Guns, violence, death – hate and bigotry hit the homeland of America this past July 4th holiday. As millions waved American flags, sang patriotic songs, ate barbecue and drank beer – a 21 year old college student, armed with a .22 caliber pistol and a .380 caliber pistol: wounded six Orthodox Jewish men all wearing religious garb in the West Rogers Park Neighborhood of Chicago as they were leaving Sabbath services, killed Mr. Ricky Byrdsong a former Northwestern University basketball coach by shooting him in the back as Mr. Byrdsong was taking a walk with his son and his daughter, shot at an Asian couple in the Northbrook suburb, shot a black man crossing the street in Springfield, Illinois, shot two more black men 15 minutes later, shot a black minister in Decatur, shot a Taiwanese man as he was standing with five other Asian American men on a corner in Urbana, Illinois, shot Mr. Won Joon Yoon, a 26 year old Indiana University graduate student twice in the back killing the young student as he was leaving a Korean Methodist Church.

Last year on July 4th, the same person, Benjamin Smith, who later referred to himself as "August" instead of Benjamin because Benjamin sounded "too Jewish," was placing thousands of fliers under windshields around the Bloomington, Indiana area. His brochures expressed concern that the white race was being crowded out by Jews, blacks, and the "mud people," his term for Asians.

One year later he was doing more than pushing hate pamphlets; he on July 2,3, and 4th of this month was pulling pistol triggers killing, maiming and injuring 12 persons and shooting at even more.

There are all the questions. What was he like? Was he a nice boy? What did his parents do? One is a doctor, the other a real estate agent. What were the sayings about him in his yearbook. We’ve all read these questions. We read them after every shooting.

Two things stand out. He was recruited by Mr. Matthew Hale of East Peoria to join the World Church of the Creator, an anti-black, anti-Christian, anti-Jewish organization. Mr. Hale has been all over television since the shootings not offering one iota of sorrow and compassion for the victims or the families and loved ones who were hurt and killed. On the Today Show, Katie Couric asked him if he had compassion for the dead and wounded and this so called "church leader" said his religion didn’t include compassion for anyone except white people.

Another question we must always ask as we are embroiled in the gun safety issue is where did he get the guns and was he competent under the law to have them? Federal authorities have charged Donald Fiessinger an unlicensed gun dealer from central Illinois with selling the young white supremacist the two pistols. Records show that Mr. Fiessinger had purchased 65 handguns from one store apparently for resale.

Mayors have been pushing one gun a month legislation for over a year now. Others have joined us. This week Senator Richard Durbin of Illinois sent a letter to Mr. Wayne LaPierre of the National Rifle Association stating "It is clear no one person needs to purchase 65 handguns in a two year period for safety or recreation." Senator Durbin called on the NRA to support a "reasonable limit" on the number of handguns a person may buy each month or year. Senator Durbin now joins the mayors who have expressed deep concern about individuals accumulating arsenals for resale. We can no longer ignore the secondary market being provided to criminals and youths by persons like Mr. Fiessenger who is an unlicensed gun dealer. Mr. Fiessenger said the young killer who bought the pistols told him "he was going to use them for hunting."

Mr. Smith had tried to purchase guns in Peoria Heights last month, but a background check showed that a former girl friend, Elizabeth Sahr, had obtained a court protection order because he

had beaten her in his dorm room. That was in October of 1997 when in the same week, Mr. Smith was accused of possessing marijuana and fighting with other students. Ms. Sahr told reporters "He tried to keep his racism and his anti-Semitism hidden. People really need to pay more attention to domestic violence and racism." The Federal law which prohibits anyone under a protective court order in this case, prevented the person from getting a firearm. But in this case, the "secondary" market worked for this hate driven, bigoted young killer.

This person, this young man, the son of a doctor and a businesswoman is another product of suburbia. I make that statement to continue to make the point that the youth violence issue is not an urban problem. It’s rural, suburban, urban; it’s national. Mayors are telling this nation in the 1990s we must deal with this problem – look at it square in the face and do something about it. Gun violence from the youths of America doesn’t stop. We boast about how crime is down in big cities when our young people in the suburbs of Denver and Chicago are killing white, black and yellow Americans – gunning them down as they innocently, and joyously walk through their halls in schools, as they walk home carrying their bibles from their church, and as they stroll home from their Synagogues wearing their religious garments.

We watched Bloomington, Indiana Mayor John Fernandez emotionally talk to us on national television. He said he did not believe the killer was a member of a "well regulated militia" referring to the constitutional language concerning the right to bear arms. As we watched the Bloomington Mayor our hearts were still full for another Indiana Mayor, Scott King of Gary. Just a week before the shootings in the suburbs of Chicago and in the cities of Springfield, Decatur, Urbana and Bloomington, I forwarded to all of you the statement of Mayor King on the death of his nephew, Blake who was killed on June 30th.

"Since becoming Mayor of Gary three and one-half years ago, one of the principal goals has been the reduction of homicides and violent crime, particularly among young people whose ranks fill the roles of the killers and the killed. In addition to programs within the city, I have worked on this effort nationally with other mayors and at the state level, attempting to promote legislation to reduce the ease of availability of handguns to youth because the combination of that particular weapon and that particular age group has proven to be the most volatile and violent aspect of homicides in our nation.

Two nights ago, I was a guest speaker at a national convention in Los Angeles convened to discuss women’s health issues and urged the position that youth gun violence should be viewed as a public health issue.

Last night as I made my way home from that convention, my seventeen year old nephew, Blake, was killed. In Gary. With a handgun. By another teenager.

Witnesses say it began as an argument that led to both of them calling each other’s mother names and that they fought. They say Blake got the best of the other. They say he went home, stole his father’s gun and returned and shot Blake in the head.

The father did not do anything illegal under our law. He legally had the gun. He legally did not have to have a trigger lock or other safety mechanism in place because Congress and our legislature do not require that. When he found the gun missing, he immediately told the police.

Blake’s mother, my sister-in-law, did not do anything illegal. He was old enough to be left at home while she visited her sister.

But both must now deal with the destroyed lives of their children.

As Mayor, I have been to funerals, too many funerals, watching kids be buried under similar circumstances. But now, I will be at a funeral burying my nephew: A child that sat on my knee when he was in diapers. One of the horde of kids that occupied the "kids’ table" at Thanksgiving. A member of my family.

This just got personal

Scott L. King, Mayor

Every mayor in this Nation knows that because of the lack of action by the NRA, the Congress, some Governors and the state legislators, he or she may be the next one on television fighting back the tears of hurt and the rage because innocent people were killed. But the Gary loss was so personal for Mayor King. He knew this young man as the oldest son of his wife’s sister. This Thanksgiving Blake won’t be there with the Mayor and his family.

Mayor King, a former prosecutor and a defense attorney before he became mayor, has been a strong advocate for gun safety since he became mayor. We thank Mayor King for his leadership, his courage and his strength and we know that this loss will indeed create within him an even more determined passion and will, to do everything in his power in Gary and among us in this organization as we force the states and the nation to face the responsibility and help us stop the killing of Americans of all races in rural, suburban, and urban America.