The federal government launched a new effort Monday to crack down on juvenile crime by tracing the weapons used by youths to the original gun dealers.
The program aims to stem the number of homicides committed by teenagers with guns, a figure that has nearly tripled in the last two decades.
“We know gangs often buy in bulk from a single shadowy supplier,” said President Clinton at a White House news conference. “We need a national campaign to cut off the flow.”
Atty. Gen. Janet Reno emphasized the cooperative nature of the new gun-tracing system, which pools the resources of federal, state and local law enforcement agencies. “We’re not interested in who gets credit,” she said, but “in what is the best effort for the community involved.” Clinton said 17 communities will participate in the program, which could be expanded nationwide.
Under the plan, information from documents and serial numbers on confiscated weapons will be entered into a federal computer system run by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms.
“We will, for the first time, see that every time a gun is used in a crime and seized by law enforcement it will be tracked through a national tracing system to find out where it came from,” Clinton said. “Those who illegally peddle guns to our children will get a simple message: We will find you, we will prosecute you, and we will punish you.”
Eager to share in the law-and-order issue, Republican Bob Dole’s campaign described the tracing effort as “a sound idea and a step in the right direction.”
But the Dole campaign also called Clinton’s announcement “election-year acrobatics” for declaring a “new” program that first was proposed by the ATF in November 1993.
“Leave it to Bill Clinton to wait until four months before the election to embrace the idea,” said Dole campaign spokesman Nelson Warfield.
More Top Picks How A 2020 Eye Exam Can Miss Reading Vision Problems
Dole focused on juvenile violence during a radio address last Saturday, but Clinton’s expansion of the pilot project to track illegally obtained weapons trumped Dole on the issue.
The crime issue is a ticklish one, with candidates facing anti-crime sentiment among voters but also the politically sensitive question of gun control or gun registration, both of which risk the wrath of the powerful National Rifle Association.
To avoid that, the president’s staff noted that no new legislation is needed to implement the program because it already is illegal under federal law and the laws of most states to sell handguns to juveniles.
Sen. John Ashcroft (R-Mo.), who sponsored juvenile crime legislation, complained that Clinton’s proposal does not do enough to prosecute juveniles who commit gun crimes.
Reno cited statistics showing that the crime rate in Boston dropped five consecutive years, including a 9 percent drop in 1995, and attributed part of this decline to the city’s crackdown on gun violence. In one instance, police traced more than 10 weapons to a single illegal source.
One report showed that 51 percent of all guns used in crimes can be traced to only 1 percent of the 160,000 federally licensed gun dealers.
The president tried to link the gun-tracking initiative with his support for other youth-oriented programs, from requiring school uniforms to prevent gang attacks on students wearing the wrong colors, to combating truancy.