for the latest news any time. head over to al jazeera.com. ray suarez is up next with inside story. >> president obama's address on gun violence raised interesting questions with few good answers. he noted other countries are vie leapt crime and murders and mental illness. tonight, we are asking why. one nation under fire. it is the "inside story."

>> welcome the "inside story." i'm ray suarez. it was president obama at the bluntest. the decision to allow shootings like thursday's mass murtd in oregon were political decision, to allow the killings to be routine and repeated something, no other wealthy country expires is crimes like the united states has. nothing similar. nothing close. and he upped the ante further and more americans have died from the gun murders than from terrorism. >> we spent over a trillion dollars and passed countless

laws and devoting agencies to preventing the terrorist attacks on our soil and rightfully so and yet, we have a congress that blocks us from collecting data on how we could poet tentially reduce gun deaths. how can they be. when the americans are killed in mine disasters we work to make them safer. when roads are unsafe, we fix them. to reduce auto fatalities. we have seat belt laws because we know it saves lives. so the notion that gun violence is somehow different, that our

freedom and our constitution prohibits any modest regulation of how we use a deadly weapon when there are law abiding gun owners across the country that is hunt and protect their families under suchregulations, doesn't make sense. >> the shootings that killed nine are the work of college student chris harper merscer. he was carrying guns. he carried a 40 caliber pistol, traced to someone in portland and

556 caliber. it is reported the the man carried a rifle and a large number of ammo magazines and owned 14 weapons, and all legally purchased. he was killed be officers responding to the crime scene. joining us now and what makes the u.s. different in this regard, we have the director of the coalition to stop gun violence and mike barns, at a law firm. mark, you have a long issue with this history and debate and how do you understand and what makes the united states different in this regard? >> the president didn't quite get it right. the united states is not different from the rest of the world. i sit on internationally bodies and testified at the u.n. and looked at the data and research elsewhere and i took the

opportunity to look at some of it before coming up, he didn't adjust for population and there are other advanced nations when you adjust for the population, norway, for example, has a higher annual death rate from mass public shootings than we do. we are some where in the middle actually with the population. we have to be careful about labelling united states as outli outlier, because there are nations. >> norway with a couple of million people, do you include or exclude year of the killing at the summer camp? >> no -- >> that one incident in a small country would have the affect of making a big impact on the numbers. >> sure, but then again, you have the czech

republic and serbia. we have to examine what is going on with a mass shooting, and what the fbi defines as a mass shooting, that is 3 or more deaths resulting from a perpetrator with no other crimes associated with it. if we define it that way and look at who the perpetrators are, they are young men that are disturbed, but not all necessary from one race. it seems to be fairly well distributed. we have to examine that and we need to examine the issues behind that. >> we are coming back to serbia and so vak ya compared to the united states. how do you look at japan, germany, britain? >> yeah, i think it is clear,

most americans know that when we compare ourselves the industrialized countries similar to america, it's true that the united states stands alone in the gun death rate. it is astronomical and the only qualifier is the easy access to fire arms. if you at the states in the country, you don't have to get a background check to acquire a gun. i have gone to a gun show in virginia and i handed him cash and he handed me a firearm and that sale was legal. a lot of people will purport nothing you can do because of the guns on the streets, when you look at the evidence and research being done by the schools like johns hopkins and the work being done, we know that gun laws work, and the states that have more gun laws, tend to have less gun

deaths than the states with the lax laws have the highest rakts of gun death. we know it is an issue we can tackle by completing a background check on every gun sale and all the records in that background check and making sure we are flagging the proper dangerous people and making sure we are giving the law enforcement the tools they need to go after the perpetrators and these bad people. >> the president, i think, agrees with christian and doing with prevalence and availability, is he wrong? >> yes, i think he's wrong. i want to address an issue, more law, less crime. and let me show you, this is the guide to federal fire arms regulations from 1984. this was produced for the public and federal fire arms licensees.

this is the same thing in 2014, 250 pages, approximately. in 30 years, we have grown federal law very, very substantially and so have the states. that's not what's driving or happening with the mass public shootings. it has to come down to better off placing the public resources and targeting an on a community basis or prevention basis with the young people that are the key source of the issue. >> we are going to talk about. . stand by. the laws that would make difficult and slower to get a gun and no matter how many people are killed by guns, some elected officials do everything possible to make sure the laws don't pass, how does that work and what if anything can be done to change it. one nation under fire.

