LITTLETON, Colo. (AP) -- From their terror and tears of one month ago, Columbine High School students made for President Clinton -- and the nation -- a foot-stomping pep rally, their raised fists shaped to sign ``I love you.'' Clinton, who faces next a battle in the House over gun control, pressed the students to lend their conquering spirit to his fledgling national campaign against youth violence. He sounded at a loss to address the latest eruption of school gunfire -- in Conyers, Ga. -- and said briefly that it was ``deeply troubling to me.'' ``Thankfully no one was killed, but it should never have happened,'' Hillary Rodham Clinton said. The president and first lady spoke Thursday to the Colorado community shattered on April 20 when two Columbine students opened fire on their classmates, killing 13 and injuring 23. ``We love you, and we need you,'' Clinton told Columbine students, rescuers and community leaders assembled in the gymnasium of Dakota Ridge High School. Columbine High is still a closed crime scene. That tragedy ``pierced the soul of America'' and gave the Columbine community a national voice, Clinton said. ``You've got to help us here. ... You can help us to keep guns out of the wrong hands.'' It was a soft-pedaled plea at the close of a bitter fight in the Senate for tighter gun restrictions. After angry calls from constituents, the Senate on Thursday approved a Democratic plan to require background checks for buyers at gun shows. Vice President Al Gore cast the deciding vote; Clinton called him from Air Force One with congratulations. The battle now shifts to the House Judiciary Committee where Georgia Rep. Bob Barr, a board member of the National Rifle Association, holds a seat in the Republican majority. Stepping inside Dakota Ridge's gymnasium after a private, emotional visit with families of the dead students and teacher, the Clintons appeared to be surprised by the festive atmosphere. Students in white Columbine T-shirts stood on folding chairs, stomped their feet on the bleachers, and led a cheer that bounced from one side of the gym to the other: ``We are ... Columbine! We are ... Columbine!'' Mrs. Clinton said she was struck by their enthusiasm: ``It was a real statement about who you are and, indeed, who we all are. Because in a very real way, what happened here at Columbine has so deeply affected the rest of our country that we are all Columbine.'' Jessica Rauh, 15, a Columbine freshman, said it was important to put on a positive face for the Clintons' visit. ``We have a lot of school spirit and we wanted people to know that.'' The president surveyed the student body -- predominantly white and upper middle class -- and said, ``When America looks at Jefferson County, many of us see a community not very much different from our own. We know if this can happen here, it can happen anywhere.'' Mrs. Clinton noted that Columbine seniors will graduate on Saturday, and she recalled the summer their own daughter, Chelsea, graduated from high school. ``I remember the conversations around our kitchen table and listening to her friends as they were planning their summer, or thinking about college, or going to work.'' At Columbine, she said, graduates should also think about how to take their school tragedy and ``use it to make more opportunities for others to live the kind of lives we would have wished for those who were lost.'' -=-=- 