THE WHITE HOUSE Office of the Press Secretary ________________________________________________________________
REMARKS BY THE PRESIDENT As the Vice President and the Attorney General and the Secretary of Treasury have said, five years ago we made a commitment as an administration to recover our nation's streets from crime and violence, to provide security for our families and our children. It required a new determination by communities and by government. It took a new philosophy of law enforcement, based not on tough talk, which was always in ample supply, but on tough action and smart action, a philosophy based simply on what works -- community policing, strong anti-gang efforts, targeted deterrence, smarter, tougher penalties; a comprehensive strategy that includes all these elements and puts community policing at its core. We're well on our way to putting 100,000 new police officers on the street, ahead of schedule. And as the Vice President just told us, crime rates are dropping all across America to a 25-year low. Violent crime is down. Property crime is down. And murder is down dramatically. From the Crime Bill to the Brady Bill, from the assault weapons ban to the Violence Against Women Act, our strategy is showing results. And Americans should take both pride and comfort in this progress. But statistics tell only part of the story. The real measure of our
progress is whether responsibility and respect for the law are on the rise. The real
test of our resolve is whether parents can unlock their front doors with confidence and
let their children play in the front yard without fear. And the fact remains that
there are still far too many children in harm's way, too many families behind locked
doors, too many guns in the hands of too many If we are going to move forward in building a safer, stronger America, all of us -- police and parents, communities and public officials -- must work together. We must remain vigilant. Last November, I asked the Treasury Department to conduct the thorough review Secretary Rubin has just presented. That is why our administration has concluded that the import of assault weapons that use large-capacity military magazines should be banned. As everyone knows, you don't need an Uzi to go deer hunting. You don't need an AK 47 to go skeet shooting. These are military weapons, weapons of war. They were never meant for a day in the country, and they are certainly not meant for a night on the streets. Today we are working to make sure they stay off our streets. Two successive administrations have acted on this principle. In 1989, President Bush banned the import of 43 semi-automatic assault rifles. In 1994, this administration banned the domestic manufacture of certain assault weapons. And in Congress, Senator Dianne Feinstein and the late Congressman Walter Capps led the fight against foreign gun manufacturers who evade the law. As long as those manufacturers can make minor cosmetic modifications to weapons of war, our work is not done. And we must act swiftly and strongly. That is what Secretary Rubin's announcement amounts to
today. We are doing our best to say, you can read the fine print in our law and our
regulations all you want, and you can keep making your minor changes, but we're going to
do our best to keep our people alive and stop you from making a dollar in the wrong
way.
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