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>> every saturday night. >> i lived that character. >> go one on one with america's movers and shakers. >> we will be able to see change. >> gripping... inspiring... entertaining. "talk to al jazeera". saturday, 6:00 eastern. only on al jazeera america. >> welcome back to "inside story." i'm ray suarez. people that oppose retristrictis

on gun ownership, knowing that people in the population with a firearm helps to prevent the gun related killings. in the campus shootings the targets are where carrying a gun is generally banned. what if we widen the focus beyond the cap pus and apply the concept broadly. if you look at the ten states with the highest rates of gun death, one is not among the states with gun ownership, that the new mexico. the others, are all among the highest rates of gun ownership states. christian and mark are still with us. we talked about laws and whether they have an impact, people who wanted, christian, more laws and ways to prevent people, say the wrong people from getting

guns, would have had the best opportunity after the connecticut school shootings, two dozen kids mowed down, and yet, it department amount to much, did it? >> well, i disagree with that statement. anyones newtown and the years that followed we have seen a change in the country. when you go into the states and seeing the legislation passed to strengthen the state laws. in virginia, the nra is he headquartered. the attorney general and the governor swept came out strong on the gun issue. so when we look -- >> well, actually legislation, and change in the way that

people acquire, handle and use fire arms, has that happened? >> the one time this issue was brought to the voter via a ref fen rum in the state of washington, the voters supported passing that law and that got put on the books. these states are changing the way that people talk about guns and win on guns and it is only a matter of time before the federal government answers the same way and it is more of a winning issue. before we couldn't get the presidential candidate to talk about the guns or reasonable legislation, and with this president here and the campaign pool, it is an issue if you are a politician in america, you cannot run from it, you have to have a response to it, and if you want to win on the issue, you have to be on the right side of it. >> americans are closely divided on whether having

a gun in the home is making you safer and regulated and registered, 8 out of 10 americans say they would like to see more background checks and that was something that was almost impossible to get through the congress, that is a heavy majority. those were the numbers going into newtown as well. we have to splat the politics of gun control and real success on reducing the gun violence. there are things we can agree on, for example, assisting the states with getting the mental health data into the national background check system. it is crucial. we have people that shouldn't have access to fire arms under the present federal law, but not all that data is getting to the fbi so it is getting to the

dealer network so those individuals can be denied. you mentioned at the beginning of the interview that oregon shooter lawfully obtained the fire arms. if he had been adjudicated as a mental defective, would that information gotten to the systems. >> people on your side of the question point to mental health as one of the big problems here. agree. most americans -- most americans agree. >> getting the data in the system. this is a country where we can't have nationally coordinated driver's license or a nationally coordinated id card and people are are going to agree to share the mental health data. >> it is the law. >> no, no.

it is a broad continuum. >> under the code of reregulations, a human being cannot acquire a firearm if they are a threat to themselves or others or mental defective. >> that would have had to happen beforehand. >> all that data is not getting to where it needs to do. it is part of the gun community and our trade, put the federal resources in helping the states get that done as well. maybe it is not the sole solution, but it is part of the solution. i want to say something else as well, we have nine categories of prohibitive possessors. subjecting all americans to background checks.

