adrian: it is good to have you with us. inflation in the united states has increased to levels not seen in 40 years with the price surge affecting almost everything purchased by consumers and businesses. the white house is blaming disruptions to the global supply chain. >> when it comes to something like the supply chain challenges, those manifested more significantly than people were anticipating over the course of the summer and early fall, both because of covid factors but also buying behavior

of major retailers and major freight movers, so we wanted to take action over the course of the fall to try to help address those issues and the bottlenecking we were seeing a ports. made very significant progress on that, 40% decline in the amount of time a container is sitting at the dock. >> the world health organization says over 15 million people contracted covid-19 in the past week, the highest ever figure in the pandemic. the who says the number of deaths is also rising. britain's prime minister is facing growing pressure to resign after admitting he attended a garden party in downing street during the lockdown of 2020. boris johnson says he thought it was a work-related event and apologized to the nation on wednesday. a high-stakes meeting between russia and nato over ukraine has ended without a breakthrough. the head of nato says he will not allow moscow to veto

ukraine's wishes to join the block. a lawsuit against britain's prince andrew is moving forward in the united states after a judge dismisses this claim. virginia jeffrey says she was 17 years old when she was traffic to have sex with the u.k. royal. lawyers tried to have the deal thrown out, citing a deal she signed with convicted offender jeffrey epstein. those are the headlines, and more news for you after "inside story," next. ♪ >> smart guns, unique to a single user, could soon become available in the united states,

but the implications do not jive with the wishes of the powerful pro-gun lobbyists, so could this lead to the government having the power to regulate the gun market? this is "inside story." ♪ peter: hello and welcome to the program. the idea of smart guns which can be fired only by verified users has been developed and debated around the world, but there have not been reliable results until now. some american gun makers have started testing personalized smartguns. they say they could soon be available for consumers in the united states. supporters say the guns could reduce suicides, render lost or

stolen guns useless, and protect security personnel, but attempts to develop smart guns in the past have failed. one made by a german company was easily hacked, and in the u.s., those who want the right to bear arms oppose the technology. some critics said smart guns were too risky for people trying to protect their home during a crisis. the national shooting sports foundation in the u.s. says it does not oppose smart guns as long as the government does not enforce their sale. in most developed countries, government control of guns is strict and widely accepted, but in the united states, it is, of course, a controversial political issue. gun control is a broad term mainly used to refer to restrictions on what kinds of weapons can be sold, who can possess or sell them, and where and how they can be stored or carried. proponents of gun control in the u.s. say that limiting access to arms would save lives and reduce crime. opponents argue the opposite, saying it would prevent

law-abiding citizens from defending themselves against armed criminals. the u.s. has by far the highest rates of homicides by firearms among the developed countries. in a small arms survey back in 2018, a swiss-based research project found there were 120.5 firearms in the u.s. for every 100 residents. in 2019, there were 20,400 gun-related homicides. killings involving a gun accounted for nearly three quarters of all homicides in the u.s. in that year. figures from the centers for disease control and prevention show there were more than 38,300 deaths from guns in 2019, of which worthen 23,900 were suicides, and attacks have begun -- become deadlier than anywhere else. in las vegas in 2019, a man fired 1000 bullets from a window in his hotel, killing 60 people

in the worst mass shooting in recent u.s. history. let's get going. let's bring in our guest. we have the former regional political director of the national rifle association and author of "ricochet: confessions of a gun lobbyist." in oakland, we had the director of the free campaign and cofounder of the national black brown gun violence prevention consortium. in arlington, we have a firearms instructor and formerly a naval officer. i'm the program. richard feldman in new hampshire coming to you first. personalized guns -- what are the good points and what are the bad points? >> personalized gun means something that is only operational by the authorized user. one can see instances where that would be a very good thing. they were originally developed over 20 years ago for law

enforcement who, from time to time in a scuffle, will have their gun taken from them i the perpetrator. it is in the interest of law enforcement for the gun not to operate if it is in the hands of the bad guy rather than the good guy. we can all see where it would be valuable in certain circumstances. the problems and thus the downside is you cannot envision all the circumstances, and depending on the technology, it affects the outcome. there was one that operated off of fingerprints. if you are in a fight and get your hands in the dirt, the gun would not operate because it cannot read your fingerprints. it works off a battery -- what if the battery goes dead in the middle of your scuffle and the gun does not operate? at the end of the day, it is probably the market that will determine if it is a valuable tool. there are always costs, benefits, and detriments to everything, and our system

usually works things out on a monetary basis. is it going to be worth the price, and how do the equities balance in the use of the gun? peter: the technology is not infallible. if we are getting to the point that the technology is a-ok, absolutely trustworthy, will gun owners be prepared in your mind to stump up the extra cash? because these weapons are more expensive than the traditional, still quite simple 100 years after it went into common usage, still quite simple technology that represents a basic handgun? chuck: first, i agree with everything your previous speaker just said. second, the technology is still a long way from being reliable. the guns are going to be very expensive. it is an old technology, about

