allow passage by simple majority. vice president harris can certify, that could break that senate tie. he said he's not going to do that. so, we have a disconnect there between what people want, public opinion, what the market is saying, isn't despite of tragedy. >> mike allen, thank you. thanks to all of you for getting up "way too early" on this wednesday morning. "morning joe" starts right now. >> hillary and i are profoundly shocked and saddened -- >> in littleton, california. >> by the news. >> oregon. >> the elementary school in texas. >> florida. >> michigan. >> prayers of the american people are with you. >> we are praying for them. >> laura and i and many across our nation -- >> our entire nation -- >> with one heavy heart. >> -- is praying for the --

>> -- the victims and their families. >> it's not just littleton. we know that lots and lots of places. >> we been through this too many years, took decades now. >> as i said just a few months ago, and i said a few months before that, and i said each time we see one of these mass shootings are our thoughts and prayers are not enough. >> schools should be places of safety and sanctuary and learning. >> perhaps now america would wake up to the dimensions of this challenge. if can happen in a place like littleton. and we can prevent anything like this from happening again. >> and now, president biden once again joins his predecessors in what has become a sick ritual of addressing the nation after a horrific mass shooting inside an american school. this was the scene from the white house yesterday. after the latest massacre in

texas. american flags were also lowered at federal buildings. military installations and at u.s. embassies around the world. we'll go live to texas in just a moment. and get the latest into the investigation into the shooting from nbc's tom winter. also coming up later this hour, the major political story out of georgia. where yesterday's primary elections were the clearest repudiation to date by republican voters of former president donald trump. governor brian kemp ran away with his election defeating david perdue by more than 50 points. trump had essentially hand-picked former senator perdue to try to defeat kemp. trump suggested that people vote for democrats, stacey abrams camp. all of that did not work. also yesterday, secretary of state brad raffensperger won his trump-endorsed election over

jody hice and was asked the exact amount of votes he would need to defeat joe biden in 2020. raffensperger beat congressman hice who backed the big lie by more than 20 points. we'll have more on this huge story. steve kornacki will be at the half hour. willie. that pales in comparison to 19 children. 19 children and two teachers dead now after a shooting atty texas element saer school. the attack on uvalde, the second deadliest behind sandy hook nearly a decade ago. the texas department of public safety, dps say there are more victims, children and adults in hospitals. investigators believe the 18-year-old suspect his grandmother at her home. then fled, crashing his truck in a ditch near robb elementary school before noon central time. his grandmother is in critical

condition this morning. a dps trooper described what happened next to nbc's morgan chesky. >> at that point, the gunman made entrance to the school. just complete disregard for human life. just a human person. started shooting kids, anybody in his way. teamers. had no regard for human life. >> just walking into the school and opened fire? >> yeah, we do know he was armed with some type of long rifle. we're trying to determine what type of long rifle, how he obtained that. we are trying to make that determination. once he made entrance to the school. he continued with children and teachers. >> that trooper also says a school resource officer and two police officers from the city of uvalde fired at the suspect who was wearing body armor but the officers had to get backup from a tactical team which ultimately shot and killed the gunman. he was told by texas rangers the gunman bought two assault-style rifles from a store in uvalde on

his 18th birthday just over a week ago. nbc news has not independently confirmed that specific detail. texas rangers are leading the state investigation in uvalde. they're the primary investigators for the dps and typically handle high-profile cases. we are now beginning to learn the names of some of the victims. a family member tells our sister station in dallas, fourth grader, uziyah garcia was one killed. the family of 9 year-old amerie garza confirmed her death. xavier lopez was killed. his mother was with him at an awards ceremony just hours before this shooting. one of the two teachers killed has been identified as a family member, she's eva mireles. she's been a teacher for 18 years. a short biography notes he loved

running, hiking and biking. a family member tells "the new york times" that mireles was married and a mother. the other teacher killed is identified as irma garcia. her biography notes she was a co-teacher with miss mireles. she leaves behind a husband and four children. for more on that tom winter with us, and jonathan lemire, the chief of politico. msnbc contributor mike barnicle. and "the new york times" elizabeth milltan. >> trying to figure out the details, specifically when the guns were purchased. they do all appear at this initial time as we sit here and talk about this, purchased legally, his birthday was on may 16th. born may 16th, 2004. within the last eight or nine days, these weapons were purpled legally in the state of texas. the long gun that's described

there. not particularly clear the make and model at this point. one thing that is perfectly clear, we've come to know all too well after the shootings is that the impact of those guns that fire a bullet in a very high velocity, on kids, is especially -- especially damaging. and we heard last night that parents were lining up in order to provide dna to positively identify those children. it's not because they forget what the faces of those kids look like. i think that underscores the tremendous amount of violence. i went back and does something i never hoped to do last night which was to review my notes on newtown. including the report there. it's important to people to know how fast death can occur. that was ten minutes from the moment adam lanza first fired to the moment he killed himself that that incident was over and we saw what happened there. it's just a very difficult scene to process.

at this point, they're going to try to figure out this time line. we mentioned newtown, not only because of the amount of students who are dead, it's eerily similar to what happened with adam lanza, he shot his mother. and went to the school and carried out the attack. as you mentioned, willie, there there was a shooting of his grandmother. she's believed to be alive. at least at this hour. critically important to figure out the sense of motive here. but there's no motive that law enforcement can offer us, there's nothing that we can find online that we might find later today, or a posting later today that could possibly provide any justification forever what we saw yesterday. >> yeah. you know, we've been through this so many times. we were through this with buffalo, el paso, of course, we talked about newtown. and we know, as these mass killings continue, we're going to hear the same things. we're going to hear from

republicans that, well, our thoughts and prayers are with them. we're going to hear from republicans this is the cost of freedom. we're going to hear from republicans, there's nothing we can do about it. there's just nothing we can do about it. if you pass this piece of legislation, well that won't do anything about that shooting. if you pass another piece of legislation that won't do anything about this other shooting. we also hear something really gross from the same people who desperately seek, find any crime that an illegal immigrant causes and then run it on the tv network for 24 hours a day. it's never time to talk about this, is it? they're cowards, they're such cowards. of course. they don't want to talk about it just like january 6. like we saw in the focus group, they want you to forget about it. when is the right time to talk about 9/11?

oh, i don't know, a year later. no i would say a pretty damned good time to talk about 9/11 would have been on 9/11 when it was happening, on 9/12, how did this happen? these fools -- they know exactly -- these barbarians, they get on tv, and they say, oh, let's not talk about it now. five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10, 11-year-old kids now in our schools from newtown to texas. we're getting gunned down by military weapons. so mutilated that their moms and dads can't even recognize their faces? and washington does nothing.

hey joe manchin, it's time you did something, all right? do something. i'm kind of tired. i'm just going to tell you, your old routine, oh, it's always this person or that -- joe, why don't you get out in front of something for once in five years and start talking about what you can do and instead of what you can't do? because all you ever talk about is what will you can't do. you're a democrat that got this right, after newtown. and you pushed with pat toomey. and you pushed with him on background checks. you need to do that again. 90% of americans support background checks. 90%. almost two-thirds of americans oppose military style weapons. almost two-thirds of americans, overwhelming number of americans support gun safety laws. that congress will not pass.

here's the thing, it's not just that, what makes it worse is not just what congress is not doing. what makes it worse is what state legislators are doing. there's a race -- we saw it in abortion where a 13-year-old girl can get raped, and she's forced to carry the rapist's baby full-term. basically, ending her life as she knows it. where texas, another state, racing to the bottom. florida. racing to make sure you can get a gun without a permit. you can just go buy a gun and open carry it. this is insanity. and you know who says this is insanity? gun shop owners. nra members. gun owners like myself. people that understand the power

of the gun and want to use a gun, have a gun, responsibly. that understand you need to go to the range. you need to practice, if you're going to have a gun in your home for protection, you need -- you need to know what you have. but these republicans race to the bottom. let's let 18-year-olds get guns on their birthday. go buy two military-style weapons on their birthday. and take every other sort of meaningful legislation away. regulation safe guards away. and why? do we think 90% of americans, do we think 50% of americans, want an 18-year-old kid, who just turned 18, want him to go out and buy two military-style weapons?

to open carry in other states. to get guns without a permit. it is insanity. and this is what state republicans -- let me be very clear -- okay -- republican state legislators. this is what they're doing. and they're doing it despite the fact the overwhelming number of americans oppose it. and, mike barnicle, you know, it really struck me as strange that you had all of these people who were supposedly former law enforcement officers except when their people are beating the hell out of cops on january 6. and when police officers said, hey, we got to cool it with like the military-style weapons. we've got to cool it with the body armor. we've got to cool it with

armor-piercing bullets. suddenly, these republicans -- oh, no, no, no, that's an infringement of our freedom. these people think that little kids getting gunned down in school, that's just the cost of freedom. these are, by the way, the same people that wouldn't wear a piece of paper over their mouth during a pandemic that killed 1 million americans. they're really -- there is no other -- no other word that describes them but radical, maybe dangerous, immoral. it all fits. by the way, yeah, i'm doing this the day after, because, you know what, go back and listen to what i said the day after january 6. the day after september 11th. no. this is the time to talk. the cowards don't want to us talk. the people who are defending the gunmakers don't want us to talk. the people who are in effect putting the guns into the hands

of these mass murderers don't want us to talk. now, is the time to talk. and it's time for us to take our country back peacefully. but it is time to retake america. take it back peacefully from these state legislators. who are turning our classrooms, our churches, our country music festivals into killing zones, mike. >> you know, joe, everything that you just said, we just did. we just said it. nine days ago. because of buffalo. where people were killed because of their skin color in a supermarket. and today, we're doing it again, and i don't know whether any of us here will be able to get through the morning without crying, honestly. you just had a graduation this weekend, joe, this weekend. your daughter graduated from

high school. all of us have children here. i remember third, fourth, fifth grade parents going to school and the children are so giddy when you came home and said, naturally, oh, i was told you're the best kid in the class. you're the smartest kid in the class. and i was thinking last night about the forensics teams that go into that school. tom winter mentioned. i know two members of the forensics team who were at newtown. they've never been the same. never been the same. and i can guarantee you today that members of the s.w.a.t. team and the forensics team down in uvalde, texas, will never be the same, as will obviously, none of the parents. the parents' relatives, and this nation, we say, will never be the same. but then we have to ask ourselves the question, we know hoot enemies are. the enemies are the hypocrites and the scoundrels who stand up in the united states senate

including last night and talk about what a tragedy it is. and we must all pray for the survivors and the families that are going to need our support and our prayers. and then they actively work against progress in terms of controlling the distribution of guns in this country. they are cowards. we know that. but then there's the rest of us. we're all in shock here today because of what happened. but when we come inured to this shock because it happens so often. so it's almost as if, my god, 19 children killed in an elementary school. fourth and fifth graders. and we pause, and we say, did the red sox win last night? and we go on with our lives. in the midst of this assault on us. this assault. this attack on our country.

going on with people in public life, doing very little. later on, we're going to have senator chris murphy from connecticut. and i assume we'll play his clip. >> yeah, absolutely. >> on the senate floor. last night, a basketball coach, steve kerr, golden state warriors head coach whose father was assassinated when he was a diplomat in lebanon gave an incredibly strong statement about his feelings about what happened. this lingers for many people. but it doesn't linger enough for most people. and here we are, raising again the question we talked about just a few days ago, who are we? really. >> and by the way, it's -- it's always an us against them thing. for these people that want to take the most extreme position. that 90% of americans oppose.

