JUVENILE JUSTICE BILL

CONGRESSIONAL RECORD Thursday, May 20, 1999 106th Congress, 1st Session

Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, with the passage of the Juvenile Justice bill today the Senate took a positive step forward in addressing the youth violence that we have sadly seen far too much of in recent weeks. One month ago today, we watched in horror as children turned violent against other children, and we asked ourselves why? Today, again, we've seen the horror of a high school student firing a weapon at his schoolmates. There is no one cause of this youth violence, the causes are many but the common denominator in all of these school shootings cannot be ignored or denied: the easy access our young people have to guns.

If there is one silver lining in what happened at Littleton it's that this event has become a catalyst for the Senate to finally begin to overcome the disproportionate influence of the gun lobby and to close a few of the gaping loopholes in our federal gun laws which give our youth such easy access to guns.

Over the last few weeks, with the Juvenile Justice bill on the floor of the Senate, we have taken important steps to strengthen our current laws. We have passed legislation to prohibit juveniles from owning semiautomatic weapons and large capacity ammunition devices. We have banned the importation of big ammunition clips, which have been flooding in to the United States by the millions. The Senate passed an amendment requiring that handguns be sold with trigger locking devices to protect children. And just this morning, the Senate, by one vote, the deciding vote cast by Vice President Gore, passed legislation to regulate the sale of firearms at guns shows, ensuring juveniles and others cannot use these shows as a convenient way to circumvent the safeguards applied to normal sales through licensed gun dealers.

Mr. President, I believe it's clear that the American people support the actions we have taken. In fact, I am hopeful that we will build on these first steps, for example, to ban semiautomatic assault weapons and handguns for persons under 21 years of age. This may be one of our most important tasks yet. According the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms' Youth Crime Gun Interdiction Initiative, the two most frequent ages at which crimes are committed with gun possession are 18 and 19. In 1997, 22% of those arrested for murder were 18, 19 or 20 years old.

This legislation clearly falls short of closing all of the loopholes which allow our youth easy access to deadly weapons. However, in the wake of the tragedy at Littleton, the Senate has taken critical steps forward. This is a victory for the good sense of the American people over the entrenched interests of NRA lobbyists in Washington.

Mr. President, in addition to preventing our youth from having access to deadly weapons, we must also ensure that schools have access to proven violence prevention programs designed to meet the particular needs of the students. The bill provides $250 million in grants for projects that allow schools to partner with the U.S. Department of Justice and police officers in crime prevention; $113 million for creative on-site school violence prevention programs and alcohol and drug counseling; and amends the Elementary and Secondary Education Act to make funds available for training in school safety and violence prevention, crisis preparedness, mentoring and anti-violence programs.