this is a legitimate president. he inherited the presidency against the republican principles but let's give them a chance and if you are to become a legitimate president he needs to free political prisoners and emergency law introduce some basic freedoms to the country and maybe gain legitimacy.

many of us gave him that opportunity. many of our activists who are part of the leader of the coalition now they actually formed a forum. they were willing to take bashar on his promises to reform the country introduce it into the modern world and so on and so forth. unfortunately there's a crack down in the damascus spring and then there was another moment after the assassination of hariri but the damascus situation and early on in the first 40 years i remember very well and i follows minute by minute. we were accepting the argument that they were an old guard and the regime etc. etc. but after 50 years in power he became fully in charge. the system is highly centralized highly personalized and he immediately reverted to his father's way of first saying you have external challenges that take precedence over domestic reform and second you were not going to introduce political reforms but introduce economic

and he talked about the chinese model but nothing was meaningfully introduced to gain legitimacy. by the time he came to his second term, seven years after becoming president they wanted to introduce a slogan for his presidential campaign and they couldn't find anything so they came up with this word -- we love you. it became so ridiculous. we loved you because we love you because you are young man and he studied in the west and you like the internet but what did he introduce? anyway when the arab spring started many of us appealed to bashar saying before things you know happened in syria why do you take the lead? i think his response was very very frustrating and it showed the brutality he had with an interview with "the wall street journal" january 21, 2011 in which he said those leaders who have not reformed are in trouble but i am different because i am

young because i'm not part of the western you know kind of world. i am closer to my people because i defend palestinian rights etc. but he said i will introduce reforms and he mentioned three areas. he said i will introduce newsmagazines. i will introduce or measures for local elections that nobody takes seriously in syria and that will legalize some ngos. that was the vision he had at a time when the arab world was going through revolutions calling for regime change and comprehensive changes. it was obvious. i think he really lost it totally the moment when -- took into the street peacefully protesting to demand the release of their -- the kids who were arrested and they opened fire at them. i think he totally lost the support of many syrians when he gave his first speech in parliament. he did not show any remorse for the killing. everybody had high expectations that he would announce serious reform and he didn't do

anything. that was a moment for them but they turned against him. he lost every chance and every opportunity of becoming acceptable legitimate and again with more killing the guy is a war criminal. the guy committed crimes against humanity so again i gave a long answer to a short question that he gave every opportunity domestically regionally internationally but he's limited personally by the regime and its time for him to go. >> do you have a question? please. >> my name is james adams. i guess i can describe myself as a congressional field officer and regent -- recent graduate of the conflict and resolution program. i would be interested in hearing what considerations there might be and what thinking there might be on the part of your group or syrians on two factors.

one, in bosnia they are still dealing with very serious unfortunate consequences of a frozen constitution and highly flawed discriminatory constitution resulting from i guess the dayton accords approach. well, it was not cast as a transitional constitution i think was the fundamental flaw in seley 10 years later that's still a very serious issue and much of what is still holding bosnia back. that factor and how that in terms of your group syrians and governments trying to assist in this and how they are trying to avoid that problem. the other factor having to do with negative piece. what is put forth as negative

piece where an outside force or forces are still needed to suppress the internal conflict combat the internal discord and in some way keep the lid on things so as to give more time to figure out how to proceed? >> i'm sorry i didn't understand the second part about the negative piece. what do you mean by that? >> negative piece of the literature and among the scholars and thinkers here that have been looking at this negative piece is a frozen peas that has been described as a frozen peas where people -- where a conflict is put on hold. it's checked. the violence is put in check. peacekeeping force and peace and

stability is there a diplomatic political structural work is being done reconstruction and all that to try to put a lid on excessive expression of that but whatever the various groups are trying to gain. in other words the lack of violence in trying to proceed with some sort of functional working relationship. that makes me think of the second factor. it is the factor of the other side of the positive piece the so-called positive piece and that is addressing the underlying causes and conditions of the conflict whether they belong historical types or something more recent. two terms in the scholarly terms that addresses more relationship work as opposed to reconstruction or structural factors such as the constitution

i am interested in how your group or the syrians and the u.s. government and other governments might address those two factors and try to make the transition beyond the day after as you say less troublesome. >> thank you. >> thank you. well i think on the first question, the first part of the question i personally attended a seminar in sarajevo about the bosnian conflict and lessons for syria. i think i remember you raised the point that many bosnians in fact warned us of not going to any piece arrangement without having a vision. they made that mistake and they didn't want to impose on them that constitution which created a paralyzed constitution and presidency etc..

that is why again we always feel we have to think about not only the general object diffs of democracy and what kind of democracy and political system presidential or parliamentary, all of those. we have given those issues a lot of thought but syria is different from bosnia in the sense that bosnia were these three communities in a way and they had to create the kind of system that is maybe close to what happened in iraq or in divided societies. in syria we do have the question of minorities and a serious question we have to consider but there is a clear sense of a majority here. if you take for instance the divided syria in terms of the ethnic divide the only question we have is that arab versus the kurds. the kurds most of them are part

of the opposition now and they would find a solution to their issue within a unified syria which is good. i think that's helpful. the other divide is the sectarian divide conquer religious and sectarian so we have 5% christians and 11% i'll lead and in that sense both communities are arabs so there are more in common when it comes to the linguistic crosser all identity. in other words maybe solutions like federalism are very viable in syria but maybe too centralized administrative system might help some of local concerns of these communities. what really prevent syria from having a paralyzed political system is that you create a state based on citizenship. a rule of law. you create equal opportunity. those are all missing from the

authoritarian oppressive regime of the asaad and when you talk to syrians they have a clear idea. everything but the assad regime and in that sense the composition of syria is easier to avoid the problems you find in bosnia. negative versus positive. i think syria again really the essence of this conflict is that people rose up demanding their basic freedom and freedoms and rights. they were deprived for decades but we were talking daniel and i early on. there is an idea that we should go back to the 19th of the constitution is part of it because we had a viable democratic experience back then so there was that idea that you can live together and we should. and so to avoid the negative piece and addressing moving to a positive piece peace is to again create that political system which is responsive, which gives

everyone their rights and gives everyone their sense again that they have a place and they have a stake in it and avoid dealing with the symptoms of violence and trying to find a solution to the fighting. see the second one is the more difficult part. >> thank you. i would like to follow up on the question. >> this woman here. you wanted to ask a question. if you you'll go to the mic. i need you to go to the microphone. but after mike. i just want to make sure you get in there. >> thank you. following up on the two previous questions sasha asked did we miss an opening with bashar but one of the things that struck me is even if he had wanted to the

power structure that he inherited from his father had no stake in opening up and the issue of negative piece. that power structure is going to remain in place the security apparatus even if assad, your demand is that he has to depart but the power structure will remain. how will you deal with that and what needs to be done to ask i presume in whatever negotiation and whatever agreement you achieve how do you dismantle that power structure which is really antithetical? >> let me take this lady's question as well, please. >> mai nam is kimberly and i wanted to follow up on the idea that syria could establish rule of law regular courts that would not be corrupt, a constitution,

a democratic state rule of law meaning everybody up by its or is sentenced and i don't see how that's possible and i would be interested in your thoughts. for us we had 1000 years of british history and the development of a parliament chipping away at the king's powers and balancing with the monarch so do you have any thoughts on that? >> both questions are about what the realistic possibilities are. >> thank you. i also had a follow-up and it's related to the first follow-up question but most people when they think of a peace conference they think the two sides have

