"We have heard from our citizens. They want action. Congress must respond," Conference President and denver Mayor Wellington E. Webb said as more than fifty mayors, thirty police chiefs and major interfaith leaders took their message of common-sense gun safety reforms to the nation's capital on September 9, 1999: Gun Safety Day.

Under the leadership of Mayor Webb, the bi-partisan coalition called on Congress to pass gun safety legislation as it returned to work following a month-long recess, and as the nation's children returned to school.

Gun Safety Day activities included a breakfast meeting, kick-off event with President Clinton in the White House, rally on the steps of the Capitol with Congressional supporters, and a lunch meeting with Congressional leadership.

The Conference also released a survey entitled The Death Toll Since Columbine: Victims of Gun Violence in Cities which shows the continued death toll from gun violence in America's cities since the tragic shooting at Columbine High School on April 20. (see story on page 1)

In explaining the need for Gun Safety Day, Mayor Webb quoted the fact that in 1997, 4,223 children under the age of 19 died of gun-related injuries. "This means that every day in America, nearly 12 young people died of gunshot wounds," Webb said. (see fact sheet on page 4)

Webb added that the new survey released by the Conference, "makes it clear that, while Columbine may have been the event that moved a nation to say, Ôthis has got to stop,' the fact is, it has not stopped. There have been highly visible incidents since Columbine: the high school shootings in Conyers, Georgia; the racist rampage in Illinois and Indiana; the killings by the day trader in Atlanta; the killings of co-workers in Pelham, Alabama; and, most recently, the shootings at a Jewish Community Center in Los Angeles."

"And there has been the day-to-day carnage in cities -- the gun deaths that do not usually appear in the national news," Webb stressed.

"This is the reason that the Conference of Mayors proclaimed today ÔGun Safety Day,' a day designed to focus attention on the importance of keeping guns away from kids and criminals," Mayor Webb said.

Joining Mayor Webb in planning and leading the day's events were the co-chairs of the Conference's Gun Violence Task Force, Mayors Clarence Harmon of St. Louis and Joseph P. Ganim of Bridgeport. The day was actively supported by the Major Cities Chiefs organization, represented by their Vice Chair Sheriff Jerry Keller of Clark County Nevada, and endorsed by the International Association of Chiefs of Police.

Gun Safety Day also had the strong support of a coalition of interfaith leaders organized by the National Council of Churches at the request of Mayor Webb.

Closing the Gun Show Loophole

The United States Senate has passed, as part of its juvenile justice bill, gun safety measures that would close existing legal loopholes and offer greater protections for children including:

• closing the gun show loophole by requiring background checks by non-licensed dealers and allowing three business days for the background work to be completed if necessary;

• banning the importation of large capacity (more than ten rounds) ammunition "clips," which are already banned from domestic production; and

• requiring that child safety locks be provided with every handgun sold in the United States.

As Mayor Webb said in the White House event, "while the Senate bill does not include every gun safety provision the nation's mayors would like to see enacted, they are a powerful start."

However, the House version of the juvenile justice bill contains no gun safety provisions. Mayor Webb said that, "the House must accept these measures in its conference with the Senate, and Congress must send strong gun safety legislation to the President right away."

Clinton Says Facts Support Legislative Effort

In the formal kick-off event for Gun Safety Day, the mayors and police chiefs joined President Clinton in the White House. Also participating in the event were Attorney General Janet Reno, Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers, and Housing and Urban Develpment Affairs Secretary Andrew Cuomo.

In introducing President Clinton, Mayor Webb credited the President for his leadership on the 1994 crime bill, and for his continued leadership on law enforcement issues. Webb added that "I think we [the mayors] are the foot soldiers. We are the ones that keep our cities safe. But we need a little air support from Congress."

President Clinton announced the findings of two new reports by the Federal Bureau of Investigations and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms showing the importance of the Brady background checks and cooperation in enforcement of gun laws.

A report on the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) found that in its first seven months of operation, the NICS conducted over 4.7 million background checks and blocked an estimated 100,000 prohibited gun sales -- bringing the total number of sales stopped to felons, fugitives, and other prohibited persons to over 400,000 since the Brady Law took effect.

The report also found that while the vast majority of background checks are completed swiftly -- over 75 percent within 30 seconds, 95 percent within 2 hours, when a check cannot be completed within 24 hours, the individual being checked is nearly 20 times more likely to be a felon or other prohibited buyer than the average purchaser.

This is why President Clinton, the mayors and police chiefs are opposing the House effort to reduce the amount of time for conducting background checks at gun shows.

As President Clinton said, "if the FBI had only 24 hours to do a background check, as some in Congress are proposing, instead of 3 business days under current law, 20,000 prohibited purchasers -- over 41 percent of FBI denials -- would have received guns."

