CONTROLLING GUNS

	May 11, 1999
	U.S. Rep. Bill McCollum (R-FL), chairman of the House Subcommittee on Crime, and U.S. Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-CA), author of legislation that would ban all gun sales unless approved by the federal government, discuss gun control measures.

JIM LEHRER: The school shooting in Oregon led to a gun control debate there as we saw; the recent Littleton shooting brought that debate to Congress. Phil Ponce has that. PHIL PONCE: Gun control legislation is being debated this week on both sides of Capitol Hill. Today the Senate took up a bill that would toughen penalties for juvenile crimes and will include some gun control measures. Later in the week the House Judiciary Committee will take up the issue. Two members of that committee are with us: Republican Congressman Bill McCollum of Florida, chairman of the House Subcommittee on Crime and the sponsor of legislation that would help states fight juvenile crime; and Democratic Congresswoman Zoe Lofgren of California. She's the author of legislation that would ban all gun sales unless approved by the federal government. Representative Lofgren, if I can begin with you, you call your proposed legislation the Save a Child Act. Tell us more about how it would work. REP. ZOE LOFGREN: Well, one of the things that bothers me is we did get political consensus to ban certain kinds of assault weapons. One is the Tech .9. However, the manufacturer, for example - PHIL PONCE: The Tech .9 being an automatic weapon. REP. ZOE LOFGREN: It is. The manufacturer, a guy by the name of Carlos Garcia, whose company in Miami, makes these things, he's gotten around that ban by making minor changes. For example, the assault weapon used in Littleton was the Tech DC-9, which is basically the same gun with "DC" stamped on it to avoid the ban on assault weapons. And I just don't think that's right. I think we ought to have -- instead of letting the manufacturers get around the ban on assault weapons, we ought to have a pre-clearance by the Secretary of the Treasury so that these models, if they're assault weapons, if they're banned by law, they can't then be sold just by making minor changes to avoid the law. PHIL PONCE: Rep. Lofgren, just to make sure I understand what your proposed legislation would do, it would create an outright ban on the sale of all guns, with the exceptions carved out by the Secretary of the Treasury, is that correct? REP. ZOE LOFGREN: Well, the intention is that you would not be - you would have to get approval for the model to avoid the going around of the ban on assault weapons, as happened since then, the ban. PHIL PONCE: And Representative McCollum, your reaction to that scheme? REP. BILL McCOLLUM: I don't like giving that much discretion to any agency or any one group. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms would undoubtedly administer this. I think that what we should keep in mind is two things: One, none of us want to see minors possessing these kinds of firearms that in this particular instance were being possessed in Littleton. There are law already on the books that prohibit a lot of that, and they need to be enforced properly. And, secondly, where we can improve those things that are there in the law, we need to take a look at doing that. And there are some things the President, I understand, is going to propose -- we haven't seen his legislative package yet -- that all of us are going to agree on - not everything he proposes but some of them. For example, a youngster who is convicted today as an adult is prohibited if it's a serious violent crime from possessing a gun in the future. But if it's in juvenile court, it's a juvenile delinquency, even though it's a serious violent crime, that youngster later on in life is possess a gun. And I think that law needs to be changed there, as it does with explosives. But last, and not least, we need to keep in mind the sole problem and the focus out of Littleton shouldn't be on guns. While they may be a serious problem in certain respects with minors, there are a lot of other reasons why we're having violence in this country among youth - that we had guns - a large number around here long before we had this major group of incidents that have come forward in Littleton and just before that. And we need to look at those - like the failure of the juvenile system, which is really broken in this country --some of the problems that we know we've got out there with so much violence on television and Internet, and so forth, that are influencing these kids, and the question of parental and school and church and other supervision over these youth. Why did this happen? Why weren't they caught earlier? Those questions are as important if not more important than the issue of the guns. PHIL PONCE: Representative Lofgren, are those equally important questions? REP. ZOE LOFGREN: Well, certainly, the whole issue of violence is important. And I think we ought to look at the entire picture. However, I don't think it's true that 30 years ago a lot of teenagers had assault weapons. I just don't think that that's a fact in evidence. And sure, there is things on the Internet that we don't like, but I do know this: If you've got a child who's having a problem who wants -- who's enraged and angry and they've got their fists, they'll do one level of damage. If they've got an assault weapon, they'll do another level of damage. So we do need to include as we look at the whole issue of making children safer, the issue of children's access to assault weapons and to guns, especially children who are disturbed. I am hopeful that listening to Bill here that we will find some common ground. We certainly should, the country is calling on us to do that. PHIL PONCE: Rep. Lofgren, how do you respond to the congressman's earlier statement that there are plenty of laws on the books already and it's a question of their being enforced? REP. ZOE LOFGREN: Well, I mean, that's why I introduced my bill. And I'm hopeful that we can look at it in maybe Mr. McCollum's subcommittee. And if it needs to be defined better we can do that as well. But, in fact, it wasn't illegal, I don't believe, to have a Tech DC-9, because it evaded the ban. The President's proposed that teenagers shouldn't be allowed to possess assault weapons. And I agree with that. I don't see a reason why a teenager needs an assault weapon. PHIL PONCE: Representative McCollum, do