and yet somehow, we can't get gun safety legislation, but 90% of americans support. right? and here's the thing, i mean, i'm a gun owner. have more than one gun. i'm not afraid of guns. i grew up around them. i had -- mika grew up around them. we've had them in our houses. and here's the thing, so, if you haven't grown up around gun owners, and all you do is listen to the jack asses on tv that take the floor and talk about freedom, after little kids get gunned down, if you haven't grown up around gun owners like i did, and first baptist church in mississippi, first baptist church in shamly, georgia. and first baptist church in pensacola, florida. let me tell you what gun owners say about things like this.

they all do, to a person. don't need one of those guns to kill a deer. see, that's not an aclu member on the upper west side. that's what you would always hear on sunday mornings after these killings. you look at the numbers, nra members, the overwhelming majority of nra members, want background checks expanded dramatically. a lot of republicans want to get rid of these military-style weapons. this is insanity. and it's insanity that only happens in america. in western democracies. only in america do we have these mass killings repeatedly, over and over. and you don't tell us we can't do anything about it. you're the weakest, most feckless, pathetic liars to say

we can't do something about it. we can do something about it. maybe it's just one step at a time. but we need to start moving in that direction. and instead, we're going in the opposite direction. on the federal level. on the state level, on the local level. it's unbelievable. willie, you know, mike barnicle said -- talked about how i have a daughter who graduated from high school this past week. fred guttenberg who lives about an hour south of me -- fred's daughter would have graduated this past week. jamie. she's my daughter's age. and all the things that we did, all the things that families and

kids who are graduating across the country, jamie would have -- jamie would have gone, she was my daughter's age. i think she would have graduated this year, maybe last year, maybe this year. but the human toll of this, and again, as president biden said, i thought he did an extraordinary job last night. and i really do, i feel sorry for those who actually saw that and were actually forced to say something really shitty about him after he did it. i mean, if that's how they make their money, that really -- makes me really sad for them. that they have that dark of a soul. that they're that twisted. but they did. all over the internet. all over tv. just twisted people. but as president biden said last

night, the carnage, not only -- this american carnage -- yeah, donald, you got that one right. this is american carnage brought on by you and your party. president biden was right. this impacts not just the parents in the most horrific of ways, it destroys the lives of brothers, of sisters, of best friends, of neighbors, of aunts and uncles, grandparents, communities. it's violence against entire families, entire communities. entire -- just -- just entire -- well, the entire country. and you look at these individual cases like fred, we're going to be talking to later on. they don't get to graduation. they don't get the marriage. they don't get the grandkids. they don't get life playing out naturally the way it's supposed

to play out. because this keeps happening. and this keeps happening because legislators and the republican party are cowards. they won't even do the things they know they're supposed to do. and i say this again. the supporter of the second amendment even before heller said the second amendment it's supposed to mean what the second amendment says. we have a right to keep and bear arms. but military-style weapons, lame background checks, letting 18-year-old kids go out and buy weapons like three years before they can have a sip of beer legally. willie, it's just crazy. there's blood in the streets. there's blood in classrooms. there is blood in country music converts. there's blood in churches and synagogues because of these

crazen politicians. >> we're going to talk to president gutenberg in just about an hour. we saw the pictures of his beautiful, talented daughter jamie. it does break your heart. and there's more devastation and lives shattered in uvalde, texas. let's go straight there to nbc news correspondent kerry sanders. kerry, what is the latest on the investigation, and what are you seeing and hearing as you arrived in town? >> reporter: well, nobody slept overnight. normally, that might have been because of the rain, lightning and the thunder but because 19 children were killed here. two adults. i think what you'll probably hear from fred. but i covered what happened in parkland. and this is not just something that just touches the family members of those victims here. this touches everybody. there is people in parkland today who still have ptsd who were not even at the school that day.

this, like many communities is a tight-knit community. people know reach other. so, you're going to have the reverberations of this not for the next week as people surge for answers but this will continue in many cases for a lifetime. so what people want to know right now is why. that is always the question, why. the authorities who are here, they did not sleep overnight. they have been at the location of the elementary school. they've been looking for evidence. they've been making sure that they're going through all the forensics, to see what is might tell them. the alcohol, tobacco and firearms agents have been researching to find out details about the weapons that he had. a pistol, what we believe is a long weapon. may have been an assault weapon. may have been one of those two weapons that he purchased on his birthday. when he turned 18 years old recently. the authorities later today are likely to hold a news conference. whether they can answer those

questions, we don't know. we do know that they want the answers. but this may be a little editorial for a reporter on the scene, but i don't think there really can be an answer, as to why somebody takes a gun, goes into a school, and then just begins shooting young children. but we want to know why. because we want to the see if perhaps -- and this is what you'll hear from politicians today. you'll hear from community members. we want to hear if we can understand why can we solve the problem from happening again. i just heard joe going over one after another after another. so, now, family members will come to grips with the loss of children. there there are grief counselors who already met with them yesterday. continuing to meet with them today. holding hands. tried to give them maybe some medication to sleep. waking up from this nightmare will likely never happen. and at the end of the day, a

community is forever changed. i will say, that i never heard of uvalde, texas. but now this will be a town that will be forever known in the same way that parkland was discovered by the rest of the nation because of one of the worst things that could happen. i'm hopeful that as we hear from the authorities later today, and they haven't given us a specific time of when they're going to give us a news conference, i'm hopeful that while they give us certain information, maybe tell us things that some of us may want to know. and may not want to know because as we look at the pictures of these 19 children, it's so hard. because these are real people. but when we hear from the authorities, the questions are there. they have them. we're all listening. and then i guess, as you stated so well, all this morning, what are the answers to present this from. happening again. guys. >> 19 children, with just a couple days left in their school

year, getting ready for summer. being dropped off at school. just under 24 hours ago. now, you're sitting there in front of a crime scene. nbc's kerry sanders in uvalde, texas. kerry, we'll be back to you throughout the morning. >> willie, before we turn to president biden, these 19 children, there may be more, we don't know what the final toll will be. just think about this, they're second, third and fourth graders. we all know what that's like. that's such an exciting time for parents around children. they were about to go forward into their summer. 19 of them between 7 and 10 years old. this is the largest school shooting since sandy hook. and like buffalo, a good guy with a gun did nothing, compared to a person in complete body armor with two assault weapons. walking through a school. that's not an argument that can be made. 19 children. are gone this morning. >> you're right.

this was a hardened school. they had a resource officer. a retired police officer likely there who exchanged fire. there were two police officers from the city of uvalde exchanging fire. they couldn't get to him because of that body armor. >> it's a ridiculous argument. >> we talked about president biden, had was on air force one returning home from his trip to asia when this massacre happened in texas. the white house tweeted this photo as president biden spoke with texas governor greg abbott to offer the president's assistance. and then last night, the president emotionally addressed the nation. >> i had hoped when i became president i would not have to do this again. another massacre. uvalde, texas. an elementary school. beautiful, innocent second, third, fourth graders.

and how many scores of little children who witnessed what happened, see their friends die, as if they're in a battlefield, for god's sake. they'll remember it the rest of their lives. there's a lot we don't know yet. there's a lot we do know. the parents who will never see their child again. never have them jump in bed and cuddle with them. parents who will never be the same. to lose a child is like having a piece of your soul ripped away. there's a hollowness in your chest, you feel like you're being sucked into it and never

going to be able to get out, suffocating. it's never quite the same. it's a feeling shared by the siblings and the grandparents and the family members and the communities left behind. as a nation, we have to ask, when in god's name are we going to stand up to the gun lobby? when in god's name do we do what we all know in our gut needs to be done? this is a 3,448 days, ten years since a high school -- grade school in connecticut, where another gunman massacred 26 people including 20 first graders at sandy hook elementary school. since then, there have been over 900 incidents of gunfires reported on school grounds.

marjory stoneman douglas high school in parkland, florida. santa fe high school in texas. oxford high school in michigan. the list goes on and on. the list grows. when include mass shootings in places like movie theaters, houses of worship. as we saw just ten days ago in a grocery store in buffalo, new york. i am sick and tired of it. we have to act. and don't tell me we can't have an impact on this carnage. i spent my career as a senator and a vice president, working to pass common sense gun laws. we can't and won't prevent every tragedy, but we know they work and have positive impact. when we passed the assault weapons ban, mass shootings went down. and when the law expired, mass shootings tripled.

the idea that an 18-year-old kid can walk into a gun store and buy two assault weapons is just wrong. what in god's name do you need assault rifle for, except to kill someone? they aren't running through the forests with kevlar vests on, for god's sake. it's just sick. and the gun manufacturers have spent two decades aggressively marking assault weapons which make them the most and largest profit. for god's sake, we have to have the courage to stand up to the industry. what struck me was these kinds of mass shootings rarely happen anywhere else in the world. why? they have mental health problems. they have domestic disputes in other countries. they have people who are lost, but these kinds of mass

shootings never happen with the kind of frequency that happen in america. why? why are we willing to live with this carnage? why do we keep letting this happen? where in god's name is our backbone, to take the courage to deal with and stand up to the lobbyists? it's time to turn this pain into action. for every parent. for every citizen in this country. we have to make it clear to every elected official in this country it's time to act. time for those who have struck to delay or block the common sense gun laws, we need to let you know that we will not forget. we can do so much more. we have to do more. our prayer tonight as those parents lying in bed trying to

figure out will i be able to sleep again? what do i say to my other children? what happens tomorrow? may god bless the loss of innocent life on this sad day. and may the lord be near the brokenhearted and save those crushed in spirit. because they're going to need a lot of help. a lot of our prayers. god love you. >> this is joe biden at his most effective, his strongest. >> yeah. >> most moving. he showed compassion. but he also showed righteous anger. to quote -- i am sick and tired of it, we have to act, and don't tell me we can't have an impact on this carnage. i would guess he spoke for about 80%, 90% of americans there.

