garrison's line sort of throwing all stereotypes on their heads played a role in ending that sort of thing. he once said he'd retire at age 70 but thank god he rescinded that threat saying the show is going well, why quit. well, here's one person saying i hope he never does. from a big fan, happy birthday, garrison. thanks for watching. here's "piers morgan tonight." tonight, does america have a gun problem? six dead in the wisconsin temple attack. >> you would never think this would ever happen to your family. >> 12 dead in the aurora shootings. >> i've got seven down in theater nine! >> six dead in the tucson shooting that nearly took of life of gabby giffords. is america doing enough to keep guns from getting into the wrong hands? a no hold's barred debate. plus, governor romney on welfare. >> he'd ask the middle class. it's like robin hood in reverse.

it's romney hood. >> tonight, the campaigns square off. and a day at the beach turns terrifying. my prime-time exclusive of the survivor of the cape cod shark attack. this is "piers morgan tonight." good evening. our big story tonight, inside the mind of a shooter. jared lee loughner, the alleged gunman of the tucson shooting that killed six people and nearly killed gabby giffords entered a not guilty plea in a court today. a judge ruled him competent to stand trial. this comes after news the psychiatrist who treated the alleged aurora shooter james holmes was so concerned about his behavior. an abc news reporter yesterday even contacted university police. in oak creek wconsin, police saying tonight there are links between a white supremacist movement and this man.

he was mentioned in a small number of files going back seven years. all three shooters bought their guns legally. my response to that is why were they allowed to? surely, there must be new controls put in to stop people like this from getting guns in america. joining me now, criminal defense attorney alan dershowitz. darren koppel of the independence institute. and dan bahm, author of the forthcoming "gun guys, a road trip." we're seeing a pattern here of people who are clearly mentally disturbed in some way. lawfully purchasing handguns. we saw it with jared loughner. with james holmes in aurora. all buying handguns. perfectly buying handguns legally. all clearly deranged in some way mentally. >> first of all, it's very

dangerous to try to preventively detain people based on predictions of what they're liking to do in the future. that leads to tyranny in many kinds of societies. second, you can't ban the kind of music, for example, that may have inspired this racist to kill. what you can do is limit the availability of guns. now, limiting the availability of guns is not going to solve all the problems but when you think of what you can do with the least negative impact on civil liberties of americans, gun control is clearly the right direction to go. >> david koppel, my question for you really is this. i just don't think it's good enough for people who are pro guns to simply react to all these incidents by saying there's no need to do anything. because as there are more of them, the need to do something

becomes more and more urgent, doesn't it? >> i think that's exactly right. what we want to do is do something intelligent and thoughtful and not just lash out at this scapegoat and persecution of law-abiding gun owners. the people and the state legislature enacted eight different laws. three of those were to strength be protections against guns getting into the wrong hands. five of them were to protect gun rights so that law-abiding gun owners would be able to exercise their rights. we know those laws save lives. in december 2007, a evil person went to a mega church in colorado springs with 7,000 people inside and he was armed and he was stopped and shot accord to the pastor because there was a volunteer security guard there. she stopped the murder.

and according to the pastor, saved over 100 lives. we can strengthen the rights of law-abiding people to own and carry and use firearms. and we can continue to improve ways to try to keep guns out of the wrong hands. such as after virginia tech when both sides came together and enacted good laws to help mental health records more properly get into the fbi's database about persons prohibited from owning guns. >> how do you make it harder for crazy people to buy weapons? >> the first thing you do is you do know harm. whenever something like this happens, there's an immediate call for more gun control. like mr. dershowitz and the editorial board of "the new york times" and the usual suspects. then the national rifle association gems up its hideous machine and we have the usual screaming match. what nobody ever seems to do is listen to gun owners. 40% of american households own guns.

very, very few of those people commit crimes with them. and i just spent two years driving 15,000 miles around the country talking to gun owners. and what i picked up was gun owners identified very strongly with their guns. you can like that or not like that. they take a tremendous amount of pride in being able to live alongside these very dangerous tools and not hurt anybody. and when you come along somebody like mr. ddershowitz, somebody who to me does not look like a big gun guy, he comes along and tells the ordinary gun own, you can't be trusted with this kind of gun, you can't be trusted with this kind of ammunition, you can't be trusted to buy guns under these kinds of circumstances, the reaction is, well, to hell with you. and what you get is this resentment. there's a tremendous amount of resentment among gun owners that every time something bad happens, they got tarred. >> let me bring alan in. you've had a few whacks in.

