prize. students are asked to produce a short video documentary include c-span video and different point of views. information to help you get started is on our website, studentcam.org. >> chris brown is the president of brady, you may have noted before as the brady campaign to prevent gun violence, chris brown, welcome to the program this morning. tell us about brady, brakd -- background, main focus is. >> brady was started by jim brady, served as press secretary and shot in the line of duty, he and his wife sarah dedicated the rest of their lives to the enactment of federal legislation to expand background checks and after 6 years and 7 votes in 1993 they got the brady law enacted. >> and your experience with that goes back to being aawaw senior legislative assistant there with

the congressman jim moran back insl the 1990's. >> yes. >> direct path to where you are today with brady. >> breaks in between, yes, i'm a lawyer by trade so that's what i did after capitol hill but one of the issues that i worked on during my time working for jim maran was gun violence prevention. was there when the bradyti law s enacted. >> we have you this morning for a couple of reasons, yesterday the mark-up of several pieces of legislation in the house that's likely toof happen next week we understand but also we have seen over the last month particularly notable the mass shoot negotiation el paso, early august and then the odessa shooting late in the month, as you've seen these events unfold, what -- what has your organization been focused on? >> well, brady works across congress courts and communities to end epidemic of gun violence, what we know is we have 40,000

people a year dieing from gun violence, 100 people every single day. so we worked with both the republicans and democrats to get hr8, the bill to expand brady background checks passed in house of representatives, that passed almost 200 days ago and what the mass shootings that we've seen really we've had as many mass shoot negotiation america today as days in 2019, is weho have common sense solutions that will actually save lives and we need to get those enacted. we need background checks expanded and assault weapon's bad and high-capacity magazine restrictions and laws and something for the states to stenact. >> hr8 passed the house and mcconnell said he won't bring any votes on gun measures that president trump won't sign, is hr8 one of those measures that the president wouldn't sign? >> i can't imagine why he wouldn't sign hr8, it's a bill -- hr8 has a companion measure

as 42, bill sitting on mitch mcconnell's desk, 97% of americans in the last poll support this bill and let me just explain for a minute why, the brady law when enacted a quarter century ago by federally licensed dealers have to conduct backgrounded checks before handn the sold, what they didn't require private sellers ensure that there are background checks, flow the -- now the sales on gun shows and through the internet one in five guns sold today is sold with no background check at all. these bill fix stuff and protects law in the process. >> going back to mitch mcconnell's statement, he said we are in a discussion about what to do on the gun issue and n the wake of horrendous shootings, i've said for several weeks if the president took position on the bill so that we knew -- so that we knew we would be making law and not just

having votes i would be happy to put on the floor, as we mentionede the house judiciary committee was supposed to mark-up new pieces of legislation and what do we know about what those bills would do? >> the new pieces of legislation would provide incentives to states to enact the extremists law, allow law enforcement or family members to seek a temporary court order to remove guns from individuals at risk. 17 states in them district of colombia already have those laws and congress is enacting a law to expand those. the bill includes package to adopt a high-capacity magazine restriction to ensure that high-capacity magazines, magazines that hold more than 10 bullets are restricted, so that package is going forward and then in september 25th, the judiciary committee is having a separate hearing on assault weapon's ban. >> does brady take active role

in testifying on the legislation on helping develop the legislation? >> we have long been involved in shaping the policy around gun violence prevention in this country, yes, the judiciary committee held hearings on hr8 to get that bill passed, we had witnesses testify at that hearing, we are in constant contact with members of judiciary committee and especially in gun violence prevention task force to support the measures and make sure we are reviewing them and signing haoff on them before they are introduced. >> our guest is kris brown, president of brady, we are talking about in particular about the legislation being developed to respond to the gun violence in america, (202)748-8000 the number to call for democrats, republican 20274880001 and independents and others (202)748-8002. also if you're a gun owner, the line (202)748-8003, after the el

paso shooting in early august, the president pointed the finger among other things saying mental illness, hatred pulled the trigger, not the gun, when you hear talk about mental illness, what's your take on that? >> well, look, i think that the facts sort of bear out what the solution is, the united states doesn't experience any more mental illness than any other industrialized country in the world. we experience a lot more gun violence because we have among the most lack rules with respect with who can own a gun and how that gun is used. we really need to look at that if we want to be serious about reducing gun violence. i agree, we absolutely need to invest more and better and appropriate mental health treatment but if you're experiencing a mental illness, it's much more likely based on all the studies we have done that you'll be the victim of gun

