Clinton's weekly radio address on Saturday 8/20/94

   Good morning.

   This morning I want to talk with you about crime and violence.
All of us know it's too familiar a threat to Americans in almost
every neighborhood in our country.

   Right now, just as I'm delivering this address, the family,
friends and neighbors of a 13-year-old boy are gathered in a church
not far from the White House to lay him to rest. His name was
Anthony Stokes. He was shot last Saturday night apparently by
another boy about the same age.

   Later this morning, as Anthony Stokes' family buries him, House
and Senate negotiators will meet to finish work on the crime bill.
Soon after, each member of the House of Representatives will face a
simple choice -- to pass the toughest attack on crime in history, or
to block it one more time.

   We must not walk away from the American people in the fight
against crime.

   Anthony Stokes was killed just two days after Congress succumbed
to intense political pressure and allowed the crime bill to be
derailed. We fought hard over the last 10 days to get it back on
track. And it is back on track because members of Congress of both
parties have worked together in good faith, determined to deliver a
crime bill for the American people.

   Now Congress must finish the job and pass the crime bill I've
been fighting for nearly two years now. When they do, it's going to
make a difference in every town, every city, every state in our
country.

   It's a tough bill. It'll put 100,000 new police officers on our
street -- a 20 percent increase in the number of officers walking
the beat, protecting our neighborhoods and preventing crime as well
as catching criminals. It will shut down the revolving door on our
prisons and make violent criminals serve their time. Police officers
and law-abiding citizens should no longer have to watch in fear and
frustration as dangerous criminals are put right back on the street.

   It will stiffen penalties for criminals who prey on children. It
will protect unsuspecting families from sexual predators in their
communities by requiring local authorities to alert them to their
presence. It will lock the most dangerous criminals up for good by
making three strikes and you're out the law of the land.

   But this crime bill is smart as well as tough, because our
approach recognizes what the law enforcement community has been
saying for years and years. There isn't a single victim of crime who
wouldn't trade the toughest sentence in the world for some way to
have prevented the crime from happening in the first place.

   That's why this bill includes an unprecedented effort in crime
prevention -- to help kids stay away from crime and drugs and gangs.
It gives them something to say yes to. At the same time, we make it
clear there are some things young people must say no to. The crime
bill bans juvenile ownership of handguns. There's no reason why kids
should be carrying guns to schools instead of books.

   Finally, it bans deadly assault weapons that were designed to be
used in war for rapid-fire combat. Today they are the weapons of
choice for gangs and drug dealers who use them to outgun police
officers and to kill innocent people. They don't belong on our
streets, and the crime bill will take them off.

   And the entire crime bill will be paid for -- and this is
important -- not with a new tax, not by taking money away from some
other needed service, but by reducing the size of the federal
bureaucracy to its lowest level in 30 years.

   This crime bill answers the call of every parent afraid that
random violence will harm a child; of every police officer who's
been hurt or killed by the terrible fire power of an assault weapon;
of every innocent, law-abiding man, woman and child in America. The
crime bill offers this pledge: From now on, our government will do
everything we can to make sure that people who commit crimes get
caught; that those who are guilty are convicted; that those who are
convicted serve their times; that those who can be saved from a life
of crime are found when they're young and given a chance to do
better.

   For all these reasons, and for a young man named Anthony Stokes
who's being laid to rest today, we must not let this chance pass us
by. We must seize the opportunity before us to make a dramatic
difference in every neighborhood. And as we do, I hope we can make a
difference in the way our government works.

   Let today mark the beginning of a determined effort on the part
of all of us to work in good faith across party lines. I have shown
my good faith, and in so doing I have taken the risk that all people
take when they talk to people who oppose them.

   Soon the Congress will have a chance to show the risk was worth
it. And once they pass the crime bill, the way will be clear for us
to attack other problems together, across party lines, as the
American people want us to do and as we should.