>> i like the fact your guest can tell who a gun owner is just by looking at him. he can just by hearing my name whether i'm a kind of gun guy or not. but let's think about his example. >> it's by what you've written, alan, you've made that very clear. >> -- very few gun owners commit crimes. let me give you another analogy. very few people who speed 90 miles an hour kill people. but the vast majority of people who kill people on the road have been speeding or drunk or driving while drunk. the same thing is true with guns. the vast majority of gun owners don't kill. but people who do kill tend to kill with guns and often with illegal guns. i agree that we don't want to scream and yell about it. i'm not unhappy being on the same side as "the new york times." what we're trying to do is limit the access of guns to people who don't need them. americans love guns.

and, you know, the analogy's almost as if -- i know, i've read your writings. you think americans are just bad people. and you can't change people from being violent. well, if you can't change people from violent, you really think americans have a love affair with violence, then you really do have to take the guns away. americans also have a love affair with speeding and with drunken driving. we can't stop them from thinking about those things. we can stop them from speeding. even though very few speeders kill. we can stop them from having access to too many guns because guns in the hands of people like this do kill. we have to use a little common sense. the fact that we have more guns than any country in the world today and have more violent crimes than any country in the world today has to have a caro lation. i believe it also has a correlation. you're right, that we have crimes because americans are violent people, that's an argument in favor of taking away

guns. not in favor of letting them have their guns. >> let me bring in david kopel. at what point do you say to americans the right to bear arms according to your constitution doesn't mean the right for crazy people to go into gun are to, buy weapons, whoever it may, and go into sikh temples, movie theaters. what do you do about that culture? >> i think americans look at the experience of england. you went from a country with zero gun control laws in the early 20th century to now something that's acknowledged as having the most severe gun laws in the western world. in that period, you went from a very low crime area to a place where the crime really went up by 50 times and now according to a joint study by the u.s. department of justice and the british home office, the uk has a higher violent crime rate, significantly, than the u.s. -- >> let me jump because you use -- hang on, hang on, hang on. you used this with me last time -- >> -- because you have no

self-defense -- >> you used this with me last time. it's untrue. the reality about the british gun situation is actually, particularly because of the new handgun rulings in the '90s after the atrocity. in fact, gun crime and murders from guns are on a rapid decline throughout britain. and, you know, i think -- >> i'm talking about totally crime. >> wait a minute, you also throw at me norway. and said, look, it even happens in norway. the reality about norway is norway had a massacre. most countries at some stage have a crazy person who commits an atrocity. the last audited figures from 2005, it had five killings from guns. america last year had 11,000. there is a massive difference here. >> dan made the point that other countries with no un guns have higher homicide rates than the united states. you're fixated on guns. in america, we look at the harms of guns.

and also the benefits. like crime deterrence. most british burglaries take place when the families are home is because britain has outlawed self-defense with a firearm. >> that is ridiculous -- >> that is such a -- >> you don't know the studies -- >> of course i know the studies -- trying to draw some parallel between the burglary rates in britain because we don't have guns. what would you suggest, we go and arm everyone in britain to kill everyone who burglars their house? come on. >> in the united states, we do that and we have a lot fewer burglaries. >> we don't have 12,000 gun murders a year, do we? let's try and get it back to a more even keeled debate. it is incendiary. it does inspire a lot of passion. what is the sensible way ofmove ing the two sides togetherth?