been fighting so you think in this case you would have assad on one side and on the other side would be the rebels. i'm asking about your concept of this geneva conference. if assad is not there who should be on that side of the table and i also wondered if you were saying specific he that if assad is there you think no one from the syrian opposition coalition will go? >> okay. the first question about the structure that exists today. i think we believe that these institutions of oppression particularly the intelligence agencies must be reformed drastically. this could take time. i think we had in the day after the project a whole section on security sector reform in which

we envisioned all mormon countries having to maybe intelligence agencies instead of the 16 that are under assad today. and we envision a much newer role for the police which i think is very important and should be charged to carry out domestic order. and the same for the armed forces. i think the armed forces need to be reformed in a way that unfortunately over the years this is part of the reason why we have the situation we have today. since -- this goes back to the french landing when the french came to the country and created the first troops to carry out order in the country. they recruited heavily from minorities and this was part of the divided rule of policy which

in fact continues here. the country continued with that and many of the mainstream majority would avoid serving in the army because they could not join the military and that explained minorities in the army. there is a belief that first of all you need to correct that and you need to create a truly professional army in the sense that it affects the country not connected to a regime are family or person. i think that's a problem in syria. if you look at the fighting force is doing most of the fighting its -- that comes from that background that enjoys a lot of the privileges that has been equipped and trained the most well the rest of the armed forces is almost dismantled. i mean it's not functional so in order to really move toward again democratic order you have to reform that structure both for the security agencies and

the armed forces can be looked at the experiences of many countries. the second question about the question of you know you are skeptical about syria moving toward a democracy. there are forces in fact favorable land forces that are unfavorable to democracy but in today's world the great thing we learn from each other we are not going to go through 200 years in order to become democratic. what is happening in the world today in front of us you look at the air countries and the transitions in the arab countries and you look at different models of transitions. some of them have been much more successful than others. look at egypt. they were able to create a model that really worked for them and created this coalition in parliament from the three major parties that is leading to the transition. the polarization between

islamist led to a massive failure and a step back and then so what i'm saying is today we could learn. we don't need to go through the same thing to achieve democracy and i can assure you and daniel and i were talking about this. the people who lived under authoritarian rule and suffered from that they learned -- year and for those basic rights and freedoms. once they are given the opportunity and they create the right structure and i do believe there is an element of luck sometimes. if you look at the american experience in the french experience. in this country the french had how many republics? five republics so we could learn from that and we invested so much providing a high cost to achieve the democratic system. i'm optimistic actually about that especially if you neutralize those external influences in the case of syria and the influence of iran and

hezbollah and the country that decides to act responsibly could help as well. i think they can find a solution to their problems. the last question, the question of how do you envision the geneva composition? will you know geneva has built-in a process of mutual consent that we could fetus somebody from the other side and they could feed for someone from our site and that's why we say when we don't want our main criteria is that people who committed crimes against humanity should not be -- we don't want a notorious head of the air force intelligence agency to be present at the table. actually the regime -- the point is they have to be able to go back and report to those guys are some of them in fact. the idea can be created to

reconcile these two questions. we believe the coalition should leave the opposition delegation but we have opted to include others. they share our goal and object it. >> lets take one last question. >> my name is sam from iri. could you. >> , eight coronation and delivering to the council sent what he is doing to facilitate that. >> the acu and local -- created by the coalition and the coordination unit which would coordinate all the humanitarian assistance. it's actually been doing decently. a good job but there have been issues there up for nation. the old council the challenge

with the local councils those are not councils that have been democratic -- democratically selected. in many cases the activists were able to that. in a luppo they vanish to have elections. 300 representatives from the different town areas and they selected a council that is more representative. part of the work that has been done with the local councils to train them to reach out to their communities and number two to improve the quality of that region. some of them were able to do it and they became more representative and more acceptable. some of the local councils are challenged by the group sent in the coalition we are open to the idea of making these councils more representative and then they will be easier to provide for these individuals.

the experience has been mixed in some areas have done a better job than others and we are still working on that and we believe is one of the sources of becoming more legitimate to be able to provide and rule through these councils. >> let me conclude just by noting that i studied arabic in damascus in 2008 since 2008 and i've actually i have never been in a place that seemed riper for change in a democratic direction. ordinary people would tell you. bluntly. i think it's very sad that to get that they have had to go through what they have gone through. at the same time the people i remember in damascus would be proud to have you najab representing them here in the united states and we are very pleased that you took the time with us to explicate the

coalition. thank you very much. [applause] [inaudible conversations]

time stands still. it all high:00 an easy metaphor for the government shutdown. >> we are standing a few feet away to the main entrance to the senate chamber in the north extension of the capital. the clock behind me here is the oldest clock in the united states capital. it was commissioned for the united states senate in 1815 order from a philadelphia clockmaker named thomas lloyd. >> one of the many reasons why the c-span video archives are so amazing.

now former brady campaign to prevent gun violence present

paul helmke talk about the political debate and the common ground he got the national rifle association can control advocate shared. from the national press club this is just over an hour. >> i believe we can begin. our speaker today is mr. paul helmke. he is the former mayor of fort wayne indiana. before we even proceed with his introduction of the would like to thank mr. richard heller who is responsible for our getting him here. they don't see eye-to-eye. [applause] bicester heller's name is imprinted in gun history because it was his lawsuit that overthrew the d.c. gun control law which was a landmark decision. by way of him we have mr. helmke here today. paul is the former mayor of fort wayne indiana. he is the former president of the brady foundation and he is

now a professor at the university of indiana. he attended the university of indiana at -- and yale law school. where he was a classmate of two people called bill clinton and hillary were a ham. rodham. he took a few years off several years ago to think things over and then joined the faculty and he is speaking today on common ground with the red -- national rifle association. paul. [applause] >> i obviously was inspired by the fact that the federal government was able to reopen and folks came back together to at least find common ground for a few months on the debt ceiling and on the budget and that gave me hope that perhaps those of us

who are concerned about gun violence from the gun control perspective can find some common ground with those on the gun rights nra -- nra side of things. at least i hope so. part of the reason that i wanted to do this talk today was i got a different perspective perhaps being back in indiana. i was head of the brady center to prevent gun violence for five years. it was an eventful five years. it was during the time the supreme court issued its ruling in the heller versus the d.c. case and the chicago case and we had the tragic shootings at virginia tech and in tucson as well as a number of other shootings during that period of time. we did see one bill passed congress after virginia tech where the nra and the gun control side came together to back a bill originally cemented by carolyn mccarthy from new york to strengthen the background check system bank

urging states or giving a carrot and stick to give states the background check system so that was something positive came up during that period of time. it was an eventful time. since january of this year i have been back to indiana my home state and teach at indiana university teaching classes on urban problems and solutions and law on public affairs and now directing a new probe -- program for freshmen dealing with civic leadership and i'm happy to have 10 of the students here with me today and another 22 are in the capital that might be joining us later on. being back in indiana talking to hoosier students and midwestern students professors grad students and other selected officials in indiana i see the challenges that the issue of gun violence presents us in this

country and how hard it is to solve that issue particularly and i know living in the beltway for five or six years you to develop a beltway mentality and think it's all about fighting here and you don't realize there are a lot of opportunities or should be a lot of opportunities to find common ground on many issues including the issue of gun violence of that has been the perspective i'm coming from here. i've talk to elected officials and gun owners and friends and others and hopefully have a few ideas that might be interesting here today. i just want to announce quickly my old friend martin chavez the former mayor of albuquerque. it's good to see you and as well as my former public information director so thank you for coming. good to see you and we have a couple -- and a couple representatives from moms demand action for common sense. i can't remember the official title but moms demand issue against gun violence in this country so thank you.

