I shouldn't be surprised when politicians use holidays to promote their favorite project. After all, it's a common political occurrence. But Hillary Clinton, the New York senatorial candidate in waiting, took the practice to a new level when she turned a Mother's Day event into a high profile call for more gun control. According to the New York Times reporter Katherine Q. Seeley, "Hillary Rodham Clinton used an emotional White House ceremony Saturday to call on Americans to press Congress to 'buck the gun lobby' and pass several gun control measures." The Saturday event at the White House featured a tearful Hillary showcasing the parents of three children, who were either wounded or murdered in the Columbine massacre. It wouldn't surprise me to see gun prohibition as one of her political priorities. What a team: Hillary Clinton and Chuck Schumer!

So it wasn't surprising that the Clinton summit on youth violence held two days after Hillary's Mother's Day event, again showcased Hillary as well as Vice President Al Gore and his wife Tipper. This high profile event included representatives of the movie, music, broadcast, cable, software and firearms industries, as well as clergy, law enforcement personnel, doctors and academics. Of course, Bill and Hillary's good friends, Jim and Sarah Brady, were in attendance, while The National Rifle Association was specifically not invited. Even CBS news correspondent Eric Engberg commented on the guest list by saying, "several Hollywood moguls ducked the meeting, the White House barred the press and pointedly did not invite the nation's best-known voice for gun rights, Charlton Heston."

James M. Broder of the New York Times predicted that "The President, in effect, will try to find a space between the First Amendment's protection of free speech and the Second Amendment's guarantee of the right to bear arms." So the summit on violence will produce a new "study" on violence by Surgeon General David Satcher, who like Hillary Clinton, has a definitely negative point of view towards the Second Amendment. I predict that any report will parrot the Clinton proposals for gun control legislation.

Although the summit was originally going to focus on violence and the media, President Clinton mildly scolded the entertainment industry for their excessive violence. He limited his recommendation to voluntary restraints. The few representatives of the entertainment industry who attended the "summit" were unwilling to admit any responsibility for their gratuitous depiction of violence wherever it occurred: movies, television or music. As Jack Valenti, the president of the Motion Picture Association, who was invited, said, "You can't tell a director what to do, [but] an increasing number believe they can expunge from their films the things that are gratuitous."

Of course, Bill Clinton will not attack the entertainment industry because of their large financial support of the Democrats. Coincidentally this weekend Bill Clinton flies to California to be at a $1.5 million Democratic Party fundraiser hosted by David Geffen, the Hollywood music mogul and co-founder of Dreamworks SKG studio.

If you want to know which amendment is going to suffer as a result of the Columbine massacre; it's easy with this president, just follow the money. After all the First Amendment is being supporting by the promise of $1.5 million now and much more later on, while antagonists of the Second Amendment routinely are guests of honor at the White House.

The choice is easy. Go after guns and law-abiding gun owners. Both Hollywood and the media will cheer you on. And on Capitol Hill fellow Democrats will promote the anti-gun agenda. This week we are witnessing the U.S. Senate debating the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Bill. As of today the Senate has defeated all Democrat initiated gun-control proposals.

Yet long after the rhetoric from the Clintons, Diane Feinstein, Ted Kennedy, and others has died down, the real problem will remain. There are, if one looks, some clues as to what the problem is and where the answers lie. One of these clues is in 1995 federal study on juvenile crime. The study, ***"Urban Delinquency and Substance Abuse Initial Findings Research Summary,*** http://www.tyc.state.tx.us/prevention/urbdelin.htm found that "boys who own legal firearms have much lower rates of delinquency and drug use and are even slightly less delinquent than nonowners of guns."

The study looked at 20,000 randomly selected households and found that the availability of legally owned firearms among teenagers was inversely related to delinquency and criminal behavior. According to the study, "Those who own legal guns have fathers who own guns for sport and hunting. Those who own illegal guns have friends who own illegal guns and are far more likely to be gang members." In other words, it's not the gun, stupid; it's the delinquent kid and his/her chosen friends.

Dr. Helen Smith, a forensic psychologist, who was not invited to the White House summit, agrees with the "Urban Delinquency" findings and she has some suggestions. She has just authored an article, "It's Not the Guns," where she exposes the HCI-Clinton proposition that ready access to guns leads to juvenile violence. She writes, "The availability-of-guns explanation assumes that otherwise harmless, even nearly normal, kids become dangerous only in the presence of guns. The truth is that these kids are dangerous anyway." Her premise is that we are raising violent kids who will use whatever they can find: propane tanks, timers, pipes, bleach, or guns, and no one is paying attention until after the violence erupts.

She goes on to say, "Political quick fixes ... won't solve the problem. ... Instead of symbolic solutions, we need more counselors in schools, a "zero tolerance" program for bullying and ostracism at least as tough as those aimed at weapons and drugs, and a recognition that kids in trouble with juvenile authorities are most likely to pose a risk in the future."

Unfortunately, all we will see from this administration and most of our politicians is feel-good rhetoric and more gun laws. If that doesn't cure the problem, the cycle of holding conferences, affixing blame, and passing another gun law will repeat itself. After all, since 1968 we have passed more and more gun laws and the problem of violence remains. Sometimes, I wonder how long do we have to keep doing something that doesn't work before we finally realize it is not the solution. It's a crime that there are many troubled children who need real help, not a quick fix like one more gun law.