where do you bring the i want gun control lobby ists to the i don't want any gun control? mitt romney in massachusetts actually brought in a meeting of minds and did actually move this debate sensibly. >> i think the first place to start is what do you want to achieve? do you want to reduce violence? or do you want to get rid of the guns? if you want to reduce violence, maybe we should just keep doing what we're doing because violence is about half of what it was 20 years ago. homicide and other crimes of violence about half. you'd have a hard time finding another time in american history when crime has dropped this much. and this was a 20 years in which gun laws got looser. policing has gotten smarter. sentencing has gotten tougher. there's all kinds of things that have gone on. so when -- when people say, oh, you just want to do nothing about violence, i think that's a

lie. because elected officials and police officials all over the country are doing a terrific job at reducing violence. >> let me bring in alan. >> it's a hard week to make that argument. but violence is way down in the united states. >> can i respond to that? >> before we go to alan, what i would say, it's very good to have the debate. i think not having the debate is completely the wrong response. america has to debate this. because you've had two of the worst gun incidents in the last ten years. in the space of three weeks. you've got to talk about this. >> let me respond. one of the reasons why crime is down in america is because we have the highest concentration of prisoners anywhere in the world. we have -- >> perhaps. >> -- more prisoners per capita. most of our prisoners are racial minorities. we have more people in jail not having been convicted of crime in pretrial detention. we have massively denied the civil liberties of people in order to reduce the crime.

>> this is true. >> -- where people are stopped on the street. we have a range of other violations. so the question is how do you reduce -- we also have demographic changes that explaining some reduction in violence. >> yes. >> how do you -- let me finish. how do you reduce crime in the way that minimally violates civil liberties and the answer to that is gun control. it is the single most effective way to reduce crime. now, the argument that a person at the temple with a gun stopped the killing of 100 people is absurd. there should have been a policeman who has a gun. policemen who have guns. standing at the temple. preventing that. look what happeneded with george zimmerman. we don't want people walking around in synagogues and members and temples and at schools and airplanes and at homes with guns that are used to commit suicide to kill their children, to accidentally commit crimes and to accidentally commit violence. the pervasiveness of guns in our

society is destroying america. that is common sense. all these phony studies. they are the worst example of academic misconduct. these studies, they prove nothing. they confusion correlation with causation. they assume that they can demonstrate that the presence of guns stops crime. there is no way of proving that empirically. these are phony junk science studies. common sense -- >> okay. >> should i dismiss the studies and count on alan dershowitz -- >> i'm going to reluctant draw it to a close. let's keep having the debate. the important thing in america is to keep talking about this and try not to get overexcited about it. in the end, i expect there has to be some kind of limitation to the sheer volume of guns you have out there. there has to be. for now, thank you for joining

me, i appreciate it. next, i'll talk ton the doctor who tells all of us what unlikely traits they have in common. there are a lot of warning lights and sounds vying for your attention. so we invented a warning you can feel. introducing the all-new cadillac xts. available with a patented safety alert seat. when there's danger you might not see, you're warned by a pulse in the seat. it's technology you won't find in a mercedes e-class. the all-new cadillac xts has arrived, and it's bringing the future forward. [ sneezes ] [ male announcer ] you may be an allergy muddler. try zyrtec® for powerful allergy relief. and zyrtec® is different than claritin® because it starts working faster on the first day you take it. zyrtec®. love the air. [ sneezes ]

♪ [ camera clicks ] ♪ it's hard to resist the craveable nature of a nature valley sweet & salty nut bar. but that doesn't mean we should be penalized for it. that's why liberty mutual insurance policies come standard with accident forgiveness, if you qualify. learn more at libertymutual.com.

he was not rememberable to any of us. there are two types of people i remember it long-ened staing customers. as well as people who rub us the wrong way, and they don't buy a gun here.