when i started this semester with my students i had shannon watts who founded the moms group , and speak to them. not so much to point my point of view or hers but talk about how people can change -- push for change using social media and internet and the young man who worked for me at brady who is with mayors against illegal guns who told his personal story having been shot were times at virginia tech. i'm glad to see heller here. we never did get up for the beer i wanted to do when we were here but hopefully we can make that up sometime soon. i've been on panels with him over the years pretty want to make a few points. number one is we still have a problem with gun violence in this country. some people will argue that there is less gun homicides than there might've been in the early 90s and they might argue

violent crime has gone down. that is all true but we still have a problem with gun violence in this country. even if the numbers are decreasing which i'm happy about we still have a problem with gun violence in this country. the tragic shootings in newtown where 20 first-graders were massacred was just 10 months ago. the shooting at the navy yard was just a month ago and we haven't done anything as a country to address these issues and these are crucial -- crucial issues for us to address. i hear from so many people, why do you focus on mass shootings? mass shootings are very rare and there are very few people killed in the great context of things en masse shootings and it's true but obviously it's the only time that the media and the public and public officials can focus on the issue. i always say it's not that i'm

saying anything different than i said last week with a month before the year before. it's only occasionally does the focus change and that is when we see a tragedy like virginia tech or newtown or tucson occurred. in this town we have 32 people a day murdered with guns and that's something we shouldn't tolerate in this country. in addition to those 32 people killed -- murdered with guns every day we have suicides by guns and accidents with guns that brings the total of gun deaths on a daily basis to 80 per day in this country. they are only the tip of the iceberg. the people that are injured with guns every day increases the number significantly. for every gun deaths there is another three or four gun injuries in this country every day. a lot of times when we focus on gun homicides we ignore the fact

that our emergency rooms and surgical care doctors have gotten a lot better in dealing with gunshot injuries. part of the experience is from iraq and afghanistan but we have a better system dealing with those gun injuries than we did in the 90s. a lot more people survive these gun injuries. when i talk to the folks that work in emergency rooms and talk to the folks that are the doctors and nurses they oftentimes in a large city will talk about they are still seeing as much gun violence today as they saw 10 years ago and as they saw 20 years ago. i look back in indiana. chicago has been having a horrible year in terms of gun injuries. my home city i think the number of homicides is now on one of the highest in the last 20 years or so with gangs and guns and drugs. point number one, we have a problem with gun violence in this country and as a nation we aren't doing anything to try to solve that, to try to fix fix i.

point number two when we have tried to fix fix it we generalln into roadblocks. we all know congress has a tough time doing it. they have a tough time raising the budget for the debt ceiling how can we expect them to do something with gun violence in the country? is unmentioned after virginia tech all sides work together basically to help get a bill that got more records in the background system but since newtown we at least had a vote for the first time in the u.s. senate by that vote all the policy proposals from both sides from all sides of the aisle basically were blocked. there weren't enough votes to get a universal background check bill that was a compromise bill supported by senator manchin and senator toomey. that was my hope is that joe manchin who had been a rated by

the nra and running for office showing someone -- obviously people that have a lot of gun owners and gun enthusiast in their state among their constituency. when senators to me and mansion were able to come together i hoped we could get something done but that bill fell five or six votes short of the supermajority that week were required to get anything passed in the senate. and the other side there was a bill to push reciprocity for conceal and carry permits. this is a bill that came up as a stand-alone bill 3 or four years ago by senator then the so-called plan amendment and that came up a few years back and fell short of the 60 votes also. it got 58 votes at the time and this time it got 53 votes so both sides pushing for their ideas on what to do with guns

and what to do with gun violence were blocked. of course even if we had passed anything in the u.s. senate from the perspective that more of background checks or restrictions on semiautomatic weapons are high-capacity weapons who knows what would have passed in the house? it's even tougher to get it through the house and obviously speaker boehner up until the boat the other night it's been operating on majority of the majority to bring something to the floor. those sorts of bills probably would not have made it to the floor without a lot of pressure so this is a situation we have got. god. what i see as i see a lot of good grassroots efforts from people like moms demand action and u.s. conference of mayors and from brady and other groups. i see a lot of action from a lot of groups. an ra is the major one but their other groups pushing the gun rights agenda.

both sides see that as a long-term solution. to change the people that get elected and then we will be a will to get something done. even if there is a backlash against the republicans for the way they handled the debt ceiling and keeping the government open you are probably not going to get the sort of people in congress quickly that are going to change these things. we are still going to have enough votes on one side to block concealing carry and there will be enough to block background checks and we are back to square one. people get killed every day with guns in there is nothing that we are able to do about it. there were other states that responded the other way after newtown to in effect loosen their loss and make it easier to

carry. we saw states like colorado where what i consider to be good laws were passed and there was a recall election and people the push that got removed from office so we have this back-and-forth. as i look back in having this back-and-forth site -- fight since 1993 or 1994 after the brady bill and the first so-called assault weapons ban was passed. we have got a problem and we have a political system that can't seem to move these things. what can we do? this is where i think we need all of us to find a way to find common ground between the nra on the gun rights side and people like brady and mayors against illegal guns and those concerned about the guns in this country. there should be a lot of common ground here. when i look at other issues in this country guns really is one

particularly in the heller versus d.c. case we should be a will to find common ground. before the heller case there was a serious argument about what the 2nd amendment to the constitution meant and the history in the language and we argued the intent and we argued with the miller case set in 1938 there were tons of briefs but once the supreme court ruled there was an individual right to have a gun for self-defense purposes at least in your home, that battle was done. one of the points i made after that ruling and in fact i was on the tv show on chris matthews hardball with wayne lapierre that night. in effect i said congratulations when you got what he wanted. now let's figure out where we can find common ground and figure out what we can do here because the decision by justice scalia who made it clear in the

opinion that this right the second amendment right is like other rights not unlimited. he said you could have restrictions on who gets the gun , on how the gun is sold and how the gun is stored and how the gun is carried. you can still argue with the novel's categories where you can draw the line constitutionally but basically justice scalia outlined areas where i think we can start to have a discussion and where we need to have a discussion and words crucial for the future of our country and the health of our communities to have this discussion. i wanted to suggest a few things today where i think we could possibly find common ground. the first one is -- this is the one that people should agree on. we all agreed that people that we are we are pretty sure are going to be dangerous are dangerous now under likely to be dangerous shouldn't be able to buy a gun.

