Flanked by a bi-partisan group of Senators and Representatives, the First Lady and members of his Cabinet, President Bill Clinton unveiled a major package of gun safety initiatives on April 27.

Fort Wayne Mayor Paul Helmke, Immediate Past President of the Conference, attended the announcement and expressed the strong support of mayors for the package.

Included in the package are the following provisions, many of which have already been introduced as individual bills in Congress:

• Reduce illegal gun running by limiting handgun sales to no more than one per month per person;
• Extend the Brady Law's background checks to purchases of explosives;
• Close the gun show loophole to require Brady background checks on all sales;
• Create a three-day cooling-off period for the purchase of a handgun;
• Extend the Brady Law to violent juveniles past their 21st birthdays;
• Raise the youth handgun ban from 18 to 21 years of age;
• Ban juvenile possession of semiautomatic assault rifles;
• Hold adults criminally liable for child access to unsecured guns, known as a Child Access Prevention (CAP) law;
• Require child safety locks for all guns sold;
• Increase penalties for transferring guns to juveniles;
• Allow law enforcement to trace all firearms used in crimes, including guns sold on the secondary market;
• Double the Youth Crime Gun Interdiction Initiative which currently funds the tracing of crime guns to their source in 37 cities;
• Increase penalties for gun kingpins;
• Increase inspections of licensed gun dealers to reduce illegal trafficking; and
• Ban the importation of all large capacity ammunition clips.

While the President had endorsed many of these proposals over the last several months, several new initiatives were included in the package following the Columbine school shootings including the "one handgun per month" proposal - a top Conference priority designed to reduce illegal straw purchasing.

In addition to "one handgun per month," almost every proposal listed mirrors the recommendations of the Conference's Gun Violence Task Force, chaired by Mayor Edward Rendell of Philadelphia. In addition, many of these initiatives are strongly endorsed in the Conference's National Action Plan on School Violence and Kids from 2:00 to 8:00pm.

President Clinton stressed that this effort has nothing to do with limiting anyone's right to hunt or sports shoot. Rather, he urged Americans to reject the culture of fear which has been perpetrated by the National Rifle Association, and instead support modest gun safety proposals which can make children and all Americans safer.

Sen. John Chafee (RI) rejected what he called, "a distorted interpretation of the Constitution that convinces otherwise rational citizens that it is their inalienable right to be armed to the teeth."

Gun safety measures have been consistently opposed by the House and Senate leadership, and it is unclear how and if this package of measures will be allowed to move forward for debate.

Commenting on this problem President Clinton remarked, "We can pass it all if the American people want it bad enough, and we don't need to go through another Littleton for the American people to want it bad enough."

House Speaker Dennis Hastert (IL), who along with Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott (MS) has called for a "national conference on youth and culture," commented following the President's remarks that, "Another law and a couple of new programs won't do it alone. We must engage in a national dialogue to protect our children's future."