violence and actual perpetrate henm violence, we shouldn't use mental illness as a way to bill fie people who are experiencing these kinds of issues, we need to focus on the gun. >> we spent an hour yesterday talking about wal-mart's decision to -- to end or limit sales on certain firearms and ammunition, the deal book column in new york times business sector, big business, gets lesson from the chief of wal-mart, what was your reaction from wal-mart? >> i applaud the decision, wal-mart had already taken a decision in 2015 to stop selling assault fire weapons and high-capacity pag -- magazines, they are no longer allowing open carry, it's a response that they've had two mass shootings on their properties within the last couple of weeks, really what we need is more guns, more

guns make us safer, is the bottom line, talking point and that good guys with guns will save us, the wal-mart ceo is basically, that's just not the case. he's looking out for employees and consumersy by saying that he wants reasonable restrictions and appropriate measures to ensure that his shoppers and his employees are safe. >> let's go to calls, kris brown is our guest, we go to minnesota, frank on a republican line. >> yes, two quick questions for ms. brown, first one is how many have been denied purchase firearm within the last year and the second question is how many of them turned to prison for attempting to purchase firearm, thank you? >> the questions are how many felons were prohibited from purchasing firearms in the last year and how many p of those hae returned to prison? so since the brady law was

enacted there have been over 3 million purchases denied to individuals who are prohibited purchasers, on average annually iethat means about 200,000 background checks arepu denied o prohibited purchasers, that includes convicted felons, includes certain kinds of convicted domestic abusers, the issue of how many of those felons attempt to go purchase guns have been interesting question, we certainly need much more money and and focus on enforcement. the fbi runs background check system, in many cases background check that is come back that someone is flown or prohibited purchaser are not necessarily followed up by police, so brady supports and has long supportedd law enforcement dollars to ensure that individuals who unlawfully attempt to purchase guns because they are prohibited purchaser are prosecuted for those unlawful activities.

>> let's hear from malik in arlington, texas on the democrats' line. >> the brady bill is a complete. joke, it really talks inner city and hispanic males because most of the times felony convictions are towards those individuals so we will disarm those people, laughable to think that we will disarm someone who stole at car and 21 and 50 can't buy a firearm. overwhelming shootings are committed by white male. you don't want to paint white male deviant. white supremacists can buy guns at any point in time, someone who stole a car at 21 can't, the brady bill strictly aimed at putting ability to carry firearms, who to say that person is a danger right now, no one

can foresee what the person does, people have gotten life sentences because they've gotten one felony conviction in early 20's and late 40's still being castigated by one felony, no victim, didn't do anything, but they are being prohibited to buy a gun, everyone should have the ability to protect their family. >> we will get a response from kris brown. >> well, look the brady law is supported by over 90% of americans and ultimately the decision that our society made a quarter century ago with respect to that law was we wanted to ensure that guns did not easily get into dangerous hands, categories but i think most americans would say but want to ensure that con convicted felons and convicted abusers don't have easy access to gun, ultimately i just want to point to the most recent mass shooting that we have on the record here horribly in the

news, odessa, that individual was a prohibited purchaser, that individual was still able to obtain his gun because he entered a private sale that would have been stopped if hr8 or s42 was law, so, you know, i don't appreciate the talking point that somehow the background check system hasn't saved lives, the background check system hasn't been expanded, would have stopped the sale of gun that shooter used in odessa, haser stopped in quarter century since it was enacted more than 3 million sales of guns to prohibited purchasers, it is the life-saving infrastructure that we have to prof protect ourselves from dangerous people. >> in the case of dylann roof, isn't the background check failure to catch him being allowed in the court case in the

charleston shooting. >> yes, i mentioned brady active in congress and community in the courts, we are the organization that helped bring that case and what we are saying there, look, the rule that we have in place in law right now f -- if a background check does not come tck in 3 days, the sale proceeds anyway. the issue in the charleston shooting is that that is how dylan roof got his gun, we want to make sure there's appropriate time for background checks to come up -- to be finished before the sale proceeds. many states have expanded that time, in fact, one of the things that wal-mart has done is to say, no sale will go forward no matter how manyal days the background check takes before the background comes back, we applaud that and we want congress to require that and more states to do that. >> is that a new policy from wal-mart?t. >> that policy has been in effect for some time.

>> on the assault weapon ban, opinion piece in new york times, i want to get your reaction to this, this is from stanford university study, we found that public mass shootings which we define as incidents in which a gunman killed at least 6 people in public, dropped during decade of federal ban, yet in 15 years since the ban ended the trajectory of gun massacres has been upeo -- has been upward largely tracking the growth and ownership of military-style weapons and high-capacity magazines, we identify the number of gun massacres over 35-year period. they say with data -- the data from the 15 years following the ban's expiration which was 2004. >> 2004. >> following the ban's expiration provide stronger evidence that permitting the gun industry to flood market with increasingly powerful weapons has meant that gunmen can kill more efficiently. >> we will leave the segment of washington journal but reminder you can watch all of our programs online