>> that was the gun shop owner. all his weapons were sold legally. how could anyone have predicted? joining me now is dr. michael welner. he does pioneering research on defining evil in crime. thank you for joining me. it's a really complex issue. there are many issues around guns in america. this particular one of crazy people doing crazy things, what can you do to try and red flag these people? >> well, homicide, murder, is a byproduct of many different qualities. you can't generalize about murder but you can generalize about mass shooting. look, mental illness wasn't just invented. neither were guns. yet we've seen a proliferation in recent decades of mass murder. and why? because there's a social payoff. there is the vehicle. through hyper exposure of news coverage and relevance of a

person who's unremarkable as has just been described. or failing. who had high expectations of himself. we don't see people with chronic conditions. we see people who are unremarkable. who crawl into the cracks because they are not obviously ill even if they have a psychiatric condition. who recognize there's a social payoff. that we will talk about them on your show. or their perceived grievance. people who know they can go in an instant fm being unremarkable to relevant at the very least and notorious jokers or anti-heroes or, in the example of page, the person in the white supremacist movement who actually got up and did something. which in my experience in dealing with the white supremacist community, you have plenty of folks in these chat rooms who grouse about nobody getting up and doing something. and then someone will say, i will rise above and i will become relevant to them. it is a social phenomenon of

people seeking relevance. that we reinforce. and so the next person inspired by watching how we cover it basically chooses shock value, recognizing that if they're shocking enough and creative enough, so you eliminate guns, they'll pick bombs. >> look, i mean, to me, that's always a very simplistic argument. if you had that argument with terrorism for example. we said about al qaeda. okay, they blew up the world trade center but you know what, if they weren't doing that, they'd be doing something else. we're going to leave them alone to do their thing. you can't just leave these people to do their thing. you can't just say, well, if it wasn't guns, it would be bombs. my issue about page for example is this. there is a man who was thrown out the army for misconduct. he had a criminal record. he was in a relatively high-profile band full of skinhead white supremacists who were spouting vile stuff about anybody nonwhite in america. you've got a clearly dangerous

criminally minded, unstable character, with a vested interest in doing exactly the kind of thing he did. how do we flag out people like him? because the media within a few hours of his name coming out can tell you all about him and the american people can say, here are 20 reasons why he shouldn't be given a gun. yet he was able to walk in i think two weeks ago and purchase the gun that caused the mayhem. what do we do about that? >> well, two things. first, he was able to purchase the gun because he wasn't obviously disturbed. secondly, there are thousands of people whether we like it or not, who think like him. and who may be even more venomous and vitruptive in what he had to say. the reason i mention bombs is merely to say bombs are an instrument of spectacle. when something is blown up, people notice. if guns are not available --

>> in all these cases, don't you just have to make it as difficult as you possibly can for people of this kind of mentality? to acquire these kind of assault weapons? why do you really need to have a handgun or assault weapon of type that they're using to commit these things? unless it's to do harm? >> mass shooting is an end point in an individual who may have mentally illness and who may not. at some point, others recognize them as either troubled or just invested in the idea of construction. when they become determined to embark on a mass murder, they're quiet, they're private and they make sure that they're not going to be detected. >> final question, from all that you have seen, all the cases you've been involved in, so on, do you think there is a coherent argument to just have tougher gun laws? america? >> i don't agree. i don't agree.

just in terms of there is sufficient of instances in which -- simply put, mass shooters pick soft targets. they pick areas where they know folks will be unarmed, will be helpless and dough defenseless. >> i come back to the al qaeda analogy. so do terrorists. we don't just leave them alone. we have the fbi, the cia, mi-6 in britain. their ability to get weapons. all these inning these. we go through airports. we have to go through a million different things. i don't see these applied to terrorist attacks. >> i've worked on terrorism cases. there are two different forces at play. an organized activity that is

not done in isolation in the same way as these mass shooting phenomenon. if they have an ideology, it's cosmetic. coming up, welfare versus romney hood. the latest battles in the obama and the romney campaigns. ♪ you want to save money on car insurance? no problem. you want to save money on rv insurance? no problem. you want to save money on motorcycle insurance? no problem. you want to find a place to park all these things? fuggedaboud it. this is new york. hey little guy, wake up!