"Gun violence is still too much a part of America's life," President Clinton said. This point was echoed by Philadelphia Police Commissioner John F. Timoney, who also spoke in the White House and said that, "in Philadelphia, 80 percent of the homicides are committed with guns."

President Clinton added that "the rate of accidental shooting deaths for children under 15 in the United States is nine times higher than the rate for the other 25 industrialized nations combined."

In pushing Congress to take action, Clinton said, "Now that the lawmakers are back in town, it would be unconscionable if they would leave again without sending me a balanced, bi-partisan juvenile justice crime bill that closes the gun show loophole, requires child safety locks, and bans the importation of large capacity ammunition clips."

President Clinton also announced a $15 million HUD initiative to help create nationwide community gun buy-back programs. Under the initiative, HUD funds will go to public housing agencies, which will then distribute the funds to local police departments to conduct buybacks at a suggested price of $50 each - either in cash or in the form of gift certificates for food, toys, or other goods. HUD will use funding from its Drug Elimination Grant Program for the gun buyback initiative.

Each police department participating in the initiative will be eligible to get up to $500,000 in HUD funds - enough to purchase up to 10,000 guns in a city according to HUD.

COPS Program Must be Funded

"Five years ago, it was a bi-partisan delegation of mayors and police chiefs who came to Washington, DC to help President Clinton move the crime bill through Congress," Mayor Webb reminded the audience in the White House.

"That bill contained the critically important COPS program which has greatly helped us reduce crime and make our cities safer. As we stand here today on Gun Safety Day, we also want to emphasize our strong support for the continuation of the COPS program, and urge Congress to fully fund the program rather than slashing its funding as currently proposed," Mayor Webb added to strong applause.

Gun Safety Message Taken to Capitol Hill

At the rally on the steps of the Capitol, the mayors and police chiefs were joined by a bi- partisan delegation of Senators and Representatives in calling for immediate action on gun safety.

Senate Minority Leaders Tom Daschle (SD) helped begin the rally and said, "its time to stop protecting the gun lobby, and start protecting America's children."

"What we have here today on the steps of the Capitol of the United States, the peoples' house, are mayors, men and women who are talking to parents and children, and have an important message: put children first," Sen. Ted Kennedy (MA) told the gathered reporters at the rally.

Sen. Frank Lautenberg (NJ) observed, "the mayors and police officers must be shaking their heads in wonderment... in this peoples' house, not a hundred a feet away, two innocent police officers lost their lives because a deranged man got his fathers' gun... all guns have to be protected from inappropriate holders."

In helping to conclude the remarks at the rally, Fort Wayne Mayor Paul Helmke said, "just as the guns and the bullets and their victims don't reflect partisan differences, gun safety and proponents of gun safety don't reflect partisan differences."

Following the rally, the mayors and police chiefs held a lunch meeting with members of the Congressional leadership including House Minority Leader Richard A. Gephardt. Mayor Webb used the opportunity to specifically thank Rep. Rosa DeLauro (CT), who helped the Conference organize the Capitol Hill activities for Gun Safety Day.

Interfaith Community Prays for Action

Major leaders from the interfaith community heeded Mayor Webb's call to join with the nation's mayors and police chiefs in support of Gun Safety Day.

Rev. Dr. Joan Brown Campbell, General Secretary of the National Council of Churches, Rev. Dr. C. Welton Gaddy, Executive Director of The Interfaith Alliance, Rabbi David Saperstein, Executive Director of the Reform Action Center of Reform Judaism and Imam Ghayth Kashif of Masjid As-Shura joined together to call upon members of Congress to close loopholes in current gun laws and to heed the concerns of people of faith from around the nation seeking an end to the rampant and senseless violence.

"The core values that we share in our different faiths bring us here today to stand with and affirm the message of our mayor's and police chiefs on Gun Safety Day... We call upon our members of Congress to demonstrate courage and faith by passing effective gun control laws," said Rev. C. Welton Gaddy.

"People of faith all across this land are grateful to all public officials willing to take a stand against violence and against weapons that turn violence into murder. Each of the Abrahamic faith traditions understand violence to be a failure of the human spirit, a denial of the ethic of love and life to which we are called," said Dr. Joan Brown Campbell.

As Rosh Hashanah was set to begin at sundown, Rabbi Saperstein spoke of the hope for change, "in Jewish life, the turning of the year is a time of looking forward... a time when we believe that that which was not possible before is possible in the coming year. And so it is that I stand here today with the fervent hope and a renewed belief that stronger gun control legislation - legislation that has heretofore been stonewalled, filibustered, pushed back, amended, weakened, denied, so many times before - can be passed."

The Interfaith Alliance will be calling on its 80,000 members and 10,000 cyber-activists to contact members of Congress to pass tough gun safety laws.