No Easy Answers in the Ol’ War on Crime : Clinton takes bipartisan tack in anti-crime message

Americans increasingly do not feel safe anywhere, whether in cities, suburbs or rural areas. Although President Clinton’s recently announced anti-crime package, an amalgam of bills already introduced in Congress, is not perfect, it does form a base from which Democrats and Republicans should be able to reach agreement in attempting to deal with this grave concern.

Clinton proposes to relieve this pervasive and justified fear by putting more cops on the streets and keeping more guns out of criminal hands. The proposals would fund 50,000 new officers over five years. The formula used to allocate the $3.4 billion in grants to states and cities has not been determined, but Los Angeles, the biggest city with a low ratio of police to residents, could use thousands of additional members on its police force.

Mayor Richard Riordan would certainly do back flips on the steps of City Hall for federal help to make good on his campaign pledge to add 3,000 officers to the Police Department. The LAPD currently employs 7,600 officers, far too few to patrol a city of this size.

Also, Chief Willie L. Williams wants more cops in order to bolster the department’s admirable commitment to community policing. But the chief cautions that the current capacity of the Police Academy allows the department to train only 600 to 650 new officers a year. Perhaps with the help of the feds the LAPD could increase the capacity of the academy or accelerate the training--without shortchanging the rookie officers and the citizens who will depend on those new cops.

To get more guns off the streets, Clinton already has ordered the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms to tighten the federal licensing rules for gun dealers. The current regulations allow licenses to be granted when an applicant merely pays a $30 registration fee, with no criminal background check.

Clinton also ordered the ATF to ban the importing of foreign assault weapons, such as the Israeli-made Uzi. That ban is largely symbolic, because most assault weapons are made in the United States. The President seeks to ban domestic assault weapons, too, but that legislation is sure to trigger political heat from the National Rifle Assn.

To his credit, Clinton is the first President to back the Brady bill, which would mandate a five-day waiting period for gun purchases. That worthwhile legislation carries the name of James S. Brady, the former White House press secretary who was severely and permanently injured during an assassination attempt on President Ronald Reagan. Brady took a bullet for his boss, but that sacrifice has failed to persuade many in Congress to bite the bullet and support sensible control of arms. Let this session be the one in which Congress breaks free of the chains of the gun lobby.

Many Republicans will find plenty to support in Clinton’s package. The President, in contrast to many of his Democratic colleagues, supports the death penalty. He proposes to limit the federal appeals that an inmate is allowed to file while on Death Row. This restriction would speed execution dates--perhaps at the expense of the deaths of innocent people who had been wrongly convicted. That would neither reduce crime nor increase justice.