aw, come off it mate! geico. saving people money on more than just car insurance. ooo no. the hotel lost our reservation. nonsense! you book at travelocity, your reservation's guaranteed. well, i did not book with travelocity, okay?!? [ female announcer ] get the travelocity guarantee any way you book, including our new app. you'll never roam alone.

in 1996, president clinton and a bipartisan congress helped end welfare as we know it by requiring work for welfare. on july 12, president obama quietly announced a plan to gut welfare reform by dropping work requirements. you wouldn't have to work and wouldn't have to train for a job. >> making welfare a major campaign issue of the election. that's a new romney ad today blasting president obama for creating a culture of dependency. is romney right? with me now is the obama 2012 press secretary. and the senior communications adviser to mitt romney. why are you going all out then against president obama over this? >> well, it's actual fact.

i think if you look at these regulations, this executive order by president obama, it absolutely dismantles and guts bipartisan legislation signed by president clinton. it undermined essentially the very fabric, the very essence, of welfare reform. work requirements that have actually gotten people back to work. that has brought poverty down. and that has actually decreased the case loads by 50%. i think it's worth pointing that out. i think it was done in the still of the night, if you will. it is very valid and shows a clear distinction between president obama and what would be a president mitt romney -- >> okay, let me bring in ben. you're dishing out all sorts of handouts to people who don't deserve it. guilty? >> well, i'll tell you who disagrees with that, piers, it's president clinton's former chief of staff. who made clear today this latest

attack is false. the entire purpose of this program is to move more people to work. if there's a state that can design a more effective program and can prove they can move more people from welfare to work, we'll act on it. the republicans that requested this said they could design more effective program. you know who supports more flexibility for states to do this? it's governor romney. >> i'm about to jump in there. let me read tara this which is, quote, increased waiver authority, allowable work activities, availability of partial work credit and the ability to coordinate state programs are all important aspects of moving recipients from welfare to work. would you go along with that? >> there's nothing wrong with flexibilit certainly, there is flexibility. when you have flexibility, that doesn't do away with the fact

there are going to be requirements. >> just to clarify, these were the words of governor romney in a letter along with 28 other state governors in 2005. >> the letter -- actually, the letter absolutely actually -- the governor was actually not asking for waivers. he was actually asking to strengthen those work requirements and that is in fact what the senate did do. >> ben. >> governor romney in this letter would have undermined the work requirement. he goes much further than this. >> no, absolutely false. that is not true. >> in that letter, they would have gotten the time limits -- >> -- actually strengthened as a result of his request. >> they would have gotten rid of the time limits under which welfare to work says you can be on welfare. under romney you could have been on welfare. this is the same sort of attack we've heard from romney throughout the campaign.

>> think it's hypocriical for us to turn back the clock on time d put people back into a position of independence. welfare reform has created a culture of independence. most americans, those who have had to have a hand from time to time have applauded efforts. again in a bipartisan way, ton to create that work ethic. particularly with black families. that have brought down poverty in black families. i think eliminated dependency. that is the difference. the question is why at this time would the president choose to do this and go around congress essentially and create another executive order again in the still of the night to do something that -- >> all right, tara, let's move on now. you both had your say on that. i want to move on to what president obama said, in which he again targeted mitt romney's time at bain. he was targeting a fund-raiser. listen to this.