that is sort of starting point. someone who has been a danger or someone who is dangerously mentally ill or someone who is a clear drug abuser. folks generally agree on that and even wayne lapierre who is on one of the national talk shows after the navy yard shooting said he wanted to fix the broke and background check system and no one is sitting down talking with him. i'm saying now we need to sit down with wayne love pierre and find out how we can find agreement and see if we can find agreement with him. if he is laughing let's find that out and if he's willing to work let's get that worked out. because the background check system is not working but just because it's broken doesn't mean we can walk away from it. one senator told me he wouldn't support the bill because it's

broken. i say do something to fix fix i. he can be complicated. we have to look at the complications and we need better ways to define these people. we can look at how the records get into the system. even if you have a great definition of dangerousness if the states aren't getting the records in the background system it doesn't do any good so we need to find better ways and we need to look at how many sales are allowed without background checks. right now only federally licensed dealers are required to do that in checks and often excluded at gun shows through private sales. that's something that can be fixed. the manchin toomey amendment proposal try to fix that. some some folks feldman too far. let's try to figure out where they went too far. it's because you live in arra community and the nearest place

they could possibly disavow ground check as far away maybe we can draw for seizures of a deal in terms of timing or how you can do the background check but let's fix the background check system. this is one that -- and the fact that lapierre on television and said surely after that said he wants to sit down and fix the background check system is something that those in the gun control and gun violence prevention movement should take up right away and i think that's one where the rest of us whether it's heller paul helmke or martin chavez people who have been politics and been in the gun issue for years can push the idea to the table. like any other compromise there is there is a little give and in a little take but let's get something that fixes the broken background check system and makes it harder for dangerous people to get guns. that's point number one. point number two is i think we have the potential to do things

on the weapons that we consider perhaps too dangerous to have easily readily available. this gets into the whole issue of the so-called assault weapons semi-automatics and high-capacity magazines. again we should be old to draw some lines. some people say what you want to ban the magazine clip? my standard issue is 12 let's were my standard issue is 15 bullets. i'm willing to get into the discussion where we draw the line on the number of lives. right now now the number is infinity and there is no number on -- limit on the number of all its. again you can lead a strong argument that the reason the tucson shooter was stopped was the fact that the 32 round magazine that he had emptied into the time he was trying to get the other magazine and he was tackled.

when they are shooting people and there is blood on the ground that's a lot harder to do. so the size of the clip and the ammunition magazine does make a difference. in midtown one of my arguments his 11 children got away when he change the magazine clip. there are advantages to having restrictions on the magazine clip. the number is not as crucial as the fact that we need to have some limits because right now there are no limits and as the technology changes we are seeing more guns that are holding more and more bullets that are able to fire more quickly at a higher rate of speed and cause more damage. a lot of folks say you're not ever going to get another assault weapon ban and how do you define things? let me point out to people we have for stritch and some machine guns fully automatic guns since 1934. we don't ban them. it's not a machine gun but we have heavy restrictions on

machine guns and fully automatic weapons and it's been on the books for some time and is modified in the 80s that these restrictions have worked. for the most part. you don't see machine guns and fully automatics moved in bank for a -- used in bank robberies like we did in the 1930s or in common street crime partly because it's expensive and they are highly taxed and you have to get a registration and license and some other things with fully automatic so they are available but they are not readily available to most people. this to me is another category where do we draw the line? let's figure out how technology has changed to make guns more deadly in terms of the velocity in which the bullets can release and how quickly it shoots them and is there a way we can draw the line and maybe not have the alternative band but some sort of heavier standard like we do a with fully automatic. i'm sure a lot of folks will

oppose that immediately but most of them support machine gun restrictions. most people generally including the nra have supported a machine gun restrictions in the past. there should be some possibility to support some restrictions going forward. the last point i wanted to make. it deals with who carries the guns where do they carry the guns and how do we figure out who should be allowed. there might be some potential. as i said one of the big things we fought a few years back was a so-called amendment to have states recognize other states conceal and carry limits. i oppose that and others opposed it for number of reasons. we opposed it because of some states have such low requirements for getting a conceal and carry permit basically virginia.

one of the people shot at virginia tech was able to -- without ever having touched a gun in her life. some states like utah it's fairly easy to fill out a form. e-mail them a check and you get a conceal and carry license. other states have tougher requirements. so there's a whole variety. some states you have to renew the permit and some places like indiana once you get it it's a lifetime permit. if you got in trouble during your lifetime they may take your gun away but you have a lifetime permit for your gun. not for your driver's license and other things but not for your gun. one of the things we should look at because in order to get the nra and the gun rights groups to the table we have to find something that they have been pushing and haven't been able to get in that deals with some other reciprocity issues. one of the areas for potential

and i think it's an area that the gun violence prevention site should be fully discussed as having national recognition for concealing. their minimum standards met setting a national standard or limit standard that states have to follow. a few years ago in texas who actually has one of the higher levels of standards for a conceal and carry permit. if we could find a state where it has worked and worked well and legitimate gun owners who need needed for protection who meet the criteria we can adopt them elsewhere. i think that's something that should be put on the table and i think if we do that we also perhaps get into some of the issues of back rent checks. one of the things that is implied with a conceal and carry is the ideas permitting and the idea of the license. it's always interesting to me

and one of the books i read early on on guns was a book about private guns and his conclusion is what would be the best thing long-range for dealing with violence. he proposed a system of licensing and the analogy that we hear all the time is getting a driver's license the state is involved and when you sell your car you need a new registration. the concept of licensing work permitting in a registration as one who should look at. they license those conceal and carry permit holders. we do a background check before you people to buy. if we combine those concepts into a system that looks at the individual and get us a licensed for a permit and look at the weapons i think we can come up

with a system hopefully that can perhaps advance the interest of folks on different sides of this issue and help us move forward. i think about the the d.c. case a lot and the remedy of the case , the last line in justice scalia's decision is telling the district of columbia that -- for the license he had applied for. during the argument the lawyer for mr. heller basically conceded that he thought that was the appropriate remedy. license should be considered unconstitutional in the field on this topic. people always say if we did that it would be a list someplace. they made it clear that they government cannot constitutionally confiscate weapons. you do have an individual right

to these things so one of the arguments i made after the heller case was that the whole issue of licensing and registration really is a moot point now because the court found he can't have confiscation of the weapons so it's another thing we should look at. the other thing that has become more clear to me as i have been back in indiana is that the most enthusiastic gunowners that i usually deal with in the most aggressive gunowners i usually argue with that those that have a conceal and carry permit or want to get a conceal and carry permit. the government knows who they are. there is a list not to mention mention -- mentioned profiles and all sorts by of bad things but the fact that the heller case ended up with d.c. giving the license to heller the fact that conceal and carry permit holders know that

there is a list and the fact that we have looked at registration for machine guns for years. it's some capability to take those concepts and combined them with national reciprocity that would take care of the argument i hear from nra and others on the gun rights side. that's the big concession from a lot of people probably on the gun control side and arguments from a lot of people i deal with. we have a problem in this country. our political system is not in a position to deal with the problem in this country and it's probably not going to be in a position to deal with it politically for some time. the only thing we will get to congress in the foreseeable future is the if the nra are willing to join in the conversation and sit down and try to work something out. if we focus on the background checks and focus on which weapons should be treated like

machine guns and focus on the site via of licensing permitting and national reciprocity might hope is -- i don't want to see another tragedy. i don't want to see another mass shooting in my home city of ft. wayne or any cities in this country continue to see the death and blood and mayhem that they have. guns aren't the only issue. we have to do with mental health system and the breakup of families and we have to deal with the economy but any discussion that ignores guns is also closing its eyes. we have to deal with the issue guns in my hope is a country are willing to do that. i salute president obama and vice president biden and the administration for dealing with the issue and talking about the issue after newtown but we have to find a way to break to the other side to let folks know there is room for common ground. thank you for listening to me. [applause]

