Clinton Calls U.S. a 'Dangerous' Country in Pitch for His Crime Bill : Violence: Measure would provide more police, fewer guns. GOP says President's legislation doesn't go far enough.

Clinton Calls U.S. a ‘Dangerous’ Country in Pitch for His Crime Bill : Violence: Measure would provide more police, fewer guns. GOP says President’s legislation doesn’t go far enough.

By EDWIN CHEN

Oct. 24, 1993 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

WASHINGTON — Calling America “the most dangerous big country in the world,” President Clinton made a strong pitch Saturday for his crime bill, vowing to end the “explosion of crime and violence” that has made personal safety one of the top public concerns.

In his weekly radio address, the President said his anti-crime legislation, scheduled for Senate debate this week, provides “more police, fewer guns, tougher laws and new alternatives for first offenders.”

“The American people increasingly feel that they’re not secure in their homes, on their streets or even in their schools,” Clinton said.

In the GOP response, Sen. Larry Pressler (R-S.D.) said the President’s bill does not go far enough, and he urged public support instead for Republican proposals that he said would, among other things, impose the death penalty on “drug kingpins.”

Clinton’s talk on crime emphasized security--a recurring theme that the President has sought to weave throughout his broad domestic agenda, including health care reform, expanded trade and an economic revival.

Noting that the United States has “a higher percentage of our people behind bars than any other nation in the world,” Clinton said: “This explosion of crime and violence is changing the way our people live, making too many of us hesitant, often paralyzed with fear at a time when we need to be bold.”

He called for tougher gun control laws, including a ban on assault weapons and a five-day waiting period for the purchase of handguns to allow for background checks.

“Today there are more than 200 million guns on our streets, and we have more federally licensed gun dealers who, believe it or not, can get a license from your federal government for only $10, than we have gas stations,” Clinton said.

His bill, sponsored by Sen. Joesph R. Biden Jr. (D-Del.), chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, is “based on a simple philosophy and a simple message: We need more police, fewer guns, and different alternatives for people who get in trouble,” the President said.

The proposal calls for at least 50,000 more police officers on the streets, Clinton said.

In addition, he said, “we want to put more power in the hands of local communities and give them more options so that first-time offenders can be sent to boot camps and to other programs that we know work to rehabilitate people who use drugs, and to give our children a way out of a life of crime and jail. We also are recharting the way we fight the drug problem.”

Clinton promised greater focus on “the hard-core users--those who make up the worst part of the drug problems that fuel crime and violence, who are helping a whole new generation of children to grow up in chaos, who are driving up our health care costs because of the violence and the drug use.”

Clinton said he believes Americans are now “sick and tired of living in fear (and) are prepared to reach beyond the slogans and the easy answers to support what works, to experiment with new ideas and to finally, finally do something about this crime and violence.”

Pressler said Republicans “want to stop the endless legal appeals that keep states from enforcing the death penalty. Hardened criminals on Death Row should only get one bite at the apple. That’s it.”

He said the GOP bill imposes an additional 10-year prison term for crimes committed with a gun. “If the gun is fired, he will get 20 years. If he uses an assault weapon, he will get 30 years mandatory sentence,” Pressler said.

“And anyone convicted of a gun-related offense three times gets either life in prison or a death penalty. A career criminal should be a career prisoner.”