>> he'd ask the middle class to pay more in taxes so he could give another $250,000 tax cut to people making more than $3 million a year. it's like robin hood in reverse. it's romney hood. >> tara, romney hood. it's got a certain ring to it, hasn't it? >> i think i'd have to agree with governor romney when he called that obama-loney. that's rich from someone making these remarks. i think, you know, at the end of the day it's clear that governor romney will not raise taxes on any americans and, in fact, i think the tax center, independent tax center, found that president obama's plan would actually, in fact, raise taxes and have raised taxes on americans. that's the bottom line. it is a complete fabrication to say governor romney will raise taxes on americans. he will not. >> let me throw you one, ben.

a different issue. harvey weinstein threw a big star-studded fund-raiser for the president, whopping $40,000 a ticket last night. yet despite all this, he's still being outfunded by mitt romney who's raising a lot more money. if mitt romney continues to raise considerably larger funds than you guys do, then he could do to you what he did to his republican nominee rivals which is blow them out of the water financially. >> let me take just one second to respond to what tara said. a nonpartisan report came out last week that said governor romney would cut taxes on the top 5% of the population and raise them on 95% of the population. if you're a middle class family with kids, you'll pay $2,000 more under governor romney and the romney campaign has not provided alternative data to dispute that. we knew after citizens united that special interests would be able to contribute unlimited amounts to try to defeat the president this election cycle. you've got secretive oil

billionaires out there spending millions on tv in an attempt to protect taxpayer subsidies for their oil companies. that taxpayers can't afford. and they don't need. they're making record profits it ultimately, we've had more than 2.7 americans contribute to this campaign and we're going to rely on that donor base of average contribution of $53 across the country to put us over the finish line. >> okay. well, it's been good talking to you about the issues. i'm sure we'll be talking a lot more as we head to november. thank you for now to the pair of you. >> thanks, piers. we'll have more on politics tomorrow night. coming up next, the shark attack survivor. quite extraordinary tale of life and death at the hands of a great white. [ male announcer ] don't miss red lobster's four course seafood feast, just $14.99 start with soup salad and cheddar bay biscuits

then choose one of 7 entrees plus dessert! four courses, $14.99. offer ends soon. come into red lobster and sea food differently. i've got a nice long life ahead. big plans. so when i found out medicare doesn't pay all my medical expenses, i looked at my options. then i got a medicare supplement insurance plan. [ male announcer ] if you're eligible for medicare, you may know it only covers about 80% of your part b medical expenses. the rest is up to you. call now and find out about an aarp medicare supplement insurance plan, insured by unitedhealthcare insurance company. like all standardized medicare supplement plans, it helps pick up some of what medicare doesn't pay. and could save you thousands in out-of-pocket costs. to me, relationships matter. i've been with my doctor for 12 years. now i know i'll able to stick with him. [ male announcer ] with these types of plans,

you'll be able to visit any doctor or hospital that accepts medicare patients. plus, there are no networks, and you never need a referral to see a specialist. so don't wait. call now and request this free decision guide to help you better understand medicare... and which aarp medicare supplement plan might be best for you. there's a wide range to choose from. we love to travel -- and there's so much more to see. so we found a plan that can travel with us. anywhere in the country. [ male announcer ] join the millions of people who have already enrolled in the only medicare supplement insurance plans endorsed by aarp, an organization serving the needs of people 50 and over for generations. remember, all medicare supplement insurance plans help cover what medicare doesn't pay. and could save you thousands a year in out-of-pocket costs. call now to request your free decision guide. and learn more about the kinds of plans

that will be here for you now -- and down the road. i have a lifetime of experience. so i know how important that is.

what's the problem? >> a shark attack. he's bleeding. he's wounded. his whole ankle's been bit. >> okay. is he on the beach now? >> he's on the beach. >> okay, i'm going to send them

right now. >> thank you. >> the incredible 911 call moments after chris myers was pulled into the water by a massive shark. experts believe he was attacked by a great white. chris myers joins me now for a prime-time interview. you think, the great thing is, it will never actually happen in real life. you're in the water and this happs. a great white comes at you. tell me about it. >> well, i was trying to make it out to a sand bar with my son who's 16 years old to do body surfing. the sand bar's gotten quite far from shore. apparently i was the only one on cape cod who hadn't heard about shark sightings locally. we had just decided that we probably weren't going to make it that far and decided to turn around and it was precisely that moment that the shark bit my left ankle.