>> we will now entertain questions. if you ask a question please identify your organization and if you don't have an organization that's fine too. let's begin. questions? >> my name is maria. do you think there is a window of opportunity from now until the end of the year after the president recommended to congress to take care of -- [inaudible] stay now that they have reopened the government raise the debt ceiling i think we have an opportunity. we are getting close to election season and election season goes on full time but i don't think we'll be seeing a lot of the full focus on the elections until next year. i think there's an opportunity this fall now that we have a government shutdown behind us to deal with issues like gun violence and like immigration. some of the other things at adam and talked about for some time. it's something we need to do so i'm hopeful.

i might just mention their other parts to this issue that might have some common ground to that i feel to mention one is the gun trafficking. the guns go from our country to mexico. it's an embarrassment. there are trafficking laws that can be written that all sites should be able to agree on that would make it harder for have -- to have the sales they quickly go to gangs and that's something that deals with law enforcement that needs to be a law on the books and hopefully that is another area where we can find common agreement. >> you had mentioned statistics about the numbers of deaths and injuries. do you have any idea how many of those deaths and injuries fall within the parameter work some consider it as an underlying source such as mental illness and drug ridden neighborhoods and how many are there and how would you answer that question

also for two people who say they are going to find it anyway? >> a couple of points. one is the mental health issue is clearly one of the crucial ones here and i know after newtown and so many shootings a lot of people say it's just the mentally ill deranged dangerous people and sometimes the descriptions get even wilder and wilder in terms of describing that type of person. i heard a researcher at academic talking the other day about the issue of mental health and he felt that mental health can be a country living factor but it was only like 4% of gun violence that you can attribute to someone who had mental health issues. his conclusion was the most dangerous combination was mental health combined with drug abuser with alcohol abuse. so those are things i think we could focus on and perhaps focus on that. right now the only category of

mental health that is prohibited is someone who court lightbody has found to be dashed themselves or others but if we look at this definition perhaps differently and look at the money categories we might feel to come up with a better predict your as to who is dangerous for those reasons. ..

and, you know, is anyone surprised someone bias 81 of the same. it's not for the personal protection, collection. he's going sell out of the trunk of the car through the midwest and the northeast, which is what he did and a police officer ended up getting killed and 0 some other people ended up getting killed. the way you deal with that is to require the background check when he buy it is. require the background check when it sells it. look at the trafficking statute that lookses at both purchases like that to make it harder for them to go that. some people say with law that, you know, the bad guys will get it anyway. that gets to an issue what is the function of a law?

one of the function of the law is to prevent something bad from happening. when our current background check system stopped over 2 million purchasers from buying good. that's good. a lot of people say -- there's prosecution and that's and issue that needs to be dealt with. at least they were stopped from getting the gun in the first place. it also means that once they have committed the crime, and haven't followed the law. it gives the prosecuting attorney a police officer another thing to charge them. giving them another thing to charge them, a violation of the gun laws mean they can have a stricter punishment because they had a gun charge in there. sometimes having a law is known prevent. sometimes it makes it easier than to find a penalty. other thick it helps set what we consider to be societal norm. while so you a right as defined in the heller and mcdonald case. you also have a responsibility. the rights are not unlimited.

you need to point out to people that, you know, we want a society where you don't make it easy for dangerous people to easily get dangerous weapons. [inaudible] california. i can do that. would you like to comment on the attempt by the -- to proclaim that one-year anniversary of the shooting of 26 people as a gun saved lives day? i think it's disgusting. i don't want to say much else. i debated allen a number of timings, and he comes from his own perspective and pushes his owner issue. one of the thing he likes to get publicity for the point of view he likes to argue. ic he's look for publicity. tieing it to the anniversary of the strag i did is, you know, not -- it does disgust me.

i that's not the approach we should be taking. there's other wayses to get the issues out there. i would be willing to sit down with him at the table and negotiate on these thing. i don't consider the people on the other side, you know, evil. but i think that sort of a strategy. >> okay. [inaudible] >> hi. i'm with the "huffington post." in the nra has shown that it's more than willing especial will any recent years to raise alarmt and raise money over the threat -- hypothetical threat that are real. and point u.n. treaty and the idea that is the u.n. going to take your weapons. what, you know, i mean, the nra has the own interest and the members want to hear perhaps a certain thing and need to keep raising money. how do we get conversations with the group like the nra back to

reality. how do we meet them at the table if their table is constantly shifting. >> it's not going to be easy, i think. they're a large organization. they like to raise money. large organizations of any sort need to raise money to keep going. they raise money based on fear. they raise money based on fear that you're going get somebody to break in your home in the middle of the night and do horrible thing. they raise money on fear if obama is elected or elected he's going take your gun away. they raise money based on, you know, if you make this one change in the current law it's a slip slope that will lead to everything taken away. i think folks need wake up and realize that playing on fear is not reality. that's where i want to take wayne and his word he wants to talk about fixing the background check system and then call if he

won't do that he won't do it. come from the members. and it needs to come from their elected that have supported them. when they start hearing from their members and the elected, look, background checks is something getting 250eu8 95%

when they make the change they sat down at the table and try to work things out. and adopting conceal carry in the state. i think there have been times when they have willing to sit down. after the virginia tech shooting, we were able to work indirectly with them through their -- through the senators that supported their positions to get this -- the instant check system amendment facts pass. i think there's potential to work from. it's not going come from somebody like me calling for or suggesting it's going come from their members and others pushing them to it. we have the over issues on the government off the table. let deal with the gun issue. it's still a problem and it's not going to work until we get the nra. if they see something they pushed for their member like

national reciprocity and conceal carry. i think it might be enough of a care to bring them to the table. [inaudible] i recall a statistic indicating that between 2005 and 2010 some millions of gun were stolen in home break ins and issues like that. i'm wondering how would how do you see the country addressing that -- i guess you might say loophole in background checks? >> it's that's a serious issue too. when folks are interviewed in prison. you never know how much they can believe when they say they got the gun. societien guns where sometimes people get the gun. i point utility the time that friends of mine that are gun

owners or thinking about it. i have no -- i'm knot antigun. i have no problem with you becoming a gun owner as long as you recognize not only the rights but the responsibility and written that -- risk that go with owning a gun. some of the risk the different studies show how often it's likely to be used again you or a family member. some say up 21 time more likely to be used against you or a family member. whether it's the number or the small are number. there is the risk it's going used against you. and, you know, part of it is somebody gets drunk, somebody gets angry, somebody shoot the brother-in-law when say that think it's an intruder. other part is it's going to be stolen. and, you know, if you have a gun, make sure you know where it is and secured from the kids in the house or the neighbors in the house. and secured if possible from the burglar. the things they generally looked on based on police officers i

talk to. things they carry quickly. jewelry, small electronics, and guns. those are the three most popular things general when people break to a house. if you're in a standard i have it in the bed stand every night. that's where the burglar is going look for it. it's under the mate res. they know it too. not the smartest places to keep it or open when you're not there. okay. >> private citizens. i want to know how much can we learn from other countries and the way they handle the situations. specifically countries like australia with respect to things like their law, their ownership, number of death and injuries from guns. we haven't learned anything from other countries yet. we are unique in the level of gun violence in this country. i'm not up on the latest statistic, necessarily. but it's something like you can take the next 120 largest industrialized -- and our rate of gun violence is