>> yes, he did. and it was hard not to feel it in your core. and you parallel that moment with the president and his options at hand. with this weekend, the nra's annual summit. it's called the legislative action leadership forum. and they have a lot of high-profile guests. the question is, will they go? what will they talk about? what exactly is the legislative action they are pushing for at this point? elisabeth bumiller, i'll talk to you about president biden. did he meet the moment and what are his options? >> yes, he certainly met the moment. i was just watching that again just now, and he obviously spoke, it was ad lib, he didn't speak from prepared remarks. he spoke from the heart as though the president has been able to about -- it was obviously reflective of his own loss of a daughter killed in a car crash. and his son beau who died a

number of years ago. he speaks from the heart about the pain, about the feeling in your chest. also, i thought, religious, he talked about may the lord be near those who can endure this, because they're going to need it. it was very religious for the president to say that. and i was also, of course, struck by the fact that he said on the way back from his trip to asia, he reflected about how many so many other countries have mental health problems. they have lost souls. they have domestic violence. domestic disputes. but no other country like united states has the gun violence that we do. the fact is that there are 400 million guns in the united states. the number of guns manufactured since 2000 here has tripled because of -- because of actions by state legislatures, by the congress. by the supreme court. and as he pointed out, you know, gun violence went up after the assault weapons ban expired in

2004. so i was -- i think he did meet the moment. he touched all of those issues. he spoke for the majority of americans, according to polls. and his options are limited. his options are on the hill. senator schumer is introducing -- you know, there was a gun control legislation that passed the house last year that just backgrounds -- basic background check legislation, that senator schumer is going to bring up again in the senate. right now, there are not the votes. there are not the republican votes to pass it. interestingly enough, yesterday, some of those republicans senators like ted cruise spoke out against the violence and decried that the shooting and yet, there was no mention of any kind of legislation. and any kind of solution. and at this point, senator cruz is apparently going to the nra summit this weekend. >> so, jonathan lemire,

scheduled to speak, former president trump, senator ted cruz of texas. senator cruz said you see democrats, to restrict the constitutional rights of law abiding citizens. that's a theme we'll probably hear. back to your and president biden with the mass shootings, do something. what does that mean to him what is the something that can be done? we know that majority leader schumer introduced the idea of taking up the legislation in the house to tighten up background checks. is there a future on that? >> first on the nra convention, we should note it's 278 miles, the convention center in houston to that school where these children were slain. just saying. >> and they're going to have metal detectors, no firearms allowed. if you go on their website, it's quite exciting.

they want to make sure nobody brings their weapons inside. >> as of yesterday afternoon, all of these still slated for the weekend. we heard from the president yesterday. he obviously as he talked about, sadly. he speaks about grief, eloquently better than any politician of his time. in part losing two children, one as a baby and his son beau as an adult. he pivoted halfway through from grief to anger. another quote is where in god's name is our backbone? such frustration, wondering why can this not be done. white house aides i talked to said, look, they're expanding executive orders, executive actions, we've seen some from the president before. there are probably things that can be done on things like ghost guns. these are small, relatively piecemeal things. massive change can only come from legislation. joe manchin, democratic senator, said he is not willing to change the filibuster for gun control legislation, therefore, it's not going to happen.

in the sense that senator sinema will join him. and they're the obstructionists here. they have been throughout, on gun control legislation. so there will be a vote. probably not going to go anywhere. there doesn't seem like there much can be done. and that fueled the president's anger yesterday because another tragedy like this, another school tragedy. and yet america won't change. >> it won't. doesn't want to. >> by the way, it's important, i just want -- i just want to say again, we're going to hear liars get on tv. we're going to hear liars get on the senate floor. they're going to twist the second amendment and what it means. wrench the words out of their context. twist is beyond any actual constitutional meaning that it has. the constitution of the united states of america, the second amendment, if you read haller,

it does not extend the constitutional right for 18-year-olds to walk in and buy military-style weapons. ar-15s. i ask, if you're on twitter, you go to my twitter feed, and look at an article from 1981 that james fallows wrote. it's about the testimony of a man who designed the ar-15, talking about that style of gun was made because it was far more deadly. far more effective in killing people in war. than the weapons that were being used in vietnam. it is a gun that he specifically designed to kill people the most effective way on battlefields. more lightweight, smaller

caliber. it does more damage when it goes in the human flesh. and that -- that, an 18-year-old being able to go out and buy two ar-15s on his 18th birthday. and use that weapon of war against second graders? that is not -- keeping that gun out of the hands of killers, that is not restricting the constitutional rights of americans. and if you're too stupid to understand that, then google heller. h-e-l-l-e-r -- and read it -- and one other thing, too. we're going to have chris murphy

on. after newtown, republicans and democrats alike and the connecticut legislature passed the most expansive gun safety law. probably the most expansive in america. guess why? the supreme court still hasn't overturned it. 14 years later. do you know why? because there is no constitutional right under the second amendment, according to the united states constitution, and that constitution as interpreted by this conservative supreme court to buy military-style weapons when you're 18 years old. when you're 28 years old. when you're 38 years old. when you're 58 years old. that is not constitutionally protected. so when i hear jackasses going on tv or senate floor or house

floor saying that, just know they are liars. they're lying to you. they're lying to their constituents. they're lying to everyone who listens. and that is not an opinion. that is a matters of constitutional law. that is a matterof case law. that is a matter of fact. so, trust me, most people that stand up at nra convention, they're going to be lying through their teeth. also -- just so gun manufacturers continue to make millions and millions and millions of dollars selling weapons of war to paranoid scared americans who continue to be lied to by the nra. gun owners of america and republican members of the house and the senate and in state legislatures and in governors' mansions. i wonder, i wonder if governor

abbott is still embarrassed that texas is not the number one gun buying state in america. >> they're number two. >> they're number two. and he said he's deeply ashamed by that. come on, go out and buy more guns, texans, is what he says. it is -- it is absolutely sick, mika. embarrassed. >> there is a huge amount of purchases, by the way, which we can get to in just a moment. tom winter, i want you to zoom in, joe's been looking on this broad hideous picture of a good guy with a gun. and this could be described as an arms race between law enforcement and shooter. >> i think there's been a whole host of things, very disturbing over the last couple of weeks when we look back at the buffalo shooting. certainly, the motive there, white supremacy and hate. and when we look at this shooting, and we sue the deaths of 19 children. but one of the things that i

know law enforcement is going to be focused on. one of the things we're focused on in our reporting is the idea in both instances you had people who were confronted by somebody armed. in the buffalo case, a retired police officer working as a security guard. yesterday, multiple officers were shot and wounded in the course of this. it is not as if somebody wasn't met with a challenge. it wasn't as if these are completely unguarded places. and now you're in a situation that school safety officer who we all know is part time counselor, part time parent, part time police officer who is there, that side arm that they have the firearm they have, the 9 millimeter, 45 millimeter or bulletproof vest that they have may no longer be enough to meet the challenge of the person coming into that school to kill kids. because you have somebody with body armor. you have can be as joe referenced a military-style weapon, firing a bullet at an extremely high velocity designed

to destroy people's bodies. that's the situation you that have. i think all of this, things joe mentioned, things talked about this morning are all coming to a nexus here. after 9/11, people sat down, academics, politicians and what can we do -- i know some rights were taken away after 9/11. but what can we do in totality to at least address this issue. i'm not a politics reporter and that's all your expertise, but there doesn't appear to be this idea of getting everybody in the room and saying what common sense things do we need to do. because it is entirely possible that over the next couple of hours and days we will look back at this shooting and say within the confines of the laws that we have there was nothing illegal this person did up until the moment they fired the shot. so, how do you find out if somebody is going to do this

ahead of time? how do we prevent this type of thing happening. we're not having that discussion in totality at this point. that's a thing so concerning. >> more good guys with guns, if a politician gives you that answer, just know, for the record, that's not a left answer anymore. tom winter thank you very much. still ahead on "morning joe," much more on the texas school shooting. including that emotional sound that mike barnicle mentioned, senator chris murphy's plea for action on gun violence. he'll be our guest this morning. and golden state warriors head coach steve kerr's impassioned message for members of congress. also, we're breaking down the primary results out of georgia. and the stinging rebuke republican voters dealt donald trump yesterday. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back. >> spare me the [ bleep ] about any mental illness, we don't

have any more mental illness than any other country in the world. you can't explain this through a prism of mental illness, because we're not an outlier on mental illness. we're an outlier when it comes to access to firearms and the ability of criminals and sick people to get their hands on firearms. that's what makes america different. firearms at's what makes america different. and not appreciate when they do? i love it when work actually works! i just booked this parking spot... this desk... and this conference room! i am filing status reports on an app that i made! i'm not even a coder! and it works!... i like your bag! when your digital solutions work, the world works. that's why the world works with servicenow.

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every single time they set foot in a classroom because they think they're going to be next. what are we doing? this isn't inevitable. these kids weren't unlucky. this only happens in this country. and nowhere else. nowhere else do little kids go to school thinking that they might be shot that day. nowhere else do parents have to talk to their kids as i have had to do why they got locked in a bathroom and told to be quiet just in case a bad man entered that building. nowhere does that happen except here in the united states of america. and it is a choice. it our choice to let it continue. >> senator chris murphy of connecticut whose life and career were changed by the murders of 20 children and six educators at sandy hook nearly a decade ago. he will join us to talk about

what can be done at the top of our next hour. about 400 miles north of robb elementary school until uvalde, texas, at americanairlines arena in dallas, golden state warriors head coach steve kerr was not interested in talking about basketball before last night's playoff game against the mavs asked, kerr used his pregame conference to talk about gun violence. >> nothing's happened with our team in the last six hours. we're going to start the same way tonight. any basketball questions don't matter. since we left shootaround, 14 children were killed 400 miles from here. and a teacher. and in the last ten days we've had elderly black people killed in a supermarket in buffalo. we've had asian churchgoers killed in southern california and now we have children

murdered at school. what are we going to do something? i'm tired, i'm so tired of getting up here and offering condolences to the devastated families that are out there. i'm so tired of excuse, i'm sorry, i'm tired of the moments of silence. enough. there's 50 senators right now, who refuse to vote on hr 8 which is a background check rule that the house passed a couple years ago. it's been sitting there for two years. and there's a reason they won't vote on it to hold on to power, i ask you, mitch mcconnell, i ask all of you senators who refuse to do anything about violence and school shootings and supermarket shootings, i ask you, are you going to put your own desire for power ahead of the lives of our children and our elderly and our churchgoers?

because that's what it looks like. that's what we do every week. so, i'm fed up, i've had enough. we're going to play the game tonight. but i want every person here, every person listening to this to think about your own child or grandchild or mother, or father, or sister, brother, how would you feel if this happened to you today? we can't get numb to this. we can't sit here and just read about it and go, well, let's have a moment of silence. yeah, go, come on, mavs, let's go. that's what we're going to do play a basketball game. and 50 senators in washington are going to hold us hostage -- do you realize 90% of americans regardless of political party want universal background checks. we're being held hostage by 50 senators in washington who

refuse to even put it to a vote, despite what we the american people want. they won't vote on it because they want to hold on to their own power. it's pathetic, i've had enough. >> steve kerr, before the playoff game in dallas last night. mike, you mentioned his father was in beirut, a assassinated in 1984, the usual suspects will tell steve kerr to shut up and play. and i think he speaks for the vast majority of americans who want this. >> what he said, it's back to who are we as a country? we put a yellow ribbon on a post at the end of the driveway. we gather around with candles and then we continue with this madness. fred guttenberg is going to be here in a few moments. his daughter died in parkland.

what happens to these people who walk through their lives forever with an open wound. an open wound that will never heal. with a room, a bedroom, perhaps that they will keep immaculately the way it was left from their child shot and killed. what happens to those people years from now? do they say, my fourth grader, my 5-year-old, my high school junior died in the war? the war against insanity of the national rifle association and the cowardice of the united states senate, largely by one republican party, to be frank about it, the republican party. that's how they died. they died in a war. a war we cannot win. >> mika, there are parents in uvalde, texas, still waiting to learn if their child is among the dead slaughtered. several us went up to sandy hook

that day. almost a decade ago. there's a small brick firehouse outside the school which was the reunification center. some parents went are in and unified. met by their children. for others, they went into another room. and you could hear the screams through the walls of that firehouse. in uvalde, it's a civic center where the parents are going right now. to learn that the kids though dropped off at school are still alive. it's excruciating, it's what makes america different. to those republicans holding back on this legislation, ideas, solutions, why not just try it at this point? just try it? just do something. it is three minutes past the top of the hour, it's 6:00 a.m. in the texas town of uvalde, where 19 children and two teachers were killed after yesterday's shooting. that town located about 80 miles west of san antonio is now the

scene of the second deadliest school shooting in u.s. history. there's a lot unknown at this time. but here's what we do know. the texas department of public safety says more victims, both children and adults are being treated in hospitals this morning. the authorities say the 18-year-old suspect shot his grandmother at her home, before fleeing and crashing his truck in a ditch. there's some parallels to sandy hook there. near robb elementary school, just before noon central time, the grandmother is now in critical condition. investigators say the suspect wore body armor when he entered the school. and shot any students or staff that he saw. state officials say a school staffer and two local uvalde police officers fired at the suspect but were outgunned.

