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Clinton Urges Stiffer Penalties to Keep Guns From Kids

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<i> From Associated Press</i>

With the grieving mother of an Arkansas school shooting victim at his side, President Clinton urged states and Congress to impose stiffer penalties against gun owners who fail to keep firearms out of the reach of children.

“As parents, public officials, citizens, we simply cannot allow easy access to weapons that kill,” Clinton said Wednesday at a somber ceremony that put a human face on the problem of gun violence in schools.

Suzann Wilson, mother of 11-year-old Britthney Varner, who was among four girls and a teacher shot to death by two boys at Westside Middle School in Jonesboro, Ark., on March 24, choked back tears as she recalled that tragic day when “my life was changed forever.”

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Wilson said the school boys who opened fire that day had broken into the home of one boy’s grandfather and taken several rifles and more than 500 rounds of ammunition. They earlier had tried but failed to get guns from a locked safe in one of their own homes.

“It was those guns and that ammunition that they had used to shoot the four children who died and injure the 10,” she said.

In an emotional plea, she urged that Americans everywhere learn from Jonesboro’s tragedy.

“To every gun owner in America, I want to say: Please, please, for the sake of the children, lock up your guns. Don’t let your children borrow the gun, or don’t let them steal the gun. Be responsible. Don’t let your gun become an instrument of murder. Don’t let what happened in Jonesboro happen to your town,” she said.

Clinton thanked Wilson for having the courage to talk about the school shootings so soon afterward.

“Most people wouldn’t feel like going out of the house, much less coming all the way to Washington,” the president said, adding that he felt a personal connection to the tragedy.

Clinton expressed his support for a bipartisan Senate proposal for legislation that would hold adults criminally responsible if they allowed children easy access to loaded firearms. The proposal is co-sponsored by Sens. Richard Durbin (D-Ill.) and John H. Chafee (R-R.I.).

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