25 times larger than them combined. it's amazing. other countries have taken steps. and the argument they don't have the second amendment. our second amendment pursuant to the heller decision does allow regulation on guns. even with that sort of an opening. we haven't been willing to do any regulation yet. but other countries have figured out some ways to do it. sometimes t basically buying weapons they consider too dangerous. sometimes it's having restriction on the whens. sometimes encouraging a lot of gun ownership like in switzerland but having tight regulations that are tied in effect to switzerland's malicioussha. i think we can learn from other countries. there are ways you can protect yourself. there are ways we can live with guns without making them as

dangerous as we make it for ourselves. [inaudible] i want to ask the about the myth circulating among the public and officials in washington that keep us from being able to make progress from gun violence. >> i talked before that i think there are myths that keep us some of our elected officials from doing things. one is the myth they usually hear from republicans that says we can't do anything about gun violence. we can't argue about background checks or restrictions because the second amendment. and you know what i need do is point out to them. have you read the heller case? have you read section three of the heller case. when it says like the rights like other rights are not unlimited. the lists of presumptively legal we're instructions -- it's not a thrais is not

exhaustive. you can go too far but there are things you do. even the last april when the senate debated this again, half the time when the republicans are saying they are saying second amendment, second amendment. when the proposal they were talking about really didn't infringe on the second amendment. so i think that's one of them. the second amendment does allow things that. there are restrictions first amendment sounds pretty absolute to congress shall make no law. then they say you can't lie or slander somebody, can't have pornography in public places. there are restrictions on first amendment laws. there are restrictions on the other amendments, there are restrictions that are constitutional with regard to the second amendment too. it's not absolute. that's what the court said. the other myth i usually deal with is the one that the democrats usually say which is that, you know, gun control is politically radio active. we don't want to talk about it.

i think it was one of the reasons, perhaps the president and the vice president didn't talk about the issue much until after the election. even though it was after newtown too. i keep arguing if they had done something after tucson, it might have laid the ground work something after newtown. it takes awhile to build up public support for issues. i'm not -- you know, where the argument come from it was politically active. a length of time democrats will say grinch and 1994 and because of gun control. it might have been the issue one race here. one race there. then gore lost in tbow because of gun control. and i point out that during that

campaign, actually george w. bush was more supportive of gun control than gore was. he sported assault weapon. supported trigger locks, and, you know, it's part of what that tells me is the political calculation that he made in -- rove made these were things that were popular. and particularly pop will with independent, moderate, and female inventories the suburban voter. and that was part of his compassion of conservative approach maybe he didn't do much about once he was elected. when he was campaigning he released it was usual. -- crucial. and with the gore election. it was you can argue any number of things were the reason he lost lost. i had a friend of mine who used to be mayor of knoxville, tennessee. speaking to my civic leader group. he was saying for gore made one visit to tennessee during the campaign he might have carried his home state. tennessee didn't vote against

him because of gun control. because he was treating them like they, you know, he didn't know them anymore. he needed to visit. politically, you've got those things. look i look what happened lately? and when i followed closely the races in '06, 2010, and 2012. i don't know somebody running on a progun platform lost because the issue. they might have lost because of other issues. but i don't recall of any -- there were a lot thought abouted the issue. the one cycle where it was a big issue in senator boxer. she won again. it was an issue so here is a senate race, a governor's race, and congressional race west coast, east coast, and midwest where the person who was in a tight race won advocating gun

control type thing. again, i think it points out. the bottom one to me if gun control was so controversial starting after the great -- assault weapon ban how did clinton get reelected. he pushed it and put jim and sara brady on the flat form at the convention. it will be an issue in some cases. be when i see polls that 95% of the american people support, you know, an expanded background check system including 85% of gun owners and 75% of nra. i think we an opportunity to get things done. some people say gun control doesn't work. how do we know we haven't tried it. really, in this country all we've got are the background check system that does have the need a lot of fixing. more records in the system, more checks going forward.

-- that's all we do in the country. from a federal perspective. that's not really trying gun control. that's a first step toward it. we haven't taken any other steps and in other countries it has been successful. there are things question do, i think fit this country too. i was pleased to see you using the fbi figure for the number of homicide per day that the 30ish a day is very sobering. i can assure you. one of the things that i'll make my questions brief and we can discuss them in a later date, maybe in indiana somewhere. one thing that struck me is the number of firearm owners that we have in this country there are

about 40 a day in every state of citizens that believe that they safe their own life because they have a firearm. that comes to basically 40 times 150 about 12 2,000 a day. it people believe they save their lives as compared to 32ed had. it's really, i think, more of a human nature issue than a gun issue. i have a couple of more points of many. one thing that is important me, when anyone has their home in-- invaded. who was the first responder there? saints not the police. it's homeowner. it's the citizens who just had the door or window kicked in. if police can have body armor and everything up to but not including machine guns, we as citizens as the first responder that's what we should be

having. we should have what we give our second responders. in sphrail ya -- what i did look is aic australian institute of criminal gi. i bet so you been there. what they found after the gun confiscation or turn in or voluntary turn in. whatever they called it. what surprised me was that the homicide level only went down 10%. in other words 10 years later the homicide later was 90% of what it was when everyone that wanted to was armed. wait minute. there's no guns. what is wrong with the picture? and that's what i think happens with you have a total gun ban or confiscation or whatever you want to call it. the shocking point, i kept looking at the chart. what i found out the 10% homicide that went down from guns then went back up

additional homicide with knives and weapons. it was a wake-up call for me. last point, i thought you were kind of unfair to utah. full disclosure. they require eight hours of safety training. and the normal background check. so you sort of glossed over that, sir. thank you. >>. >> just a couple of responses. numbers in term of protective uses versus homicide. one of thing i learned as mayor any sort of crime-related statistic is tough to keep just because are homicides.

it's easier to track a dead body than somebody who didn't report getting shot, raped or burglarized. you can do different stakes. i'm not saying it was every case. and there are good defensive uses of gun. again, i'm not antigun and the supreme court, in your case, that dhaint the homeowner has the right. my point is the homeowner needs to realize the risk and responsibility that go with it. and too many don't do that. and in term of the guns they use, most police, you know, they're general coming up in the semiautomatic pistol they're not yiewcialtly come with a s.w.a.t. team. most don't want to do a home innovation with somebody there. the main thing is an easy in and out. again, you have, you know, the the court knead clear an individual homer has a right.

that's the law of the land. and that's not being questioned. i think when we look at other countries, people are always going to be violent. the violation e existed in the history. people will do bad things. people will kill each other. we have made it easier and easier year after to year to do that. and even guns today are different than guns that were around 20, 30 years ago. you talk to the police officers and what they're seeing, you know, the saturday night special that my father saw when he was prosecuting attorney in the '60s were cheap throwway guns that could kill but oftentimes didn't even work. what you see now with the higher velocity and larger bullet size and number of rounds they can hold is significantly different. we need look at something we want for the civilian public. to defend yourself and your home, basically you don't need that sort of weapon. you need you might feel you need weapon. you can do it with the gun you're not allowed to have in d.c. with the shotgun that mr. mcdonald had before the

case as well as the piles he's had since the case. i think we can find commongroundon strengthening the issues. >> i don't think i need to stand up. we are survivors of an in-person home innovation. we are have -- gun control advocates. it wouldn't have helped in that situation. my question is, how do we as individuals citizens get the nra and the gun lobby to sit down with you and the brady commission to talk about the issue of background checks? what can we do to promote that? >> i think the crucial thing is to keep the issue an the front page z as much as we can.

