturers known as the "Ring of Fire". The evidence is clear and convincing that these guns lack any sporting use and pose a significant threat to the safety of the American public. They are a menace to society and they should be outlawed.

I also led an effort to make it illegal for any person to possess a handgun if they have been convicted of domestic violence. We must do everything we can to offer better protections for fearful women and innocent children against the brutality of batterers. No country - especially ours - should be more worried about protecting the right to bear arms than protecting the arms that carry our children.

Finally, with seven times more gun dealers than McDonald's Restaurants, I supported an effort to increase substantially the license fees on gun dealers and require them to have pictures and fingerprints taken with their application. Between this effort and work on the local level, we've reduced the number of gun dealers from 287,000 to 80,000. But we can go farther, and we can get that number much, much lower. With a simple change in our current law, we can do nationwide what you are doing community by community here in California. By simply restricting federal firearm licenses to businesses located in commercial zones and eliminating "FFLs" inresidential areas, we can get the gun dealers out of our neighborhoods and into commercial areas with the legitimate dealers who respect the law. Most businesses can not be located in residential neighborhoods - gun dealing shouldn't be the exception. In addition to trigger locks and mandatory background checks at gun shows, these are sensible measures that should be taken now.

I know the blaze of violence has many fires. We won't end violence by reducing fun violence. There are many reasons and many causes. But think how much more effectively we can deal with the other root causes if we find common ground on reducing gun violence. Then, the discussion about prevention, and education, and collaboration between parents, teachers, the private sector, and government becomes a constructive discussion.

We can discuss violent and lethal influences on our children. We can talk about the responsibility each of us has in how our children get the idea that violence is somehow glamorous. But we can't have an honest discussion until we confront the fact that, while our children may be exposed to lethal special effects in movies and videogames, we are doing very little about their access to lethal weapons.

It seems to me that we have a choice. We can continue to participate in a debate of extremes that offer false and hopeless choices. A debate that has allowed the carnage in our culture to become so deeply imbedded that it has become a fact and a way of life. Or we can seek the common ground - a place that offers fewer guns, less violence, and fewer tears. The commonsense approach to discussing violence is only a beginning, not an end. And all proposals that will save the lives of our children and fellow citizens should be considered.

Let me end my conversation with two stories.

A few years ago, the Washington Post ran a story about violence - and in it, they told of an eight-year-old girl who wrote a letter to her parents saying which of her dresses she wanted to be buried in. She wrote the letter because she didn't think she would live to see her twelfth birthday.

And then there are the people in this room. When senseless gun violence left eight people killed and six injured at 101 California six years ago, you responded to tragedy with a purpose. From a small group of lawyers and volunteers mobilized to prevent gun violence, you have grown and persevered over the years. You know the result - today, over seventy cities and counties here in California have enacted nearly 200 local firearms regulations, ranging from junk gun prohibitions to trigger lock requirements. You're doing at the local level what few are even willing to discuss at the national level - and you've made a difference in the lives of hundreds of thousands of people.

When I look around this room and think about the hard work you have done in the name of protecting children and families, I know there is hope and reason to be optimistic about the future. I know that we can look at you and your accomplishments and take that same model of hard work, perseverance, dedication, and will to a national level, and to every community in this country. Because we are a good people and a caring people, who want the best for our children, who want to raise good children, and who believe in the enormous power of working together for the common good. And working together for the common good is what it will take to make a difference in the fear our children - and our parents - live with.

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