i felt like i was caught in a vice. >> that moment, because i never met anyone who's been bit by a great white. when a great white shark sinks its fangs into you, what does it feel like? >> well, people ask me if i knew it was a shark. and i figured it was either an elephant or a polar bear or a shark. so pretty quickly i got to shark. it felt like i was in a very, very heavy vise. >> that you couldn't get out of. >> right, and i started kicking at it with my right leg, then it let go. >> the pictures we're looking at, incredibly gruesome here. this is a huge very dangerous sea creature that's come at you. you must have thought i could die here. >> i honestly am not sure i ever thought i could die. i thought "a shark has my leg." i think that's as far as i got. >> isn't that the first step towards death?

i'd be thinking, the chips are up, sunshine. why did you stay so cool? >> i think the most surprise thing to me about this whole incident is that i didn't actually feel afraid. >> really? >> no. i felt worried. >> worried? my god, i'd be -- a bit worried. a great white shark has got your leg. >> when the shark first bit my leg, i started kicking at it. then it let go. the next thing that happened is it surfaced. almost like it was doing a little display. it surfaced. so there's, you know, you're my son and i'm me. and the shark's right between us. we were -- my son and i were five feet apart. the shark surfaced and arced. we saw his whole dorsal fin. we saw probably six feet of what looked to be a 10 or 12-foot shark. mercifully, no teeth. >> was your son as flagmatic as you are? >> it's hard for me to know what's going through his mind. the next thing he knew pretty

much the shark was right there between us. and then the shark disappeared as quickly as he surfaced. my son told me that he was worried. so then we started swimming towards shore. we didn't have a conversation. we just started swimming. and -- >> no, you wouldn't stick around to chat, would you? >> no, no, no, no. >> i mean, you seem remarkably calm about this. i find that extraordinary. >> it surprised me. >> yeah. well, when we come back, we'll take a little break, where we discuss your calmness. i want to talk to phillipe cut offo. i want to talk about whether the reaction you had to stay calm is the very best thing you can do. hey, i love your cereal there --

it's got that sweet honey taste. but no way it's 80 calories, right? no way, right? lady, i just drive the truck. right, there's no way right, right? have a nice day. [ male announcer ] 80 delicious calories. fiber one.

jonathan horton climbed all the way to the ceiling... in the middle of a department store. some parents might have scolded him. ♪ jonathan's parents gave him... gymnastics lessons. ♪ it's amazing how far you can go with a little help along the way. ♪ td ameritrade. proud sponsor of the 2012 u.s. olympic team.

he's getting on the line. oh! oh, [ bleep ]! it's all mine, it's all mine, get it. >> the surprise of a lifetime. the bull shark grabs the bait of the young woman fishing. it happened in south carolina and in fresh water. back with chris myers. he survived an attack off of cape cod. joining us now is an environmentists philipe cousteou. the reaction of my guest here, mr. myers, who appears to have been just a little bit worried and then calmly paddled his wa back to the beach.

>> well, certainly mr. myers' reaction was the appropriate reaction. in any type of crisis situation panicking is never a good idea. as you pointed out, it could be a traumatic experience to say the least. >> are shark attacks on the rise, or is this the modern media phenomena, that when there is an attack like this it gets such a huge play on the twitterverse that it seems like there are a lot more. >> people fear shark attacks and i spoke to a couple of folks today who said they're so afraid of swimming in the ocean. in 2011 the international shark attack file recorded about 75 attacks around the world and only 12 of them were fatal. you're much more likely to die from a car accident, a bee sting, lightning striking you, any number of different things. so being attacked by a shark is something that is very unlikely.