talk about it in the community. get the friends to talk about it. you tell your story. about the home innovation and friends that are gun owners. talk to them about it. again, it's a lot of issues we argue about in the country really people got extremists far lot of reasons, a lot of time. it's hard to find middle ground. abortion is an issue. guns are here. there's an -- there are a lot of things question do with the ground here. t only going to happen if people talking about it and get the elected officials to talk about it. the challenge for the gun control side is most of the sporters -- where the congress people are on the senate and indiana and mid western state and southern state and the mountain states. i think now is the time since we had the heller case and the mcdonald case. once we have seen congress get

blocked we can get progress on the issue. [inaudible] the issue i worked on hard is to get the 18-year-old the right to vote. okay, part was educating the public. and we did a lot of that and public opinion to be behind us. and it got passed. okay. who i have seen in the united states right now is we didn't want a sequester. we want a budget. the fiasco the last few weeks is a abombal. okay. we had a vote several minutes ago on putting minimal things about gun control in.

you sound like you're hopeful we can do something about this? i just don't see that it happened. how do we do this? how can you be hopeful? >> you discouraged me. i quit. [laughter] i guess it's part of, you know, you have got keep trying. things take time. and, you know, iewf been discouraging. when i heard the news about new town i was so depressed partly because it shouldn't have happened. i'm teaching freshman i'm hopeful seeing younger people and we had speaker you're

probably so discouraged do you consider going in to politics? a lot of them said, they want to go politics and government. yes, they want to get involved in the community. because we screwed up so much they want to fix it. i think that is the attitude that young people have today. even if we can't make a difference now in our generation or with the folk we have elected let's hope that the younger folks come up will help push those things. i think demographics is actually one of the issues that the gun rights side might be facing, which is that i know when i was growing up. i remember hunting with my dad. a lot of my friend if. there's more area to hunt. now there's suburbs and subdivisions and malls there. you're seeing less and less han

-- happening. congress encouraged some regulation about cars having a rear view camera so you could see, you know, when you're backing up. you don't want to run over somebody. they were so upset that the camera hasn't been adopted yet. there were 232 deaths. it only takes, you know, a week basically in this country to have 230 gunned had.

if can woe keep talking and pressure pushing. i ran in to some of my elected officials from indiana last month, and our two u.s. senators from indiana, actually. i committed the one for voting for the background check amendment. and i criticize the other for voting against the background check amendment. it must have been out of the 100 or one out of 1,000. he got some many criticizing him.

we don't need to give up on the ones that vote the wrong way. we need to let them know that. i'm hopeful. i hope we can find common ground. i'm willing to talk to people like dick an meet with wayne lapierre. i think question make a dpirches. as mayor you work with everybody. you learn to try to make it work in your community. that's what i want to see for our country too. [applause]

have shown other 40,000 hours of programming. i. >> thought wow it's the answer. there are more women in politics. more women across public life. more women in power.

?erks public opinion bill talk about public opinion before and during the government shut down. he look at the impact on the 2014 elections. and the view of the implementation of the health care law. from america's health insurance plans conference in arlington, virginia, this is 45 minutes.

for more than 25 years, bill, probably, has been polling for us and we always draw upon bill's insights and find that he is one of the most provocative individuals to talk to about national trend. and how to think about national trend. one of the most important things we found on the bio since towning the firm in 1991, the firm is completed more than 6 million interviews. can you imagine that? it says a lot about guy that completed that and have the reputation that he did twenty years ago, ten years ago, and

two years ago. it says a lot for the firm for bill and their insight in to national political trends. he's been called by "the new york times" the leading republican poster, and certainly the company has been the leading republican polling pollster company. at the same time he's appeared on meet the preses, cnn, and every news show you want to man. he's been a trusted adviser for most of the key national politicians that with he name and familiar with. and even those that are in a more -- please join me in welcoming bill. [applause]

an i'm expecting my gracious thank you. what about about that did do you think was funny? let me do my first poll of the day. how many men have been married for more than ten years. okay. those men should be able to predict my next two words. i'm sorry. [laughter] i didn't know what i had done wrong. after a long and successful marriage i news the words were i'm sorry. i thought she would love the flower. the flower were beautiful but the card said rest in peace!

[laughter] so i called my washington florist and i love flours i order them a lot. and said bill, you've got it wrong. you're thinking about it the wrong way. how should i be thinking about it? somewhere in america there's a funeral that said best of luck in your new location. [laughter] now, what that tells you is that when you live in washington, you know, even the florists that quick on their feet. you spin anything. they asked me to give you the real stuff. now if you're a guy, i want to just confirm for you in eighth grade when they put you in the different sex ed class. if you do --

negative opinion of obamacare versus a different question. which is do you want to see it totally eliminated and defunded. when you ask that question, which we did in cnbc, 38% say yes. you can't shut down a government with 38% yes and then here is the question that should have been asked, which we did. which is of those 38% we said, okay, but if you believe it should be toldly defunded. should we have a government shut down include removed? 19% of americans said yes.

they supported a government shut down to totally eliminated funding for obamacare. 19%. that's all of terrain. we're not going win a public battle where one out of five people believe what you're doing makes sense in what they want. then it got worse.

the most liberal republican to the conservative democrat and how much overlap there was in the house of representatives. in order there was 344 members that were positioned between the most liberal republican sceafnt democrat. you can see how it changes many the last session there was 11 people who crossed party boundaries. in other words we have become a function parliament system with the parties become both party. it's not republican. they become more ideological. there's no overlap anymore in term of any kind of shared kind of common ground in washington. why? because the way we drew the congressional seats. again, when i started my career after the 1980 campaign there were 134 house seats that were different than how they voted

for president. in other words i could be a democrat member that voted for reagan or carter and there were 134 seats. today we're down to 26 seats. we have 26 people who wake up in a district where how they voted for president is how they voted different than congress. what does it do? instantly what it means is we have about 350 350* members who don't rate functionally about losing a general election. they worry about losing a primary. if you're concerned about losing pray mare the job of your

association is so important. then there's this. which is when people say well, how did they be so tone deaf. you have to understand they're not tone -- republican weren't being tone deaf. because in republican districts around the country, in october, this is their the worst day for republicans very long time in their district the districts they represent barack obama approval

she and her folks trained the new candidates to run for office for the first time ever in are main began history, and then they set up the teams where you go back and help monitor the people you help elect and help get democracy off the ground. so it works. they elect a parliament tear system. they go over with the american delegation. they are kind of american delegations here. are main begans are here. and the american to tell gracious said somehow it it going? well, it's going pretty well. it we only have one question. what is it? are we supposed to vote for what

our constituents want or what we think is right? [laughter] the american delegation said, okay, that will be chapter 22 in the federalist paper. republicans -- it wasn't just kind out of the blue. they're doing what their constituents wanted their constituents, though, are just carved in to very special that are incredibly republican. then i always do this as well. i want do you remind guess what from the story people have a right to do what they think is right. so i get these calls from "the new york times" and the liberal institutions, and they always talk about and ask me about well, how crazy republicans are. why would do you this? this is crazy. what i tend to do and i'm for example, the new york city times

did the blowing editorial in 2010 after the democrats with a list of 37 heroes. awe the heros who had been quoted saying, look i believe in universal health care. it's been 75 years. i want to do the right thing. i said you editorialized and said these were american heroes. so that was nuts. they lost 63 seat. they voted in a partisan bill that has no bipartisan support to kind of change a sixth of our economy. you can't those people are heroeses then when you elected different generations say okay i know only 19% of the country agrees with me. i think it's a terrible bill and should be stopped. i don't care. and if i lose my seat, okay. i'm doing what is i think is right. it's not god way to legislate. it leads to what you have seen.