needing backup from a tactical team which ultimately shot and killed the 18-year-old gunman. a state senator said he heard from texas rangers that the gunman brought two assault-style rifles from a store in a county on his 18th birthday just a week ago. nbc news has not confirmed that detail, but apparently this might have been a birthday present to himself. among the victims, a dallas report reports that a fourth grader, uziyah garcia. and one. teachers identified as eva mireles, she was a teacher for 17 years. most recently to fourth graders, a family member told "the new york times" that mireles was married and a mother, killed trying to protect her students. president biden was on air force one, returning from his trip to asia, when the massacre

occurred. the white house tweeting this photo, as he spoke with texas governor greg abbott, to offer help before addressing the nation and making a call to action. >> why? why are we willing to live with this carnage? why do we keep letting this happen? where in god's name is our backbone? to the courage to deal with it, to stand up to the lobbyists. >> you know, willie, we've been talking about, over the past several months, conspiracy theorys. we saw many of them pop up during focus groups. and it's always whac-a-mole, you know. >> yeah. >> you say, what about this conspiracy theory, you disprove it after spending days. what about this? it's always whac-a-mole. that's the same thing when you talk about legislation. it doesn't matter what the shooting is.

it doesn't matter what weapons were used, what ammo was used. it's always whac-a-mole, oh that legislation would help here -- universal background checks wouldn't help there. whatever. again, it's always whac-a-mole. and if you describe a gun a certain way, you say assault weapon. oh, it's not a assault weapon. it's semi-automatic -- semi-automatic. oh, now, you're going after -- now, you're going after handguns. oh, my god. it's always a semantics game. it's always whac-a-mole. it's always bullshit. they always play the game so they never have to talk about the children who were murdered. about all the deaths. one mass shooting after another mass shooting after another mass shooting, they always try to move you along with word games. try to push, try to redefine things in a way that never holds them accountable. that makes it sound like you're

going after somebody's handgun or shotgun, when that's the last thing anybody's doing. going after weapons of war, they should go after weapons of war. they should go after weapons that police officers can't stop. that police officers and body armor -- my god. these freaks, these freaks who actually think the federal government is coming to get them tomorrow. right? these survivalists who have feared -- make no mistake, who have feared, every night when he go online or watch tv, people say that the federal government is coming after them, or the army is coming after them with helicopters that were used in afghanistan, now, they're coming to get americans! or the fbi is coming to kick down your door and take away your gun. no, nobody's talking about that. but that's the sort of

conspiracy theory, that's the sort of lies spread on the internet. spread by fox news that freaks people out. that makes them paranoid. that puts us where we are right now. where mass shootings are now -- are not the exception anymore every month. they're the rule. >> and the alternative is to do what? to go on like this? to have 8, 9, 10-year-olds, on their last days of school before summer murdered in their class many radios a man with a semi-automatic rifle, and 84-year-old grandmothers shopping in the aisles of a supermarket in buffalo, murdered by an 18-year-old with a semi-automatic rifle. that's the alternative. and the sad irony, joe, all that is already happening. people watching president biden last night saying they're coming for the guns. >> oh, what liars. >> in was a huge spike in gun sales after sandy hook, because

the belief was that president obama, democrats were going to put in strict gun controls and come for your guns. gun sales have tripled in the country in the last 20 years. reverend al sharpton is at the table with us. rev, you've just back from buffalo, preaching and mourning with the families. some of these families don't even know yet if their son or daughter in fourth grade is alive or dead this morning. they're waiting for that news. what do you possibly say to the family of, let's say, an 84-year-old grandmother, shopping in the aisle of a supermarket and was murdered there? >> the real strange feeling i have is we're not even finished with the funerals. i'm going back over the weekend to preach at that 84-year-old grandmother's funeral. we have not even finished burying people from the last attack where assault weapons with body armor, before we have another one, now children and a teacher in texas. so, who are we?

i mean, have we normalized these kinds of killings so it's not even spaced from sandy hook to parkland to now, but now within two weeks. and go on to the next story and get our defense mechanisms up where people, as joe just said, will go to their corner and start saying, oh, they are after our guns rather than we're preserving lives. this is sick. i think the president was right when he raised it last night, better than i've heard anyone say, the whole world has mental health problems. we're not the only country to have mental health problems. but we're the only ones shooting babies in schools. we're the only ones killing grandmamas for going shopping because we don't like the color of their skin. this is sick. and we've got to recognize it's sick. since the people in washington won't do anything about it, we neat to rise up and put the right people in washington.

because if they can't get it, we need to put people in there that can. we -- i want everybody to understand, we have not even finished the funerals in buffalo, and now we're having to identify kids, babies, in texas. >> yeah. and mike barnicle, just a reminder, these guns, the refusal to pass legislation, that 90% of americans support, universal background checks, the refusal to at least make it more difficult for 18-year-olds to walk into a store and buy weapons of war -- that refusal comes in the same party that's been reminding us over the past several weeks that they are the party of life. and if you don't agree with the reversal of a 50-year constitutional right that 70% of americans don't want overturned, then you are a baby killer.

it's fascinating. their definition -- their definition of pro-life. their definition of pro-life, and yet, that go against catholic teaching when it's time to execute people, some of them innocent. they go -- they certainly go against what's reasonable and rational to protect our children while they are studying in elementary schools to protect parishioners when they're praying to jesus in church pews, to protect the faithful when they're in synagogues praying to god to protect country music fans, when they are listening to music at a country music festival. the party of life -- what a joke. not even close. not even close. not even close. and baby killers -- please, you

can retire that word. you can retire it right now because this is another example of a lot of republicans believing that life begins at conception and ends at child birth. ends when the being actually starts breathing, mike. and then to hell with them. to hell with prenatal care. to hell with taking care of the moms after they're born. to hell with taking care of the health care, the hell to protecting them in schools. the hell to protect life, after the child is actually alive. this is just the latest example. the party of pro-life, how grotesque and perverse that any republican would ever even say that. >> joe, when you mix insanity with hypocrisy, you get governor

greg abbott, you get senator ted cruz, you get multiple number of republicans who say exactly what you just said about pro-life legislation. the challenge for them would be if they were asked today to accompany a forensics team into one of these classrooms where the children, second, third, fourth graders, 7-year-olds, 9-year-olds, are unidentifiable because of the damage that an assault weapon can do to the human body. but they're cowards, they'll never be asked to do that. they'll never speak about it. they'll go to houston this weekend for their big national rifle association rally. and they'll further prostitute themselves. and that's who we are.

that's the united states of america. this morning. >> there's no other country like this. >> and as reverend al just said, they haven't even finished the burials in buffalo. and now there's going to be at least 19 perhaps more funerals, burials, mourning that will last forever in uvalde, texas. >> and more than that, not only republicans have sent initial signal this have no appetite for taking up gun control legislation. we heard from some of them last night, conservative media commentators accusing president biden of playing politics. accusing him of trying to taken advantage of this political agenda. there was no agenda from the president. he was reacting as a human. he was reacting with grief and anger. yes, of course, he called for americans -- what did he call for -- for the shooting to stop. if that's something the nation can unite behind, stopping school shootings what can we do?

that is who we are. instead, it's already clear. not even 24 hours later, there's no sense that anything can possibly get done outside of any executive orders around the edges of this issue. this is a period of powerlessness and hopelessness and anger, joe. >> again? ist to follow up on that, willie, what did they do on 9/11, did they say, now is not the time to talk about how to stop the terrorist attacks in the future? no. did they say that on 9/12, no. let's give ourselves space until we figure out how to stop another attack. and yet, here we are, children gunned down, second graders, third graders, fourth graders, with weapons of war. a weapon that was designed to be more lethal than what the united states used in the first phase of the vietnam war. children's faces so torn up that parents are going to have

trouble identifying them, just like they did in sandy hook. well, today is not the day to talk about it -- when is? the fact is, willie, today is the day to talk about it. and tomorrow, the next day, the next day, the next day. they're whac-a-mole games. they're semantics games. they're selfish, self-interested games. doing whatever they can do to say to hell with the 90%. those games have to be called out. those lies have to be called out. the hatred. the hatred, for anybody who is trying to protect these children needs to be called out. the lies about what the constitution says needs to be called out. the lies about what the constitution does not say needs to be called out every day.

because they've been telling the same lies year after year after year. and the body counts of our children in schools, of our parishioners in churches, in synagogues. of middle class americans at country music concerts. and restaurants. the body count keeps going up every day. we've got to do something about it. >> and to jonathan's point, senator cruz was out last night, of course, expressing his sympathies for the families. thanks law enforcement. but also quickly saying there are politicians, there are members of the media who will quickly politicize this. he went to that argument that jonathan said there. what do you propose if not to

have this argument what do you propose for an 18-year-old kid who reportedly but ar-style rifles and used them to kill 19 children and two teachers. let's go to the scene of the shooting at uvalde, texas. kerry sanders there and covering national security ken dilanian. kerry, what are you hearing this morning? >> reporter: well, we had an opportunity to speak with a member of the department of public safety who is giving mor that it's a vest to slip into gear which is why it took the officers so many time to bring down salvador ramos, the 18-year-old gunman in the case. right now, we do know the numbers, it's important to note

with 19 children and two adults who died those numbers could change. let's talk about those in the hospital right now, at university health system. we have a 66-year-old woman in critical condition. that is the gunman's grandmother who he apparently fired upon before he came here to robb elementary. there was a 10-year-old girl in critical condition. a lot of prayers for her. a 10-year-old girl in good condition and a 9-year-old girl who is in fair condition. you know, so many people in this community are what can i do? i feel like i want to do something in the absence of having any power. so, they have set up a place where people can donate blood, but quite frankly, with the numbers of those who died and so few people who seem to have survived, the blood donations, while giving people a sense of that they can do something likely are not of urgent need for the aftermath of what happened here. one thing that has not happened

overnight is there's been no sleep, especially by the authorities who have been inside here at the school. one of the things you can't help but notice, when you look at the school, the elementary school, this is what you want an elementary school to be. it's right here on the corner. you can walk right up. there are no big walls, no fences. it's an approachable school. a neighborhood school. of course, that was part of the soft target nature of this. we've seen in other parts of the country in the aftermath of tragedies like in parkland, but really in broward county, florida, where parkland is, the hardening of school sites. the fences of the access, the real difficulty it is to turn these schools into, many ways, fortresses from threats that come from the outside. one of the things that the dps did tell me is that they're still yet to determine what that long gun is. i suspect those closest to the

investigation have figured that out. they're working with alcohol, tobacco and firearms because they want to know where those weapons were purchased. records have indicated at this point that at least two types of long guns were purchased when the gunman ramos turned 18. very recently. it's unclear whether the weapon he had with him included those two weapons. we believe it was a long gun that he had and a pistol. but when you look at the numbers and you consider the amount of time that it took and the amount of bullets that were used here, there must have been some sort of magazines with long clips. just so many details that we will hopefully find out later today, when the authorities will be updating us, with the news conference. a time on that is yet to be determined. but the officer from dps who stepped away tells me that he will be back here. he will join us shortly.