when someone comes to buy a firearm from a dealer and they know they are prohibited under law from getting a gun, they lie on the federal form. guess what, many of them are not pursued for that violation of the law because -- >> shake hands and leave the shop. >> we have don't have the federal resources to devote to it. >> there is no federal law to traffic the fire arms. they have to piece together the equivalent of illegal trafficking the chickens and the livestocks, that is a bill before congress unable to pass. you held up the catalog of log we have out there, we don't have a federal law that makes it requirement for the a majority of the states to under go the back grouped checks.

we want to get in the records, well, if i'm i know i'm a prohibited purchaser, i will go online and buy the fire arms and on top of that, why would the federal government when they know the people are out there with the fire arms why go after them when they are slapping them on the wrist -- >> we have to stop there. we have to take a break. the president obama years are a boom to those opposing guns, the guns are flying the the shelves and protraying the president as a gun grabber, how is it matching up with reality, has anyone come for your gun and pru prevented from having one because of what the president has done.

>> welcome back to "inside story." i'm ray suarez. if you are an american gun owner, has your gun ownership been threatened by the obama administration? has much changed since january 2009? >> no. in fact, the first term of his ps presidency, he signed a couple of bills bringing it back, back to the national parks to carry a weapon and on amtrak trains, since newtown, the president has signed a number of 21 # executive orders, one of which deals with the common theme, where it is taking people who are involuntary committed to

out patient treatments and same as committed person. the answer to the question, is no, the president hasn't come for the people's guns. in fact, if you go to white house.gov the things he's talking is basing , has to do with trafficking and background checks and cdc to do the checks, it is very reasonable, and very meaningful changes to our code that wouldn't afefbt the law abiding gun owner. >> i disagree. with the two small exceptions which were associated with other issues, i'm talking about the parks and other issues, but aside from that, the president has taken a different approach. it is true that the president doesn't see demand reduction as

a great political strategy. in other words, get americans to like the fire arms less, instead he's gone to the supply side and i represent the trade. i can tell you that the way that these regulations are being enforced with the supply side, that is the trade, they have gotten much more burdensome and restrictive in terms of our being able to supply the law abiding citizens their fire arms. >> so if you want to acquire, keep or operate a firearm your live changed a lot since 2009? >> the ability of the trade to service america's gun owners is much for difficult under the obama administration. and the truth of the matter is that things that were interpreted in the previous administration in a way that was

at least neutral are now more intag nisic towards the trade. it is more difficult to be in the gun trade. i would say right now the gun industry is booming. the gun industry has used the obama administration to sell more guns than ever before and the idea that the industry is struggling, that the industry is the victim when we turn on the news and see the bloodshed. that is disingenius and not true. right now they are flourishing. >> he won't let the rifles, military collect

ible rifles, they are banned from coming into the united states. the president did do that with the executive authority. >> well, i want to thank the guests. we can go on for a long time, but we can't. christian from the coalition to stop gun violence. mark. great to have you both. >> back in a moment on what guns can and won't

>> more than ten thousand people

a year, every year, die in gun violence in the u.s. and that is not counting the thousands more who kill themselves with guns every year. standing on the language of the second amendment with the cause put over to the side. people who want to own guns with no oversight, insist no oversight can be put into place. so the uber does more work to carry the passengers than you do to own the item that can inflict damage to the body. no training, no practice, no instructions are required. the arguments are many. baseball bats and knives kill people too, but not so many so quickly as it takes to shoot people. guns are different. making it easier for a five-year-old to kill a four-year-old play mate and making it the teen to kill

himself, making it easier for one person arguing with another to kill that person. i recognize flo easy answers and millions use guns responsibly. so many of the apses we get are disingenuous answers and pretending that it has no relationship to having more people shot with guns, so figure out what to do next, we first have to stop the shrug and the wink and stop acting like having a firearm doesn't raise the odds of being shot. see you next time. i'm ray suarez.

several bomb blasts rock abujjah, the first attack on nigeria's capital in over a year. hello. this is doha. also on the program, a frantic search for the missing in a mud slide in guatemala. >> to pacify the population just will