people have to understand that these are held belief. you can't pick one or the other. if it was admirable to vote you could be unpopular. it's no more crazy to try to stop it and be willing to lose your seat. it what are the consequences of what we've seen? first, this has an enormous impact on the -- direction of the country. gallop have been doing it forever. are you satisfied? these are the three lowest mark in the american history. when you slip blow watergate levels you know they are bad. we're at the all the-time two or three generation record for lack of confidence about how being governed in washington. the most damaging thing is the significant drop of consumer confidence. the debt ceiling of two years ago was one of the single most significant events that killed consumer confidence since 1952.

we're watching the same drop. gallop has the own daily tracking they look at comment about the economy. we've been underwater for years and starting in june we dropped 17 points in a month. they were dropping a point a day day after day after day during the shut down. you cannot take a fragile economy, remove $24 billion of economic activity demolish the kind of consumer and not know it's going to be an enduring consequence. number three. it lead to enormous anger about people in washington, our elected system. we have a very cool question that my democratic partner made up. we've been asking people. he said let's ask people if you

could, and vote out every single member of congress including your own representative, would you vote yes to remove every single person in congress? we don't vote like that. it was a way for pollster to measure a level of discontent. the high water mark was 2010. 45% say yes. that 45% produced 63 seat shift. last week of the 60. six out of ten people said i would start totally from scratch, that level of anger is debilitating and leads to a lack of confidence in our institution. from a republican perspective, this is an ideological boomerang . we've, asking people about the role of government. we spent years we had the country. i normally use it and say of

course we're paralysis. it tipped older women. women swing voters and others and tipped them in the direction saying we need government do more. it's the opposite what you want as a republican. the second thing the republicans did was what has been remarkable. the level of intensity has been extraordinary. there's no real -- the core people who ought to be favoring this bill saver it then the hard democrat partisan say if they're going to be that against. i'm for it. what happened in these intervening two weeks to two and a half weeks is the democrat

intensity shifted and moved. and actually the support for the bill is that the high water marks since 2012 election when it got this close. okay. gallop has been reporting for a long time. the republicans have the lowest favorable image of any major political party in gallop history. again, these charts are difficult read. i'm just starting with way over on the left in early '90s. both are relatively the same 54 percent. impeachment is the other issue that looks like this. the impeachment votes -- lead to the same kind daf. the republican party favorable dropped to 31. today democrats at 43. republicans at 28. 128 -- 28 percent. haas a huge number.

imagine consumer brand dropped to 28% favorable. that's -- , by the way, people don't talk about it. the other point is the democrat brand is not in great shape. both of them has dropped. you can see a drop in the dark green line. but we're not talking about that. we're talking about the significant drop for republicans. okay. other congressional moves against republican. the "the wall street journal" doesn't ask how they voted. do you want a republican or democrat house? here is the probably point to actually win the house, the democrats to win the house they probably need win the actually vote cast by roughly 4 to 6%. so 8% is probably not going stay

in place. but if were that big in a year, then the house is in peril. given the congressional district lines it would take massive. a massive democratic vote to try to replace a republican house. okay. what is coming next? okay. so my other -- let tell me you what happened in washington which is there sort of like a trend lined and washington presumes and the press presumes tend line will continue. it's not how public policy work and public opinion gets framed. there are no straight lines. early september we had a two-week melt down over syria. it's a country that changes the focus incredibly quickly. you cannot people focused on one topic. my, again, my favorite quote democracy --

this is 1828 and spent two years here and writing books about what are americans like. and you read the book, you say, wow, they sound a lot like us. what he said americans are the only people in the world that would build dream house and move before the roof is finished. my point is just because you're seeing gript data. it doesn't mean it's going stay this way. we'll get to some other issue quickly. things will go back a little bit to normal. and that leads to number two. this is a -- what i was stray -- trying to convey. okay. it means i've done a lot of surveys. and my friend peter dates back to the mid '60s. when peter hart says this is one of the five or six most sequential -- and he taunts

when you do something like that. you don't get to understand it. it takes months to settle down. because when you blow everything up. it doesn't reassemble in the same places. shifts suddenly. that's going take three to six months. we're not going know the enduring consequence of this. everyone has to write and there will be sunday talk shows who won and lost. it's nonsense. it's going take months to figure what happened in the consequence. the third thing is despite every bit of data you see. it doesn't mean republicans necessarily had a bad election cycle in 2014. the house has been drawn to have

196 seats. you need 218. are few seats in play, and also most of the senate campaigns are in republican terrain. despite everything you see, you can't look at it and say gosh it's bad things republicans. because typically in america when we're sitting around next october. the episode will be in the long rear view mirror and won't have that much consequence on what happened. the other thing i wish i could tell you is mitch mccontinue has quoted -- i love the quote. there's not much learning in the second quick of a mule. he said the first kick was '95. he was there. this is a second kick. he didn't learn much he said hopefully my caucus and the new people learn the lesson. we're not going do that again. having said that, don't expect much change.

when id you the reason why it happened. none of the things changed. so it's a real simple kind of equation. if that's bill's five reasons for why it happened. did any of the five things actually change in the last three weeks? no. and if those things haven't changed. i don't think you're going see much fundamental change how congress works on the continued level of paralysis. now, number five, here is another core rule they teach in you politics. it your opponent is imploding, please, stand back and let them do it without you anywhere close. so here is, of course, the other thing that happened. which is the obamacare, the sign up website all the glitches. the signups are going slowly. if any other world has -- republicans step back and let the opponent be the center of attention. we would be talking about, gosh, it's not working well.

we the shut down story will go on the rear view mirror and people will focus. where are we now? where is the point with obamacare and how is it working? it's not going go well for the obamacare sporters. that's what i've been saying. we're shifting from a policy debate and kind of fundamental debate. does it work or not work? and that's my other point. americans are not really an ideological country. it's a country that realines based on work or not work. and their attitudes about this law are very simple. they're going based on work or not work. to between nbc, wall street journal, and msnbc. we create a series of tracks in september so we could have baseline to measure the real impact of the perceived impact on people. one, we asked how likely to sign

up for an exchange. all 14% of everybody said i would be likely at least very likely to do it. 32% of the people not insured. i adopt see yet, there's no evidence from any polling that said they'll goat 7 million people much less the original estimate of nine. i would be surprised -- it doesn't mean they're not going to it. there's enormous money out there. there's infrastructure in place and a need it could happen. you just don't see it in term of polling yet. the other thing we did is ask people this question: "have your premium increased and work hours lost? have you lost your job ?" thenly we said do you think it's because the new health care law or some other factor. i'm showing you that baseline numbers in september among all americans saying that 18% of americans say aye, because the

law. 3% of my hours have been lost. 3% said lost coverage. 1% said insured for the first time. what struck me, stan greenberg, a democratic pollster did some work about obamacare, and i think try to present the positive stuff for why it's getting better. what struck me you look at data and said do you think it would be better for you, worse for you, or about the same? ..

>> the elements that are popular are pre-existing conditions coming guarantee of coverage, 26 years old in the entire language of what people want are all the things that was health insurance reform. if they don't work you do lose good coverage