and maybe we can get a little bit more information to update you then. but right now, just a really horrible situation here. because this is not just the parents, the brothers and sisters, the cousins, the aunts and uncles, the families who are grieving. this is an entire community that is in shock. that is angry. and as we've seen, sadly in so many other places, the -- this will linger a lifetime. this does not go away. i mean, we saw it in parkland. i had a chance to speak to some folks in parkland overnight who told me that this has caused them, again, to raise their anxiety. their posttraumatic stress disorder which really does not go away. we'll hear from the authorities here shortly. hopefully, he'll be over here in a little bit. we'll bring him in and update you on details. back to you. >> again, there are parent as waiting news whether their child

dropped at school under 24 hours ago, from one of the last days of the school year is alive or dead. kerry sanders on the scene in uvalde, texas. kerry, thank you very much. let's turn to nbc's ken dilanian, on the investigation. ken, what more are we learning about this 18-year-old and the events that unfolded yesterday? >> reporter: well, willie, we learned from a texas department spokesman speaking to our correspondent morgan chesky exactly what happened at the shooting, it's really important because what that person said that the shooter crashed a vehicle outside the school, then entered the school, began shooting at students, children and adults and then was engaged by local police officers and a school resource officer who presumably were armed with handguns and they could not bring him down. he was wearing military-style body armor, armed with a long

gun. they were unable to bring him down. there's some reports that one or more officers were wounded in that engagement. then he had to wait for an armed tactical team who came with rifles and more powerful weapons and were able to shoot and kill the suspect. the open question, willie, how many people died during that interim, as a result of the fact that the police were outgunned. and this is usually important because the body armor issue, there's an echo of buffalo here. the buffalo shooter, as you recall was also wearing body armor. was also engaged by a security guard inside that supermarket. and that security guard was, again, unable to bring that shooter down. and, you know, police and authorities believe that these mass shooters, they copy one another. and we're in the middle, guys, of a contagion here. the fbi released numbers jut yesterday that there were 61 active shooter incidents last year. that's double the number from two years ago. and that's leaving out sort of

gang shootings and disputes and other things. it's these kind of incidents which really disturb lone individuals. in terms of what we're learning about the suspect. there's an instagram account that many of us have seen online that investigators believed is linked to the suspect. which shows photos of two assault rifles. a couple of friends of the shooter are telling "the washington post" that he changed in recent years. he began wearing black clothing and military-style boots. even a report that he engaged in self-harm. this all goes to the question were there warning signs and there inevitably will be because there almost always are in these kinds of case where is the shooter tells people. where people knew that there were problems in the shooter's life. but one big question that is unanswered, were there any interactions between this person and authorities. he just turned 18 last week, as kerry was saying. we believe he bought the guns on his 18th birthday. so if he had a criminal record,

it might be a juvenile record and we wouldn't see it. right now, we're not seeing any evidence of a criminal record. but the big question in all of these cases as in buffalo did he have any interaction with the police. was there a chance to intervene in this person's life, guys. >> and the proposed solution in these shootings is always law enforcement inside the school. as you say there was a school resource officer and in addition two other uvalde police officers outgunned. so will the next solution be that the school resource officer needs to have an ar-15 himself. we'll watch these conversations. nbc's ken dilanian, thank you so much. joining us is fred guttenberg, his 14-year-old daughter jamie was murdered in the marjory stoneman douglas high school in the 2018 mass shooting in parkland, florida. and, fred, you and your wife since the moment your daughter was murdered have been pushing

for legislation for a way to stop this. i just wonder the republicans as they hear about this today, approached about this, will they cower from the cameras? wouldn't they want to step up and honor the dead and talk about the fact that we've got to find common ground to stop these massacres from happening? why not try something different? even if you don't completely agree with it, ted cruz? mitch mcconnell? all of the republicans, the republicans going to the nra annual meeting, will you really go there this weekend and not talk about it? will you not talk about it? you won't even bring it up at your annual meeting on weapons. so, my question for you, fred, because you've been asking these questions for years now, what has the dark of night after this slaughter brought you to? what's going through your mind this morning?

>> i didn't sleep last night. i think about my daughter all the time, joe, i heard you talking about it earlier. she actually would have just finished her freshman year in college. i watched the past year as all of her friends experienced their freshman year in college. they're living their best lives. and i visit jamie in the cemetery, my wife cried all night last night while i sat here and did interviews begging and pleading for people to do something different. you mentioned ted cruz, honestly, mika he can -- himself, i'm sorry, he put out a tweet saying how sorry he is. how sends his thoughts. i sat with him in his office three years ago and i begged that in person. i begged him. no, he won't change because he is evil. but i begged him to do something

different. to be different. and he went forward from that over the next few years, and he mocked the idea of doing anything to reduce gun violence. this is on ted cruz. and this is on governor abbott who begged for more gun sales in texas. they did this. and so, no, they're not going to change. but we need to be so brutally honest about who these evil people are. and vote them out. this is a purely political issue now. we can't work with them. there's only one thing that can happen right now that will give me hope that this can happen before the next election. ted cruz, get off your -- you know what, and march in to senator murphy who is a hero, grab him by the hand and say you want to join him today. you want to do the bare minimum background checks. you know what else you need to do, ted cruz, you're going to sit on a hearing today of an atf

director, vote for him. we need a permanent atf director. mika, i'm sorry for rambling, i do want to say something, right after sandy hook, four days after sandy hook, the nra, the very first time, the only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun. that's the first time we heard that response. do not let them have that response this time. they need to be defeated. they needed to be defunded. they did this. the slippery slope, they does this, from sandy hook to today. they did this. >> yeah, there is no slippery slope here. you look at what connecticut did after sandy hook. they passed sweeping gun safety legislation. and the united states supreme court, the conservative united

states supreme court said it's constitutional. they can do that. but these republican politicians running around lying saying if we have expansive background checks -- first say, oh, it will do nothing. it wouldn't have stopped this. or it wouldn't have stopped that. 90% of americans support that. >> yes. >> it's constitutional. you read the case law, it's constitutional, it's not even close. i do want to ask you, though, fred, about what these family members are going through right now. you know, when friends of mine, their parents die, i walk them through it. and i end up saying, you know, biden's right, there does come a time when their memories will bring a smile to your face before it brings a tear to your

eye. >> yeah, yeah. >> that is true, every time i talk about my mom and dad, i'm laughing and telling good stories. that wasn't the case after they passed away. that's just not the case with a child. it is unnatural. it is a violent alteration, of the natural course of things. you never get over it. >> no. >> tell me, though, tell me what these family members are going through. and what hope do they have to save those around them, their children, their other loved ones, and keep them marching forward even in this brutalized state? >> you know, joe, right now, they're planning, they're going to have to start planning funerals. writing eulogies, hugging each other, talking about how we get through the seconds.

we're not even at a point of trying to figure out how to get through the next day. it's like getting through the seconds and the minutes. i can tell you, and this is a really big deal to me, and so, my wife and i look back on that first week. i have no idea how we ate. i don't know who fed my son. it was that overwhelming. and these families are going through that right now. the buffalo families went through it a couple weeks ago. and i spoke to my friends at world central kitchen who did go to buffalo to help out, and they are right now in texas. just to make sure people are eating. you know, this shooting happened in parkland, our community and our resources are, you know, what they are. but not every community has that. so it's the basic necessities, it's getting through minute to minute. but i want those families to know there's an army of

survivors out there like me, who will be there for you every step of the way. in fact, i heard you talking about buffalo. i'll be in buffalo next week, reverend. maybe we should talk about that. i'll be there to hold their hands to lift them up. to make sure when the next shooting happens we don't forget about the community from the last one because they are going to need our help and support in an ongoing way. >> all right, fred, thank you so much. for being with us. we're so sorry, it's once again under these circumstances. if you will, please let your wife know and your family know that not only are our thoughts and prayers with you all, but we also -- i, at least, i am with you in your ongoing battle to make schools safer. to make churches safer. to make synagogues safer.

>> our country -- >> to make shopping malls safer. >> exactly, our country safer. enough with the excuses. fred, thank you so much. greatly appreciate it. >> thank you. still ahead on "morning joe," as a close-knit texas community mourns, we're going to have new reporting on what we know about the victims. we're also going to talk to senator chris murphy of connecticut after his impassioned speech on capitol hill. the man who saw sandy hook up close and we'll see chris begging his republican colleagues to act. to do something. to stop making excuses while children die. we'll be right back. we'll be right back. way out of. the lows of bipolar depression can take you to a dark place. latuda could make a real difference in your symptoms.

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let's go back to nbc correspondent kerry sanders on

the ground all morning in uvalde, texas. outside of robb elementary school. kerry, take it away. >> reporter: i'm standing here with the lieutenant with the department of public safety. lieutenant, update us where things are right now. >> good morning, sir, right now, we have our texas rangers leading the ucs investigation. we have the texas rangers processing the scene at the school. families have been identified and able to identify the victims and at the scene, able to put together what triggered this event. >> i'm curious have you identified the weapons that the gunman had? >> right how, we have atf on scene working with texas rangers to identify exactly what type of rifle. it was a rifle. some time of ar platform that we're trying to identify. we're working on identifying the weapon, the capacity, how it was obtained. you should the shooter was able

to obtain this weapon. we do know he does not have a criminal record. >> one of the questions people have, why, why did he do this? if he didn't leave a note or video or something like that, take me inside the investigation of how you try to figure out why he did this. >> right. so it's challenging, when in this case, the shooter is deceased. we have no information or able to talk to the shooter to actually find out what the motives are. we have to go back and conduct thorough investigations. this is a collaborative effort, working not only with state officials, federal, local, and schools as well. trying to identify any witnesses talking to anybody who may have known the shooter. he was a resident here in uvalde. lived with his grandparents. did attend a local high school. was unemployed. and trying to identify exactly what caused, what triggered this individual to, you know, come to

this heinous act, this evil act, just pure evilness with this individual going into a school. barricading himself inside a classroom and shooting children and teachers. indiscriminately. >> if there's somebody who perhaps could give information, it could be his grandmother, 66 years in critical condition, how important would it be for her to helpfully survive? >> well, it's very vital to the investigation. we're hoping that she does pull through. our prayers are with her, our prayers are with the families and victims of this entire community as well. it's vital that you have a witness that can put the piecing together. we're talking to neighbors, we're talking to everybody involved in the situation. any potential students, teachers in the classroom. we have local law enforcement working with the school law enforcement officers that arrived on scene and were able to rescue children and teachers from a classroom by breaking windows outside the school. trying to evacuate as many people possible to prevent the