you see any reason why a teenager should be allowed to have an assault weapon? REP. BILL McCOLLUM: No, I don't - and I don't think the debate is really over that. Of course, we can argue what an assault weapon is and I know what Zoe Lofgren wants to do is probably expand that definition a little bit further than we have it today. But the thing I'm most concerned about at the present time again is the focus of this -- so much discussion of guns. We have a bill that's come out of the Subcommittee on Crime that was prepared before Littleton that is unanimously supported by Democrats and Republicans alike. REP. ZOE LOFGREN: I'm a co-sponsor of that. REP. BILL McCOLLUM: And you're a co-sponsor. It should be in the full Judiciary Committee perhaps as early as next week and then on the floor of the House, dealing with trying to correct a broken juvenile justice system. And what I see in Littleton, while it's just one piece, it's a big piece of the puzzle nationwide, is a failure of the justice system in the juvenile sense to capture youngsters early like they should. What we found in studying this problem nationwide is that all too often a juvenile who commits an early misdemeanor crime, such as spray painting graffiti on a warehouse wall, or doing something like running over a parking meter, or throwing a rock through a store window, does not get any punishment in juvenile court -- often isn't even taken in, in many of our urban areas by the local authorities, because the system is overworked. We don't have enough juvenile judges, or probation officers, or diversion programs, et cetera. And what we are proposing in this legislation is a major grant program to the states that gives them money to improve their juvenile system, have drug courts, gun courts, school safety, whatever they want to use it for in that regard, if they do one thing -- if they ensure the United States Attorney General that they're going to put in place a system of graduated sanctions to punish the very early juvenile delinquent with some kind of consequences, community service, not necessarily time locked up in jail or in delinquent centers, but some kind of consequences put into the law at the very early stages -- because the experts all say that if the kids have consequences early on, they're far less likely to be getting into trouble later using guns or whatever in violent crime. I think this is the single thing we can do right now that we all agree on would be extremely beneficial. PHIL PONCE: Representative Lofgren, not enough consequences at the moment? REP. ZOE LOFGREN: What I think is this - that we shouldn't look for a single solution. And I'm a co-sponsor of the bill - I think we all are. And I think it's a good thing to do, and I think it's the right thing to do. It will keep some kids from getting in trouble, and that's great. PHIL PONCE: But what are you saying, that it doesn't go far enough, or it doesn't address the real issue? REP. ZOE LOFGREN: All I'm saying is that if think we can come up with a system that makes sure that every kid in America doesn't get in trouble, then we're fooling ourselves. No system is perfect. What we need to do is reduce the access of kids to weapons of destruction, like assault weapons, in addition to doing the kind of juvenile justice reform and prevention that Bill has talked about, which I endorse. We need to that, we need to talk about our culture, but we can't use that as an excuse not also to talk about the access of kids to assault weapons. We need to do something about that as well. PHIL PONCE: Representative McCollum, does your focus on consequences take into account the kind of access that Representative Lofgren is talking about? REP. BILL McCOLLUM: Not in this particular legislation, but it does in the long run, because what we're dealing with, with consequences -- if kids know and understand that when they perform some criminal act there's going to be some consequence to that, then they're far less likely, all the sociologists, all the people in juvenile justice tell me far less likely, later on, as they progress, and they often do frequently with a long track record of things that never came before juvenile courts that should have probably, far less likely to get involved and commit those offenses, whether it's with a gun or without a gun. It's very, very important to do. Now, that's not to say that I disagree with Ms. Lofgren with regard to the fact there are other factors involved. The hearing on Thursday of this week in the full Judiciary Committee is going to focus largely on the culture question in the sense that we have such a high level of violence these kids are being exposed to -- many youngsters -- we're being told -- really don't understand the consequences of their acts and what is reality as a result of this. And that's occurred much more rapidly in recent years. So I agree with her to the extent that there's no single silver bullet to this in the sense of a solution, but to focus, as I've heard so many do recently, on the gun issue alone is really the wrong emphasis. It's not to say there aren't things we can do with that area, but the idea of the guns being the principal source of the problem here is not right either. PHIL PONCE: Representative Lofgren, in the short time we have left, what do you think is the likelihood Congress is going to come up with something given all that's happened? REP. ZOE LOFGREN: Well, I'm hopeful we can go to the sensible middle on gun measures. I mean, no one is saying that people who like to hunt shouldn't be able to go out and hunt. But I do think there are some reasonable, sensible things that we can do that will diminish the ability of kids to have access to guns when they shouldn't have them. And I also mentioned that a number of these kids in these shootings that have happened in these schools have never been involved in the juvenile justice system at all, and so wouldn't be subject to graduated sanctions, because they never got in that kind of trouble before. So we need to do the juvenile justice repair, we need to do something about the culture of violence, and we also need to do something about sensible control of guns with kids, And I'm hopeful that we will step up to the plate as the American people want us to do and accomplish all three of those things. PHIL PONCE: Representative Lofgren, Representative McCollum, I thank you both very much. REP. BILL McCOLLUM: Thank you.