40 years old. the military has not decided to buy the guns because of reliability and the expense. the law enforcement community for similar reasons has rejected the gun. why would the civilian market by a gun that is extremely expensive with questionable reliability? if the domestic police will not use it, why should the civilian community use it? peter: 90% of teenage suicides in america, the people that kill themselves use a gun. it is a gun that they got from a relative. it is very easy in america with 300 million guns in circulation, to go into grandpa's arsenal and get your weapon of choice and end your life. would it be a good thing if we just talked about suicide? if we were having a conversation about suicide, not about gun

control, would we be saying this is a great idea? >> absolutely. i believe we should shift the conversation beyond just the market for reliability, but we should see smartguns and personalized firearms as a solution to the kinds of accidental shootings, the kinds of shootings involving suicides. it is about ensuring that we have a viable alternative for families and individuals who would like to have a firearm legally but also ensure that that firearm does not fall into the hands of curious children or underage minors who often are involved in accidental shootings, suicides, or even interpersonal conflicts, so part of our conversation must expand to, i believe, a public health conversation, not just one that depends on what the military does or what law enforcement personnel may do. the vast majority of gun owners in this country are civilians that need to have public health

viable solutions that provide both security and safety at the same time. peter: why are smart in not as commercialized as perhaps one would assume at this point in the life of people using handguns -- they are not as commercialized as one would assume they might be. where is the dynamic going to come from -- the gun lobby, big is this, sponsors, or government? richard: i think it will be the marketplace, and that encapsulates all of those you mention, but i agree with what the pastor just said. we have a responsibility to do a much better job of keeping guns out of the hands of people who everyone of us on this call and every gun owner i know believes ought not have guns, but why would we want to use the most

technologically advanced, difficult system? we can do it right now. they are called gun safes. i'm the guy with president clinton back in 1997, when i represented the firearms industry, announced we were going to ship all guns with child safety locks. when you have a gun in the home, why don't we start having people get safes? safes are not very expensive, small safes that can hold a couple of guns. we are not talking $500, $1000 and up. we are talking $100. if the grandpa who has got his guns, if he left his guns in the safe, his grandkids will not be able to access those guns. it is a simple solution we can do now for a lot let -- a lot less cost. peter: has richard feldman kind of nailed or pigeonholed the

debate, i.e., it is not a binary decision, despite the fact that candidate joe biden was in favor of smart guns on the campaign trail, and barack obama was in favor of smart guns, it is not as simple as saying smart guns for traditional guns, it has got to be part of a portfolio of reducing the death toll and the inappropriate use of handguns? chuck: let me say that i totally agree with mr. feldman. the democratic administrations of barack obama and bill clinton both have studies conducted by the cdc from a health perspective on firearm safety. i want to correct one thing -- the number of suicides by firearm is very, very low compared to all the methods used for suicide. as an instructor, one of the

things we cover in detail is the security of guns, the responsibility of the. many states have instituted laws that if guns are not secured properly and misused, the owner of that gun is now criminally liable. with good training, we can emphasize the security of firearms, the sponsor billy that goes with it. peter: i guess that is a fair point, isn't it? that suicide is suicide and if someone wants to take their own life, they will do it. it may take a longer time to do it, they may do it in a slightly more messy way, a less surgical way, if you will, but if someone wants to top themselves, they do not necessarily have to use a gun to do it, but do you get the sense where you are that the nra is resisting this, despite what

the industry is saying? the industry is now saying, look, we are getting better reception from the gun lobby? >> -- mike: i think it is important to say that while many can use various methods to attempt suicides, the use of guns are the most successful weapons or tools used when suicides do occur, meaning that you may be able to recover from a pill overdose or using razor blades or other forms, but once you pull the trigger, it is very hard to come back from that, and this is, i think, the point. we cannot allow the perfect to be the enemy of the good. data says 37% of deaths could be prevented with these kinds of personalized firearms, which means to say we ought to be thinking about mitigation efforts, ways to ensure that we are reducing the harm, not figuring out 100% failsafe proof method.

a holistic response that includes, i agree, safety locks and other forms of ways to secure weapons ought not be seen as oppositional to personal firearms because all collectively together, we could indeed increase the number or the percentage of preventable deaths, and that, i think, is the point. in our communities, it is not just about suicides. in the black community, in urban communities, it is not just about suicides, but also about accidental shootings. it is also about stolen firearms. it is also about the ways in which guns make it into the underground market and then come into the hands of our community members who are often seduced into using weapons to resolve personal conflicts. the conversation must be expanded, i think, continuously beyond just a 100% failsafe

proof conversation to a public health mitigation conversation that i think will allow many, if not all of our solutions to work together to achieve the shared outcomes, and that is more safe -- peter: is there a sense in which looking forward smart guns or the deployment of smart guns might be good in that the manufacturer or use of particularly handguns is essentially a function of whom or bust within the contractual side of the industry, i.e., looking at it globally, it depends where the united states is fighting and killing people, and when the united states stops doing that kind of thing or stops peacekeeping, the contracts are then wrapped up with the gun makers, and then there is a surplus of guns on the market in the u.s.? richard: that may have been true around world war ii and before, but civilians purchased 20, 30,