loss of life. >> many people are struck by the fact, and unfortunately we see this over and over again, when somebody does this, they actually put on some sort of body armor. explain what that is is that the type of armor you would be wearing on patrols? >> right. that's exactly what we wear. we saw that with the shooter in buffalo as we talked about ballistic armor and tactical armor. in this case, we do know for a fact, it was confirmed he was wearing a tactical carrier, unblown, blisting material, but trying to identify that. and tactic air carrier. >> and the carriers mean you can slip things in sleeves right? >> exactly, magazines, ammo, ballistic panels more used by tactical teams. again, it goes to show that 18-year-old shooter having the intent by having, one, the weapon, but also having this type of armor and tactical weapon. of and as going into the school

and completely shooting anything in his way. >> do you know whether the school has a video system to record anything? >> right, we do know for a fact, we do have investigators trying to obtain that video to actually see what's on there. again, multiple officers were on the scene, actually heard the shooting and saw what was taking place. but they were at disadvantage because the shooter barricaded himself in a classroom. >> i'm struck by one thing. it's open, it's an elementary school, a neighborhood school you that can walk up. we've seen around the country, generally, after the fact in these horrible situations that these, we call them soft targets, hard to use a school as a soft target, but sensors go off and there's perimeters, when you look at this, was this easy access for a crazed gunman? >> well, that's hard to identify. we know some schools don't have fences or barriers in place. we're trying to make determination how the shooter was able to make entry into the

school. what type of security parameters were in place. working with the school officials as well. we're trying to make that determination to see what actually took place and possibly what we can do in the future. other schools not just here, but nationwide. >> i have one last question, i know you're very busy and you have to get back to what's going on here. but what do you say to those families who, if they even even slept, lost a loved one, lost a child? and are just trying to make sense of this and looking to you as authority to say help me. >> you know, it's very difficult to put into words. i'm a father myself. i was actually at my daughter's award assembly yesterday at her school and i got this tragic news. we're mourning, the state of texas is mourning with these families and victims. the entire uvalde community but we want to praise the men and wei women of law enforcement to put their lives on the line.

we don't mourn with the families and parents out there, it goes to show you that this can happen anytime, anywhere, in the country. very tragic here in uvalde, texas. >> i think the nation recognizes that. thank you for that. i'm going to let you go. as i turn to you guys in the studio, i think some of the new things we've heard here is, one, they may have video inside that the detectives and the texas rangers can evaluate, to determine what was taking place with this gunman. also, that long weapon, it sounds like, it's some sort of ar-type weapon, of course, the ar-15 comes to mind. no real sense of the connection whether it's one of the weapons he purchased recently. you heard him say they worked with atf, that's alcohol, tobacco and firearms. that federal agency here. ultimately, which we've been reporting all morning there was no break from when the forensics

teams arrived. they were here overnight. they're still here and still trying to piece it together. and detectives try to begin to answer the question why, because the suspect is dead. you heard the laborious process that will take place. at least this this point, there's no recorded document or video that would explain why the gunman went on this horrific rampage. >> the opportunity provided information, the victims are removed from the building. their families notified. 19 students two teachers. there was an ar-rifle and the gunman lived with his grandparents. and as kerry, you laid out, he was wearing tactical armor, to carry magazines to confront police officers. kerry, thank you. >> we'll have much more from

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the minute i got in my pickup i heard a couple of shots and then immediately the police were there, and her class and everybody around her got in the cafeteria and just kind of turned off the lights, got on the stage, started papering the windows. she said the kids were real good, real quiet and did what they were supposed to. >> that account from bobbie stewdar who had just dropped off flowers for his wife, a teacher, at robb elementary school in uvalde, texas, when he heard the gunshots begin. the students and staff were just two days away from their final day of school. joining us live from uvalde, texas, nbc news correspondent

morgan chesky, you are learning more about those who were killed inside that school. what can you tell us? >> reporter: yeah, mika, it is tough to put the shock of this tragedy into words, and for the families of some of those impacted by this horrific shooting, this civic center turned reunification site has been an agonizing waiting game. parents are giving authorities dna samples here so they can be positively matched with some of those young victims, second, third and fourth graders. all this as we are learning more about some of those who lost their lives, when that 18-year-old walked into that elementary school and opened fire. overnight, unimaginable grief in uvalde, texas. parents of some of the young victims still being notified more than 12 hours after a gunman went on a killing spree at robb elementary school. 19 children, second, third and fourth graders, murdered alongside two teachers inside a place that was supposed to be a

safe haven. the fear visible as families rushed to the school desperately searching for any updates about their loved ones. >> it's been several hours. i know it's devastation over here, but we need lots of prayers. >> reporter: many parents ushered here to a reunification center a place of relief for some, able to hug their kids and bring them home a site of anguish for so many others. >> you walk inside that center and you you see their faces and they don't know, what do you tell them? >> there's absolutely nothing that you can say that would assuage that type of grief. they're children, baibsz, 9, 10-year-olds. >> reporter: among the fatalities, uqui ya garcia. xavier lopez, a fourth grader at rob. mary joe garza,s in fourth grade. this is the last known photo of her taken the morning of the shooting. garza proudly showing off an

honor roll certificate. her grandmother telling "the daily beast" the 10-year-old was shot while trying to call 911. both of amerie's teachers victims. eva mireles and mare garcia. friends and coteachers for the past five years. mireles was one of the veterans on staff a teacher for the last 17 years. an aunt telling "the new york times" outside of the classroom mireles enjoyed hiking and was the fun of the party. garcia's son telling nbc news she was a hero citing law enforcement who told him she was seen shielding kids from the attacker. the beloved educator being remembered by friends for her constant kindness. >> what are you remembering about irma? >> just a beautiful soul, someone who loved children, someone who you respected because she was just a good human being. >> reporter: now just two days before the end of the school year, a devastated community changed forever. and this morning, as uvalde moves forward to try to process

this unspeakable tragedy, grief counselors will be here at this civic center turned reunification site for anyone who would like to come to speak to them. the uvalde school district says that campus of robb elementary school remains closed down as well as every other school here for the foreseeable future. mika? >> nbc news correspondent morgan chesky, thank you so much. let's bring in former nato supreme allied commander, retired four-star navy admiral, also chief international security and diplomacy analyst for nbc news and msnbc. we are obviously going to speak to you about the war in ukraine and your new book which is out today entitled "to risk it all, nine conflicts and the crucible of decision" but given the story we're covering, we wanted to talk to you about texas. actually, want to talk to you about weapons on our streets, war weapons, and just, if you would, please give me a moment, this is a "new york times" article, going to read a small portion, glenn thrush, the

united states is in the middle of a gun buying boom. no signs of letting up. manufactured guns nearly tripled since 2000, a huge spike. this is released by the bureau of alcohol, tobacco, and firearms and explosives. this was released three days after buffalo, and it paints a vivid portrait of a nation arming itself to the teeth. buyers capitalized on loosening of gun restrictions by the supreme court, congress, and republican controlled state legislatures. starting in 2009, glok-type semiautomatic handguns purchased for personal protection began to outsell rifles which are used for hunting and one other troubling example of where we are, police recovered almost 20,000 privately manufactured firearms. the ghost guns. okay. that has a ten-fold increase since 2016. given all those numbers i threw

at you, how does that play into where we are today as a society? >> i saw just coming in here a graph in "the new york times" that looked at all of the largest economy in the world and graphed against it gun ownership and the united states, boy, are we unique, exceptional. >> yeah. >> and what can be worse than that? in my view, as a military officer and i know anyone who has served in the military, particularly those of us who have been in combat, you see some hard things. what i just watched, our reporting from texas, breaks my heart. and i think that it's time and certainly we all make these points again and again and again, but it is time to find a way out of this dark thicket into which we have wandered when we are putting weapons in the

hands of 18-year-old boys >> weapons of war. >> and secondly, mika, the defensive side of this, the fact that he was able to put on body armor and out gun a police force, has to be resolved as well. it's not just the weapons. that's job one. but it's also the ability of the shooters to defend themselves and effectively out gun the police. all of this is fundamental and wrong. >> joe? >> i want to ask you, also, admiral, about the weapons of war that 18-year-old kids with no training can get their hands on. i just retweeted a piece this morning which i do once every few years, it's a 1981 atlantic piece, james fallows writing

about an investigation into the ar-15. this wasn't about mass homicides, mass shootings. at the time it was about a congressional hearing where congress was asking, why are troops in vietnam -- why our troops in vietnam didn't use the ar-15 instead of the m-16 and fallows wrote that the weapons designers realized, by studying wound ballistics, a small, fast-travel bullet coming out of the ar-15, did greater damage than a large round fired out of the m-16 when fired into human flesh. this weapon designed by eugene stoner was -- the testimony was, 40% more lethal, 40% more lethal, than the weapons that

our soldiers, our marines, our sailors, used in vietnam. it's grotesque. i'm just wondering, as a man who's dedicated your life in the military to defending the united states of america, what is your thought about 18-year-old troubled 18-year-olds being able to walk in and buy a weapon that is 40% more lethal according to the weapons designer and the ballistic studies, than the weapons our troops used in vietnam? >> clearly we are upside down as a society. the place for lethal weapons -- and i have devoted my life arms, plate for all of that is not in the hands of people who are unstable, who are youthful and swayed by the emotions they read

on the internet. there is so much that has to be done in all of this. i want to finish with another thought, if i can, from another shooting, that was all these go by us again and again, in laguna woods, california, just about ten days ago, a shooter went into a church and yet, he chained the doors shut and a doctor, i want to say his name, dr. john chang, unarmed, charged the gunman, tackled him, the pastor of that congregation, dr. johnny chang, then leapt and subdued the gunman with a chair. we have got this all wrong. >> all wrong. >> that's someone who gave his life, dr. chang, again, all wrong. we've got to get out of this

dark thicket. >> admiral, stay with us. we want to bring into the conversation democratic senator chris murphy of connecticut. it's good to have you with us. we played for our viewers a short time ago your passionate speech on the floor of the senate last night where you asked, simply, what are we doing? why did you get into politics if not to keep people safe and stop this? what should we be doing as a country? it's been such a complicated question for so long. you had just been elected to the united states senate when all those kids at sandy hook were killed, along with six of their teachers. you were on the scene shortly after that happened. i think i saw you up there that evening. what should we be doing as a country? what's reasonable to expect? how do we change this? how do we get out of this dark thicket, as the admiral puts it? >> so, listen, i think there's a difference between what we should be doing and what is reasonable to expect from this congress. what we should be doing is taking these weapons of war out

of the hands of civilians. at the very least, making sure individuals have to show come capacity some ability to handle these weapons. in texas, you have to go through more bureaucracy to get a cat license than you do to own a military-style assault weapon. that's just upside down. what is possible in congress is something less than a national ban on these military style weapons and i've been on the phone with my republican and democratic colleagues, all day yesterday, all morning this morning, trying to find that path forward, maybe for a small expansion of the national background check system, maybe red flag laws that allow to take guns out of the hands of the most dangerous individuals, maybe a small protection on the purchase of assault weapons to raise the age so that 18-year-olds maybe have to go through at least a few more hoops before they get their hand onsz weapons like these.

