White House to Take On Issue of Youth Violence, Clinton Announces

President Clinton said Friday he will convene a White House meeting in 10 days to search out the reasons why children and teenagers turn to violence and determine what can be done to help them resolve their differences peacefully.

With the nation in debate over whether the blame for tragedies such as that in Littleton, Colo., rests with the availability of guns, the prevalence of violence in popular culture, or loose parental supervision, Clinton said, “Let’s bury the hatchet and build a future for our children.”

For Clinton, the meeting offers an opportunity to place himself in the midst of an emotional debate, in the role of First Father, seeking to bring together diverse elements of American culture.

Few of the likely participants, however, offered encouragement that the president’s goals for the one-day conference on May 10 will be easily met: Advocates of gun control said the blame rests not with Hollywood or video games but with the availability of weapons; a gun owners’ group said the problem lies in efforts to keep law-abiding citizens--or even school administrators--from having weapons to defend themselves.

“There is tremendous access to guns here,” said David Geffen, a founder of DreamWorks SKG and longtime Clinton supporter. “To blame it on culture is making a great mistake. Look at France, Germany, England, Japan--they have the same entertainment, but they don’t have this level of violence. American culture dominates throughout the world, but the level of violence here doesn’t exist anywhere else.”

Clinton discussed his plan in an interview broadcast by NBC News Thursday night. He expanded on it in a 10-minute statement he delivered to reporters summoned to the Rose Garden on Friday afternoon. He said he and First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton, who will take part in the meeting along with Vice President Al Gore and his wife, Tipper, had talked earlier in the week about convening such a meeting.

So, too, had Sen. John McCain of Arizona, who is embarked on a race for the Republican presidential nomination, and several other senators and members of the House of Representatives. On Wednesday they asked the White House to convene an “emergency summit” of the entertainment industry.

Clinton said his meeting would include figures from the religious community and education; gun users, manufacturers of explosives and advocates of gun control; and authorities representing the broad spectrum of American culture, including video games, movies and the Internet.

His remarks foreshadowed the difficulties the meeting might encounter, as did the comments of potential participants.

“We should recognize the simple truth that there is no simple single answer,” he said. “We should not be fighting about who takes the blame. Instead, we should all be looking for ways to take responsibility, and we should be doing that together. As we have united in grief, now we should unite in action.”

On the president’s list of potential culprits: lax gun laws, “the blizzard of popular communications that too often undermine” values taught by parents, violent Web sites and video games that, for “vulnerable and isolated” youngsters “can seem more real than conversations at home or lessons at school,” and the often-cruel culture of clannish teenagers.

Directing his message to youngsters, he said: “Next week, if you have not already done so, I ask every student in America to look for someone at school who is not in your group.”

“There have always been different crowds in schools and there always will be,” said Clinton, who has told how other kids taunted him as a child because he was overweight. “But it should not be an occasion for disrespect or hostility in our schools. . . .”

His announcement brought a quizzical response from the entertainment industry, a willingness to take part in the debate, and, as with the others now in the spotlight, the suggestion that at least some of the blame rests elsewhere.

“No one is sure what Bill Clinton wants. Is he going to admonish Hollywood? Is he going to support Hollywood?” asked Larry Lyttle, president of Big Ticket Television, which produces, among other television shows, “Judge Judy” and “Moesha.”

“The entertainment industry is, was and always will be an easy target. There’s no one person who takes the blame here. We’re all duly culpable,” he said. “But the reality is you have to look at the home. This isn’t an Orwellian society were television tells everyone what to do.”

Mike Medavoy, former head of TriStar Pictures and now chairman and CEO of Phoenix Pictures, which produced the World War II battle film “The Thin Red Line,” supported a “two-way dialogue” but added: “Whether they can control filmmakers from making films that depict some violence is a real question mark in my mind because violence is a part of our society and is real. Movies and television and other media reflect society.”

“When we were making ‘The Thin Red Line’ and Steven Spielberg was making ‘Saving Private Ryan,’ the violence was naturally a part of those films. We, in effect, did reflect society, which is what movies do,” Medavoy said.

Geffen said that when he ran Geffen Records, he balked at selling music with violent lyrics.

“But at the end of the day,” he said, referring to the massacre in Colorado, “is it music that killed these kids? No, I don’t believe that.”

The spokesman for the Gun Owners of America, John Velleco, said the conference should consider the role of guns in preventing violence.

Laws that prohibit carrying concealed weapons, he said, have “disarmed by government policy” school workers who, if armed, could put up a defense when students open fire.

At Handgun Control Inc., Brian Morton, an associate director for communications, said that “while there are a lot of questions regarding American culture, when it comes to children and violence, it starts with guns. To say Hollywood plays a part or video games or the Internet really doesn’t go to the heart of the matter. Children have been playing video games and going to movies for years. It doesn’t become an issue until a gun enters the picture.”

And one veteran of Republican administrations even questioned the propriety of the president calling the meeting, asking, “Is he going to be the First Empathizer or the Values Coach? It’s difficult for him to talk about values in light of his record.”

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Times staff writers Robert W. Welkos and Geoff Boucher in Los Angeles contributed to this story.