40, 50 times more guns in the united states than the military purchases. the guns the military is primarily interested in are not available on the commercial market for civilians. they are two separate and distinct markets, so that is not true, and again, you know, i really agree with the pastor. there is no one solution, and when he says the perfect should not be -- or rather the practical should not be the enemy of the perfect, well, you know, in a perfect world, the smartgun would be the perfect solution, but it's got problems. it will always have problems, and, frankly, those gangs could still steal personalized guns and figure out how to get rid of the personalization. if a gun is in a safe, it cannot be stolen so easily without

stealing the whole safe for breaking the safe. i mean, sometimes we look for the most incredible solutions when a simple solution will suffice quite well at a much lower cost without all the inconvenience and the debate. ." the pardon me for interrupting you. what incremental legislation perhaps represent a middle path moving forwards? because then people who like their guns and the gun lobby, the very powerful political gun lobby, would not feel that they were being presented with this black or white choice of "we are going to take away your traditional guns, and you must, must use the smart guns? mike -- chuck: no, that would not work. one, there is a constitutional amendment called the second

amendment that protects the right of the citizen to own firearms. second, i agree with the holistic approach. things that make the penalties more difficult, that would cut down a lot on the misuse. for example, if you illegally used a firearm, mandatory sentencing says automatic 20 years. i think that is something the gun lobby would support and also something that would cut down on the illegal use of guns because the bad guys would say the cost is too high. peter: pastor mike in oakland, is it significant that johns hopkins is saying 60% on its website today -- 60% of first-time gun buyers would buy smart technology over ordinary technology if it was readily available, or is it just that

they do not know what they are buying so they just want to go for the latest, glitzy estate -- glitziest top-of-the-line handgun available? mike: i think it is significant because we have begun to win the argument over and against the gun lobby and gun manufacturers who seem to love to raise strawman arguments about why these things will not work but are perfectly ok with the carnage and the blood spilling that is happening all across the country with a loosey-goosey, over and available use of firearms. i do believe that firearm consumers are wanting to do their part to ensure that we can literally reduce preventable deaths. even in this conversation, the idea that 1/3 of preventable deaths could be impacted by the introduction of smart firearms,

it is as if that is a small, insignificant number. we must again allow those with very sensible and committed arguments around protecting and saving and maintaining security around guns -- we must allow those arguments to carry the day and perhaps the industry, the market, the manufacturing of these kinds of smart firearms will grow because the demand will grow and invariably, we will have more options, more better technology in this whole sector. peter: just to nail down, if i can for the next minute or so, what your stance seems to be, the pastor is saying you can reduce deaths by 1/3. the lowest state percentage i have found today says you can reduce death by gun by 25%. does that not there for that everyone should embrace the technology and push for the technology to be readily

available once it is 100% guaranteed as this functions, it works, it does what it says on the tin? richard: what you are leaving out of the equation is the people that don't own guns think this technology is a great idea. the people that own guns and want to own guns do not like the technology for the most part, and it is true, the market will decide. the people that buy guns are not interested and do not want it. the people that don't own guns think that the other people who do on the opt to have it. therein lies the conundrum because it is the market ultimately that will decide, and the market is of gun owners, not of anti-gun, non-gun owners. peter: going back to this idea of pro-and anti-gun lobby, do we have to -- does the united states have to disassemble this kind of apolitical metric where you've got this simplistic

assumption, republicans like their guns -- for them, it is an issue of free will -- democrats think guns should be controlled in a harder away from them? chuck: as an instructor, i can tell you that because of the increased crime rate in democrat-dominated enclaves, most of my students are liberal democrats right now that are afraid and looking to defend themselves. in several studies that have been done, including the assault weapons ban that went on in this country for 10 years, and several health studies by the cdc that conclusively said that imposing more restrictions will not decrease and have not decreased the illegal use of firearms, so we are good -- the idea we are going through this whole drill again makes no

sense. peter: would this dynamic be accelerated perhaps if the equation between adoption and funding work shortened? and a key way to do that is on the one hand, to get police forces across the united states to start using smart guns, but on the other hand, that is incredibly difficult because you guys in the u.s. have so many -- you have tens of thousands of individual police forces up and down the ■country. michael there are 16,000 police departments in this country, so any kind of universal adoption of any policy is quite herculean. again, i would just stress we must continue in this country to push conversations that are about education, that are about reducing harm. we must continue to shy away from the kind of propaganda and/or the lighting our hair on fire about what will not work. it is not true that the kinds of

fear mongering that is happening around crime is actually the reality as it relates to taking guns or owning guns to protect yourself. again, the research says if you own a gun, you are more likely to have someone in your family or yourself harmed by that gun than by using it in a self defense-type situation. we must expand the consciousness of everyday citizens in this country around public safety, around personal security, and i believe continuing to adopt and introduce these kinds of technical -- technological advances can contribute to a conversation where we are not driven by fear to the point where we are not in bracing the kinds of efforts that can keep us safe. peter: thank you very much, gentlemen. we believe it there. you can see the show any time via the website, and for further discussion, go to our facebook page.

you can also follow the conversation on twitter. from me and the team here in know-how, thanks for watching. we will see you at the usual time tomorrow. bye-bye. ♪ççççoggcccccg'''?■

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