what's possible is much smaller than what we need to do to protect kids. i'm going to be in the business of trying to find out what's possible in the coming days. we need to show families that we're serious. we need to show this country that we're not just going to sit on our hands again. >> senator, let's get to the reasonable to expect part of this. we had fred guttenberg on a moment ago who implored senator cruz to walk down the hallway and knock on your door, sit down and say, enough, what can we do here. what is reasonable to expect, given the politics of gun safety? >> i think it's always important to remember that while, rightly so, these mass shootings dominate the news, they are the entry point for conversation about our nation's gun laws, every single day there are over 100 people dying from guns and the number of people who are dying in just single and double murders every day has sky rocketed in the last couple years, so expanding the background check system to make sure that criminals can't get their hands on guns and resell

them in our streets is the most effective way to bring down the rate of gun violence. people will say, that wouldn't have solved the shooting in texas, but that actually will save a lot of lives in this country. that's certainly possible. red flag laws are possible, making it easier to take guns out of the hands of individuals that are sort of showing breaks from reality. those are the things that i think we can get done and passed, and i think if we just show my republican colleagues that sky doesn't fall when they vote against the gun lobby, then maybe we open the door for further change that makes a bigger difference later on. >> so senator murphy, you get a lot of reasons to why these options don't work, the ones you listed, you get a lot of direct and immediate reasons. so what do you have to say directly to the lawmakers who have the power to do this and won't? >> so many republicans say the

answer is more mental health funding. well, that's b.s. there's a mental health crisis in this country, but it doesn't explain the gun violence epidemic. we don't have more mental illness in the united states than any other country. it's that in this country, when you have homicidal thoughts you have easy access to weapons of war that allow you to kill 20 kids in one moment. other republicans will say, well, the answer is just to load our schools up with guns. well, that wasn't a problem in texas. in fact, there was law enforcement on the scene as this young man arrived and they were out god and by him. more guns wasn't the solution in texas. it didn't stop the parkland shooter. it didn't stop the el paso shooter. we've got to stop these individuals from having access to the weapons before they get there. we've just got to sort of put -- punch holes in the mythology that the opponents of change use to sit on the sidelines. >> senator murphy, you're a

thoughtful guy. we're sitting here in new york with the admiral, who is a worldly man a military man, a thoughtful guy. given what's happened in the last 24 hours, less than nine days since buffalo, do either of you, you specifically now, senator murphy, do you worry that we are slowly through inaction, through political cowardice, political hypocrisy, that we are slowing killing ourselves, the core of our democracy, the heart of our country? >> listen, i do. i mean, i think something is dying inside the soul of this nation when we accept this as the new normal, when we just decide to become numb because it's easier. i want people in this country to feel a sense of outrage. that's the reason i went to the

floor yesterday as quickly as i did, because i don't want people to fall into the sense of complacency. i have two kids. i had to go home last night and talk to them about this. i know that they are sitting in school today talking with their friends about whether their school is next. this is within our power to change. we are human beings with agency. this isn't inevitable. none of it is. we are dying inside because too many americans just throw up their hands and say it's too hard, the politics are too difficult. not true. my colleagues can come to the table and get something done and that's what i'm going to try to do this week. >> senator, last night we heard from republicans, including your colleague ted cruz, an conservative media figures who said that the president and you were politicizing this moment, that we were trying to take advantage of a tragedy to score political points. i wanted you to have -- take this moment to respond. >> well, that's ridiculous.

you don't say that a detective is politicizing a murder because he immediately gets to the task of trying to solve it and find the perpetrator to prevent the next murder. i'm in the business of trying to save lives, and so that means every single day, i wake up to try to strengthen our nation's gun laws to make sure that less mad men get their hands on weapons that allow kids to die. i don't sit back and take a single day off in this fight. so yes, that does mean on days where there are mass shootings i am also talking about the need to strengthen our gun laws, but this sort of sense that when a mass shooting happens you need to not talk about policy change, that is a fiction created by the gun industry because they know that in these moments, the american public is going to stand and demand change and they want to muzzle politicians and legislators during these moments so that there's no chance of

that momentum from the public being mobilized into action. i don't accept the idea that i'm supposed to shut up and not talk about changing laws in this country to protect my kids in the wake of one of the shootings. i think i have an obligation in these moments to be even more urgent in my outreach to my colleagues because these are copycat killings, i know that next one is coming around the corner. >> and you have been that way in the decade since the horrific scene at sandy hook in your state of connecticut. senator chris murphy, thank you for your time this morning. we'll see if any of the republicans do come and knock on your door today. admiral, your thoughts? >> just a quick point to make here. this is not only horrific in our own country, but think about how we look in the world today when our children are murdering other children. it happens again and again and again and we are weakening inside this country, but i just

flew in yesterday from europe, from the conference, and these shootings continue to degrade the view of america in ways that undercut us and make our opponents think we are lost again in this thicket of our internal challenges. it is both a huge internal problem. it is also part of our place in the world, which is being den grated severely. >> and we're showing right now, brian klaas, who comes on the show a good bit, wrote yesterday, there was one mass shooting in britain last year. five people died. when was the last uk mass shooting before that? 2010. america has made the choice to regularly tolerate the mass slaughter of innocent civilians. republicans continue to affirm that choice after every massacre. one other thing they do, they just lie through their teeth.

they try -- they try to twist the truth. it's a post-truth reality for them after these shootings. >> yeah. >> so admiral, i wanted to talk, because you were talking about how the rest of the world sees us. we actually have, over the past several months, stepped forward, stepped up to our responsibility as i believe the indispensable power to promote freedom and democracy across the globe. this certainly, obviously, is a deep, deep scar, gun violence n our country, and not just the mass shootings like this, but every weekend in cities and it's been that way for a long time and it's getting worse. gun violence getting worse. but i do want to talk, though, just for a minute about what's

happened over the past several months and what the united states has done and your new book "to risk it all" how that -- what lessons that can teach us in -- as we sort through this, as we sort through the ukraine crisis, as we sort through the challenges that are going to keep facing this country in the days and weeks and months to come. we will overcome. the question, though, is how and what guidance does your book give us? >> the book "to risk it all" is about exactly as the title implies, that to all of us at some point, we will risk it all, whether it's in the military on the frontlines of law enforcement, in a hospital room making a decision, like dr. chang taking on a gunman, there are many moments that come for almost all of us where we risk

it all. in this moment, i look at someone like volodymyr zelenskyy who looks over his shoulder and what does he see behind him? he sees his wife, his children, his cities, his civilization, his language, he sees everything on the line. he risks it all. and what the book does, is unpackage those moments and talk about how you can best prepare for them. if today's events in texas, alongside the events in ukraine, where you have an entire civilization that six months ago could not have thought they would be on the barricades throwing molotov cocktails at russians, both those ought to show us there's a lot of risk. the book tries to help us prepare to deal with it. >> retired four-star navy admiral, thank you. his new book "to risk it all, nine conflicts and the crucible of decision" is out today.

still ahead on "morning joe," more of our conversation with fred guttenberg, a leading advocate for gun safety reform. his reaction to the texas shooting after he lost liss daughter in the parkland shooting four years ago. plus, we'll take you back on the ground in texas with the latest details on yesterday's massacre. and as we go to break, we want to read from david from's new piece for "the atlantic" entitled "america's hands are full of blood." he writes, thoughts and prayers that began as a cliche, it became a joke. it has pewtry fide into a national shame. we will learn more about the 18-year-old killer of elementary school children, his personality, his ideology, whatever confection of hate and cruelty drove him to this horrible crime. but we already know the answer to one question, who put the weapons of mass murder into his hands? the answer to that question is

that the public policy of this country armed him. most of us are appalled, but not enough of us are sufficiently appalled to cast our votes to halt it. the lobbying groups and politicians who enable these killers will dominate the federal courts and state governments, as they do today, until the mighty forces of decency and kindness in american life say to the enablers, that is enough. this must stop. and we will stop you. we'll be right back. l stop you we'll be right back. throughout history i've observed markets shaped by the intentional

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i had hoped, when i became

president, i would not have to do this again. another massacre, uvalde, texas, an elementary school. beautiful, innocent, second, third, and fourth graders, and how many scores of little children who witnessed what happened, see their friends die, as if they're on a battlefield, for god's sake, the rest of their lives. there's a lot we don't know yet, there's a lot we do know. parents who will never see their child again, never have them jump in bed and cuddle with them.

parents who will never be the same. to lose a child is like having a piece of your soul ripped away. there's a hall lowness in your chest that you feel like you're being sucked into it and never going to be able to get out, suffocating. it's never quite the same. it's a feeling shared by the siblings and the grandparents and the family members and the community that's left behind. >> you know, we've been through this so many times, we were through this with buffalo, el paso, of course you talked about newtown, and we know, as these mass killings continue, we're going to hear the same things. we're going to hear from

republicans that, well, our thoughts and prayers are with them. we're going to hear from republicans, this is the cost of freedom. we're going to hear from republicans, there's nothing we can do about it. there's nothing we can do about it. if you pass this piece of legislation, well, that won't do anything about that shooting. if you pass another piece of legislation it won't do anything about this other shooting. we also hear something really gross from the same people who will desperately seek to find any crime that an illegal immigrant causes and then run it on their tv network for 24 hours a day, it's never time to talk about this, is it? they're such cowards. of course they don't want to talk about it, just like january 6th, like we saw in the focus group, they want you to forget about it. they don't want us to ever -- when is the right time to talk about 9/11?

oh, i don't know, a year later? i would say a pretty dam good time to talk about 9/11 would have been on 9/11 when it was happening, 9/12, how did this happen, 9/13, let's make sure it never happens. they know what they're doing. these barbarians get on tv, and they say, oh, let's not talk about it now. as five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, 11-year-old kids now in our schools from newtown to texas are getting god and -- gunned down by military weapons. so mutilated that their moms and dads can't even recognize their faces. washington does nothing. hey, joe manchin, after newtown

you did something. do something. joe, i'm kind of tired, we're friends, i'm going to tell you, your old routine about oh, it's always this person or it's always that, get out in front of something. for once. in five years. and start talking about what you can do. instead of you can't do. because all you ever talk about is what you can't do. you're a democrat that got this right after newtown. and you pushed with pat toomey, you pushed with him on background collection. you need to do that again. 90% of americans support background checks. 90%. almost two-thirds of americans oppose military-style weapons. almost two-thirds of americans. overwhelming number of americans support gun safety laws that congress will not pass. here's the thing, it's not just

that. what makes it worse is not just what congress is not doing, what makes it worse, is what state legislators are doing. there's a race to the bottom. we saw it in abortion, where a 13-year-old girl can get raped and she's forced to carry the rapist's baby full term. basically ending her life as she knows it. texas, and other states are racing to the bottom. florida, racing to make sure you can get a gun without training. you can get a gun without a permit. you can just go buy a gun and open carry it. this is insanity. you know who says this is insanity. gun shop owners. nra members. gun owners like myself. people that understand the power of a gun and want to use a gun

have a gun responsibly. that understand you need to go to the range, you need to practice, if you're going to have a gun in your home, for protection, you need, you need to know what you have. these republicans race to the bottom. let's let 18-year-olds get guns on their birthday. go buy two military-style weapons on their birthday. and take every other sort of meaningful legislation away, regulation, safeguards away. why? do we think 90% of americans, do we think 50% of americans, want an 18-year-old kid who just turned 18 want him to be able to go out and buy two military-style weapons? to open carry.

and other states to get guns without a permit. it is insanity. and this is what state republican -- let me be very clear, okay. republican state legislators, this is what they're doing and they're doing it despite the fact that overwhelming number of americans oppose it. it. [zoom call] ...pivot... work bye. vacation hi! book with priceline. 'cause when you save more, you can “no way!” more. no wayyyy. no waaayyy! no way! [phone ringing] hm. no way! no way! priceline. every trip is a big deal. okay season 6! aw... this'll take forev—or not. do i just focus on when things don't work, and not appreciate when they do? i love it when work actually works! i just booked this parking spot... this desk... and this conference room!