on the other hand, we kill in the neighborhood of about 100 million sharks a year more worldwide. >> is it true that sharks don't like the taste of human flesh and if that is true, why do they keep gnawing it at. >> we suspect that's the case. they tend to prefer to feed on animals with high bluber content like seals or sea lions. the sharks will bite and release. the only way they can know what something is is to taste it. it's bad news for us if we get bitten but the reality is most attacks are not fatal because the sharks don't eat the person in the attack. they tend to bite and release because it is not their typical food source. so, you know, sharks are not quite the bindless killers that we think they are. i've spent many hours with sparks under water and we think

often times the cause of a shark attack is a case of mistaken identity, in the morning or afternoon or maybe in some cloudy water and they see some thrashing and chance it. >> chris you say you were swimming back with your son. when you got back to land, what was your reaction then? >> euphoria. >> did you realize the enormity of what you just survived? >> yeah. when i said i was worried earlier i think it came out wrong. when i first got worried when i had swum -- i was 400 yards from shore. when i got 200 yards from shore i started feeling dizy. i knew my kick and lungs were strong but i was beginning to worry that i was losing blood and that i won't be able to swim all the way back. so i was worried about my life. but i also didn't see too many options. i kind of scanned the beach, it appeared people knew i had been bitten but there was no one in the water, strangely, and i just

kept swimming and my son kept swimming, i had his company and he had my company and i just kept at it. when i hit the beach, my legs collapsed under me. i couldn't walk and people were kind and took my shoulders and a doctor and nurse were on the beach and immediately started helping me. >> and are you okay? how is your leg? >> i'm walking around. i'm in a cast on my left leg. the ten ton donees are severed. the right leg just has a bunch of puncture wunds, it took 47 stitches. >> the good news forever you'll be known as the guy who survived the great white shark attack. thank you for coming in. it's been a fascinating experience to talk to you. and philipe, thanks. >> thanks. >> coming up next, wednesday white and gold.

yummy, scrumptious bars. hmm? i just wanted you to eat more fiber. chewy, oatie, gooeyness... and fraudulence. i'm in deep, babe. you certainly are. [ male announcer ] fiber one. ♪ ( whirring and crackling sounds ) man: assembly lines that fix themselves. the most innovative companies are doing things they never could before, by building on the cisco intelligent network. ooo no. the hotel lost our reservation. nonsense! you book at travelocity, your reservation's guaranteed. well, i did not book with travelocity, okay?!? [ female announcer ] get the travelocity guarantee any way you book, including our new app. you'll never roam alone. i've got a nice long life ahead. big plans.

so when i found out medicare doesn't pay all my medical expenses, i got a medicare supplement insurance plan. [ male announcer ] if you're eligible for medicare, you may know it only covers about 80% ofour part b medical expenses. the rest is up to you. call and find out about an aarp medicare supplement insurance plan, insured by unitedhealthcare insurance company. like all standardized medicare supplement plans, it could save you thousands in out-of-pocket costs. call now to request your free decision guide. i've been with my doctor for 12 years. now i know i'll be able to stick with him. you'll be able to visit any doctor or hospital that accepts medicare patients. plus, there are no networks, and you never need a referral. see why millions of people have already enrolled in the only medicare supplement insurance plans endorsed by aarp. don't wait. call now.

[ male announcer ] when diarrhea hits, opectate stops it fast. powerful liquid relief speeds to the source. fast. [ male announcer ] stop the uh-oh fast with kaopectate.

tonight's pride of america is a 5'2" power house who is also pure gold. aly raise man won the floor exercise with an incredible performance that wowed the judges. it makes aly the most decorated american gymnast at the summer games. i talked to her and she made it perfectly clear what she intended to do in london.

>> is winning an olympic gold for you the absolute number one dream? >> yeah. definitely winning the olympic gold gives me chills thinking about it and i've been dreaming about it since i was a little girl and to be able to accomplish that is so surreal. every day that's all i think about. >> for all seven hours of the day you're think of of the gold medal? >> yeah. definitely especially in the car ride to and from jim i find myself spacing out what the olympics would be like and having such great role models. >> she willed it and she did it. congratulations to aly raise man, gabby douglas and the rest of the fab five. they're all the pride of america. good evening, everyone.