Excerpts from Friday's debate in Nashua, New Hampshire, between Democratic presidential candidates Vice President Al Gore and former Sen. Bill Bradley as transcribed by the Federal Document Clearing House and shown on ABC's Nightline:

The candidates were asked how to prevent school violence:

GORE: We need to get rid of the guns, get them out of the hands of the people who shouldn't have them. We should have a policy of zero tolerance in schools.

I think we need better parenting. And I don't think that's a cop-out, I think we need to focus on the policies that make it easier for parents to balance work and family, and take more time off to be with their children, to have more attention to their needs.

I think, also, we need more self-restraint in the media. You know, 20,000 murders viewed by the average child by the time of high school graduation is just ridiculous.

BRADLEY: I think that the first thing that we need--and this is not in order of priority--the first thing we need is common-sense gun control in this country that keeps guns out of the hands of children.

I'm the only candidate in this race who's called for mandatory licensing and registration of all handguns in this country. I would like to take all gun dealers out of residential neighborhoods, so that if kids walk down the block, they can't get the gun in a basement that they have to go to a commercial place at least where they can be better policed.

And I believe that the media has some responsibility. When I look at -- whether it's gun dealers or tobacco companies, or large media enterprises, I think they have to be careful about putting their own personal financial interests ahead of all of us. And there needs to be a new ethic of responsibility in this country.

The candidates were asked about their health care proposals:

BRADLEY: I think we have to help middle-class Americans also pay for their health coverage, and we have to help cover 44 million Americans who don't have any health insurance.

I've offered a plan to do that. It's a plan that will make access to affordable health care available to everyone in this country. It saves billions of dollars in waste and fraud. It provides a prescription drug benefit for the elderly.

And I think that the question that I would ask Al is that the difference, the main difference between our programs is that I do provide access to affordable quality health care for all Americans and his plan does not.

So my question to you is, who will you leave out? Will you leave out the part-time worker who doesn't have health insurance? Will you leave out the downsized middle-class industrial worker who loses health insurance?

GORE: Look, there are teaching hospitals in New England right now that are short of Medicare funds. They're nursing homes, and home health care agencies, and rehabilitative services, and rural hospitals that need more Medicare funding right now.

We're going to see a doubling of the Medicare population over the next 30 years. The baby boomer generation is getting ready to retire. Everybody knows that more money has to be made available to Medicare. Now when you eliminate the whole surplus without saving a penny for Medicare, that is a serious problem for our economy.

The candidates were asked how much a candidate should share with the public about their religion:

BRADLEY: "In my own case, I've decided that personal faith is private, and I will not discuss it with the public. So I am not going to get into the kind of things you saw in that debate in Iowa last week. And I think it's every candidate's personal choice. I respect anyone that handles it any way they choose to handle it, but that's how I choose to handle it."

GORE: "I affirm my faith when I'm asked about it. But I always try to do so in a way that communicates absolute respect, not only for people who worship in a different way, but just as much respect for those who do not believe in God and who are atheists. Atheists have just as much of a right to the public discourse as any -- as people of any religious faith in this country."

The candidates were asked if the country should send a person to Mars:

GORE: "With Mars there are two distinctions. Number one, as the recent two failures of these robotic landers show, there's still a lot we don't know. Second, the cost is in a completely different order of magnitude as the cost of a moon program.

"There's no doubt that, eventually, we will land a human being on Mars. But we are right now, not at a point of where it makes good sense to outline that."

BRADLEY: "Now, my personal view of the answer to your question is no. I will not set a target to get to Mars by any particular date. I will not do that because I haven't been convinced that we can do so in a period of time. I think investment in space is important. Investment in space is important because of the research fallout. I would continue to make investment in space, but I would not make a commitment to Mars by a particular date."

The candidates were asked about gay and lesbian rights:

BRADLEY: "I ... believe that gays should be allowed to serve openly in the military. I mean, if a gay American can serve openly in the White House, in the Justice Department, in the Congress, in the Supreme Court, I don't see why a gay American can't serve openly in the military.

"On gay marriage, I don't support gay marriage because I think it's a matter of religious sacrament as well as a legal right -- legal state. And we could achieve the same objectives by having a domestic partners act that would give all of the legal, financial and inheritance rights that accrue in the state of marriage to someone engaged in a domestic partner relationship."

GORE: "I really think that the real American spirit is pushing forward into the future to expand the circle of human dignity, just as we did with African Americans, just as we did in giving women the right to vote, just as we've done, oftentimes shocking the rest of the world, who are really astonished that we are a brave people that do difficult things."

The candidates were asked what kind of first lady their wives would be:

GORE: "She (Tipper) has a graduate degree in psychology, and has a continuing passion about trying to bring parity in the treatment of mental illnesses, as compared to other kinds of illnesses. And I share that.

"The other issue that she spends a lot of time on, is the plight of the homeless. She goes out on a van, and searches out the homeless under bridges and in streets, in alley ways, and gets them in for health care, and tries to get them into residential living."

BRADLEY: "People will find Ernestine to be a unique human being. She would be the first immigrant first lady in history, having been born in Germany. She is a scholar. She has been a professor for 30 years. She's not been active in politics, except very active in my campaigns. When we used to get letters from people, or requests, I'd come and then she'd come, and they'd say, 'Please, if we have a choice, send her instead of you."'

The candidates were asked how much of a factor long-past drug use should be:

GORE: "I think each candidate has to decide for himself how to respond to something like that. I've been open about it, I've responded fully to it. I'll let Gov. Bush decide for himself how to respond on that."

BRADLEY: "I think the public has a right to know from a crook, but not a sinner. And I think in terms of a crook, the question, 'Did you break the law smoking marijuana?' You break the law. I admitted that I have smoked marijuana, as the vice president has. And I don't think that, quite frankly, it's an issue if it occurs 30 years ago, 25 years ago."

The candidates were asked what they thought about the United States deploying an airborne missile defense system to defend Taiwan from China:

GORE: "We have been very careful not to tip our hand to either Taiwan or mainland China in saying, 'Here are exactly the circumstances that will lead to the United States getting militarily involved.' Because, frankly, we don't want to embolden the hotheads or the hard-liners on either side of the Taiwan Straits to take some rash action.

"And I think that the kind of diplomacy that has pushed both sides toward a peaceful resolution of the long-standing problems that they have is what we ought to pursue."

BRADLEY: "I think we have to be very direct with both the Taiwanese and the Chinese. I think that we should say to the Taiwanese, 'Any direct and serious moves towards independence would jeopardize our support for them.' I think we ought to say to the Chinese, under the Taiwan Relations Act, 'We are required to take appropriate responses and that we would take appropriate responses if they decided, militarily, to move onto the island of Taiwan."'

The candidates took aim at each other's education policies:

GORE: "Now, I personally always opposed the vouchers. That's been a big disagreement for 18 years between Sen. Bradley and myself. Sen. Bradley has not put forward a plan to turn around failing schools, or to lift up our public schools."

BRADLEY: "The difference is, I view education as integrated into the lives of people where they're living their lives, not as a program that comes from Washington. I believe in a strong federal commitment to education.

"And I believe in education from birth through lifetime and for everyone. And in this campaign I've laid out a program that would begin with early childhood education, that would provide funds through the states to the localities where child care could be decided by the local -- localities as to what's the best way to have child care in that community."