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tom winter, i want you to zoom in, joe's been looking at this broad, hideous picture, on the issue of a good guy with a gun, and this could be described as an arms race between law enforcement and shooters. >> i think there's been a whole host of things that are very disturbing over the last couple weeks when we look back at the

buffalo shooting, the motive of white supremacy and hate and when we look at this shooting and see the deaths of 19 children, but one of the things that i know law enforcement will be focused on and one of the things we're focused on in our reporting is the idea in both instances you have people that were confronted by somebody who was armed. the buffalo case, retired police officer working as a security guard. yesterday, multiple officers were shot and wounded in the course of this. it's not as if somebody wasn't met with a challenge, it wasn't as if these were just completely unguarded places. now you're in a situation that that school safety officer, who we all know is part-time counselor, part-time parent, part-time police officer, who's there that that side arm that they have, the firearm they have, the .9 millimeter and the bulletproof vests they have may no longer be enough to meet the challenge of the person coming to that school to kill kids because you have somebody with body armor, somebody with, as joe referenced, a military-style

weapon firing a bullet in an extremely high velocity, designed to destroy people's bodies, and so that's the situation that you have. i think all of this, the things that joe mentioned, the things talked about this morning, are all coming to a nexus here. after 9/11 people sat down, law enforcement, academics, politicians, what do we need to do in its foe tallty we can try to preserve some rights and some rights were taken away as a result of 9/11, but what can we do in totality to try to at least address this issue. there appears to be no desire, not only for legislation -- i'm not a politics reporter and that's all your expertise, but there doesn't appear to be this idea of getting everybody in the room and saying, what common sense things do we need to do? it is entirely possible that over the next couple hours and days, we will look back at this shooting and say, within the confines of the laws that we have, there was nothing illegal that this person did up until

the moment they fired the shot. so how do you find out if somebody is going to do this ahead of time? how do you prevent this type of thing happening? we're not even having really that discussion in totality at this point. i think that's the thing that's so concerning. >> more good guys with guns f a politician gives you that answer for the record that is not a legitimate answer anymore. unproven. nbc news investigations correspondent tom winter, thank you. coming up, we'll speak with fred guttenberg, a leading advocate for gun safety reform. he lost his daughter in the parkland school shooting four years ago, and hasn't stopped fighting since. "morning joe" is coming right back. since "morning joe" is coming right back.

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this is 3,348 days, ten years, since i stood up at a high school in connecticut -- a grade school in connecticut, where another gunman massacred 26 people, including 20 first graders at sandy hook elementary school. since then, there have been over 900 incidents of gunfires reported on school grounds, marjory stoneman douglas high school in parkland, florida, santa fe high school in texas, oxford high school in michigan, the list goes on and on and the list grows, when you include mass shootings at places like movie theaters and houses of worship, as we saw ten days ago at a grocery store in buffalo, new york. i am sick and tired of it. we have to act. don't tell me we can't have an

impact on this carnage. i spent my career as a senator and as a vice president working to pass common sense gun laws. we can't and won't prevent every tragedy, but we know they work and have a positive impact. when we passed the assault-weapons ban, mass shootings went down. when the law expired, mass shootings tripled. >> joining us now is fred guttenberg, his 14-year-old daughter jamie was shot and murdered in the hallways of marjory stoneman douglas high school in the 2018 mass shooting in parkland, florida. fred, you and your wife, since the moment your daughter was murdered, have been pushing for legislation for change, for a way to stop this, and i just wonder about the republicans as they hear about this today, as they're approached about this, will they cower from the cameras? wouldn't they want to step up and honor the dead and talk

about the fact that we've got to find common ground to stop these massacres from happening? why not try something different? even if you don't completely agree with it, ted cruz, mitch mcconnell, all the republicans, the republicans going to the nra annual meeting, will you really go there this weekend and not talk about it? will you not talk about it? you won't even bring it up at your annual meeting on weapons? so my question for you, fred, because you've been asking these questions for years now, what is the dark of night after this slaughter brought you to? what's going through your mind this morning? >> i didn't sleep last night. i think about my daughter all the time. joe, i heard you talking about it earlier.

she actually would have finished her freshman year in college. i've watched the past year as all of her friends experienced their freshman year in college. they're living their best lives. i visit jamie at a cemetery. my wife cried all night last night. my wife sat here and i did interviews, begging and pleading, for people to do something different. you mentioned ted cruz. honestly, mika, he will [ inaudible ] himself. i'm sorry. he put out a tweet saying how sorry he is, how -- he sends his thoughts. i sat with him in his office three years ago and i begged that in person, i begged him. no, he won't change because he is evil, but i begged him to do something different, to be different. he went forward from that over the next few years, and he mocked the idea of doing anything to reduce gun violence. this is on ted cruz.

this is on governor abbott who begged more for gun sales in texas. they did this. so no, they're not going to change. but we need to be so brutally honest about who these evil people are and vote them out. this is a purely political issue now. we can't work with them. there's only one thing that can happen right now that will give me hope that this can happen before the next election. ted cruz, get off your you know what and march in to senator murphy, who is a hero, grab him by the hand and say you want to join him today, that you want to do the bare minimum background checks. you know what else you need to do ted cruz, because you're going to sit in on a hearing for the confirmation of an atf director, vote for him. we need a permanent atf director. mika, i'm sorry for rambling. i do want to say something. right after sandy hook, four days after sandy hook, the nra

wayne lapierre said for the very first time, the only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun. that's the first time we ever heard that line. that was their response to sandy hook. do not let them have a response like that this time. they need to be defeated, they need to be defunded. they did this. they've talked about a slippery slope. let's follow the slope of sandy hook and that comment to where we are today. they did this. >> yeah. you know, there is no slippery slope. you look at what connecticut did after sandy hook. they passed sweeping gun safety legislation. and the united states supreme court, the conservative united states supreme court said, it's constitutional. they can do that. but these republican politicians run around lying saying if we have expansive background

checks -- first, it will do nothing. i wouldn't have stopped this or wouldn't have stopped that. 90% of americans support that. >> yep. >> it's constitutional. you read the case law. it's constitutional. it's not even close. i do want to ask you, though, fred, about what these family members are going through right now. you know, when friends of mine, their parents die, i walk them through it and i end up by saying, biden is right, there does come a time when their memories will bring a smile to your face before it brings a tear to your eye. >> yeah. >> that is true. >> yeah. >> every time. every time i talk about my mom and dad now, i'm laughing and telling good stories. that wasn't the case after they passed away. that's just not the case with a child. it is unnatural, it is a violent

alteration of the natural course of things. you never get over it. tell me, though, tell me what these family members are memberh and what hope do they have to save those around them, their children, their other loved ones and keep them marching forward even in this brutalized state. >> you know, joe, right now they're going to have to start planning funerals, writing eulogies, hugging each other, talking about how we get through the seconds. we're not even at a point of figuring out how to get to the next day. it's getting through the seconds and the minutes.

this is a really big deal to me. my wife and i look back on that first week, i have no idea how we ate. i don't know who fed my son. it was that overwhelming. these families are going through that right now. buffalo families went through it a couple of weeks ago. i spoke to my friends at world central kitchen who did go to buffalo to help out. they are right now in texas just making sure people are eating. you know, in parkland, our community and our resources are what they are, but not every community has that. it's the basic necessities. it's getting through just minute to minute. but i want those families to know there's an army of survivors like me out there who will be there for you every step of the way. i heard you talking to the reverend. i'll be in buffalo next week.

maybe we should talk before that. i'll be in texas as soon as i can after this to hold their hands, to lift them up, to make sure that when the next shooting happens we don't forget about the community from the last one, because they are going to need our help and support in an ongoing way. >> all right. fred, thank you so much, for being with us. we're so sorry it's once again under these circumstances. if you will, please let your wife and your family know that not only are our thoughts and prayers with you all, but we also, i at least, i am with you in your ongoing battle to make schools safer, to make churches safer, to make synagogues safer. >> our country safer. >> shopping malls safer, exactly, our country safer. enough with the excuses. fred, thank you so much.

>> thank you. coming up, we go live to the white house on the heels of president biden's pointed and emotional response to the mass shooting at a texas elementary school. kristin welker will join us with her latest reporting. school krisn tiwelker will join us with her latest reporting ♪("i've been everywhere" by johnny cash) ♪ ♪i've traveled every road in this here land!♪ ♪i've been everywhere, man.♪ ♪i've been everywhere, man.♪ ♪of travel i've had my share, man.♪ ♪i've been everywhere.♪ ♪♪ your mission: stand up to moderate to severe rheumatoid arthritis. and take. it. on... ...with rinvoq. rinvoq a once-daily pill can dramatically improve symptoms... rinvoq helps tame pain, stiffness, swelling. and for some...rinvoq can even significantly reduce ra fatigue.

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. welcome back to "morning joe." we continue our coverage of the second deadliest school shooting in u.s. history. a gunman killed 19 children and two teachers at an elementary school in uvalde, texas, a border town just 80 miles west of san antonio with more victims, both children and adults being treated in hospitals right now. the texas department of public safety tells nbc news this morning that the suspect used an ar style rifle during the shooting after he barricaded

himself inside a classroom and shot at students and teachers. officials tell nbc news he had no criminal history, that he had the same type of gear that tactical teams wear. the suspect entered the school and shot anyone he saw. state officials say local first responders were outgunned by him and needed backup from a tactical team, which ultimately shot and killed the gunman. the massacre is similar to shooting in newtown, connecticut. former president obama saying it is long pastime for action on begins in this country. president biden addressed the nation last night. this was the scene at the white house yesterday after the massacre, american flags lowered at all federal buildings, military installations and u.s. embassies around the world. >> we are beginning to learn the

names of some of the victims in uvalde. a family member tells our sister station in dallas that fourth grader uziyah garcia was among those killed, the father of 9-year-old amerie jo garza also confirming her death. 10-year-old xavier lopez was among those killed. his mother was with him at an awards ceremony just hours before the shooting. 10-year-old annabel rodriguez also was killed. the third grader was in the same classroom as a cousin who also was killed. one of the two teachers killed has been identified by a family member as eva mirales. she loved running, hiking and biking, a family member saying mirales was married and a mother herself.

the otherteacher irma garcia was killed in the classroom as well. her biography notes she was a fourth grade co-teacher with ms. mirales. ms. garcia leaves behind a husband and four children. joining us is kerry sanders. >> reporter: it's been a very troubling morning and really since last night for folks like lupe standing here with me, his 8-year-old son samuel was inside the school in a different area in the school. you're telling me, to understand how close knit this community is, those that died, do you know those families? >> yes. i know most of them, most of the parents and grandparents of the children. >> reporter: as you try to reach out to them and also hug your son, who