ANOTHER LAW ISN'T A SOLUTION

You've got to hand it to President Clinton, who is a master at turning anything, including death and mayhem, into a headline-grabbing sound bite.

His latest bit of PR virtuosity came in the wake of a shooting spree by a white supremacist who left two persons dead and at least eight more injured. Benjamin Smith's actions can in no way be condoned, and he certainly stirred up the wrath of a nation weary of real-life violence that matches the make-believe world of TV and movies.

Clinton captured the media spotlight, once again, by calling for stiffer anti-hate crime laws -- laws that presumably would be harsher than those already on the books for murder and other dastardly deeds. The idea of such laws, it appears, is that evil people would think twice about killing someone they hate because of skin color or ethnic origin.

In this particular case, Clinton's social remedy du jour would have had little impact. How do you punish someone like Smith who goes on a rampage and then kills himself?

The call for more laws after senseless violence occurs again highlights how too many of leaders think there is a law to solve every problem.

If that were true, there wouldn't be any crime, because there is a law against just about anything anyone could possible think of.

What we need is fewer bland ideas for more laws and more effort at restoring fundamental unit of society: the family.