gun rights and wrongs, let's play some "hardball." good evening, i'm michael smerconish in new york in for chris matthews who is in columbia who will moderate a panel with president obama tomorrow. and tomorrow, lawyers and guns and money, and the nra is winning the battle over guns in country. when is the last time you heard a debate over gun control? the arguments today are over how far and how fast to expand the gun owner rights, and mitt romney towed the line today at the nra calling gun control an assault on freedom. and now the state attorney decided to pursue charges against george zimmerman and now after weeks of publicity, is it

fair for george zimmerman to get a fair trial? and habits of insulting stay-at-home moms in election years. and it distracted us from mitt romney's gender problem which will not go away by trying to make the case that it is president obama waging a war against women. the obama campaign is trying to paint romney as rich and out of touch. so today the president and the vice president released their tax returns, daring romney to do the same. and let me fin wish the battle of the 2008 campaign which is not finished barack obama versus bill clinton. we begin with gun, and former governor ed rendell is a political analyst and jeff gottlieb who is joining us from the nra convention in st. louis. gentlemen, speaking at the nra convention this afternoon mitt romney decried what he called the president's assault on the basic freedoms, but avoided

diving into the controls of guns and the second amendment and it was not long into the speech before he mentioned the right to bear arms. here it is. >> this administration's attack on freedom extends even to rights explicitly guaranteed by the constitution, the right to bear arms is so plainly stated, so unambiguous that the liberals have a hard time challenging it directly. instead, they have been employing every imaginable ruse and ploy to restrict it. >> now, mitt romney has supported some gun control measures in the past. as governor he signed a law that made permanent a ban on assault-type rifles, but coupled with measures that some gun rights groups supported. and he also supported the ban on assault rifle ban and supported the brady gun law.

here is what he said. >> my position on guns is the position i have had for a long, long time, and that is position is that i don't line up with the nra. i don't see eye to eye with the nra in every issue. >> and then of course, there was this description by governor romney of his hunting issue. >> i'm not a big game hunter, and i have always made it clear i'm a rodent and rabbit hunter, and small varmints if you will. i began when i was 15 or so, and have hunted those kinds of varmints since then. more than two times. i also hunted quail in georgia. so i have -- i is not really big game hunting, however, it is not deer and large animals, but i have hunted a number of times various types of small rodents. >> mr. gottlieb, with that primer, please answer the question of whether governor romney can overcome some of the issues in the past with your

group. >> well, i think that from listening to the comments of the nra members who attended the convention he can overcome it two kwways. he is not hostile to the gun rights and the average gun owner is upset with barack obama and particularly the appointments to the federal courts and the supreme court on down, and as you are aware there is a number of second amendment court cases that have been filed going through the court system, and the gun owners are concerned about who is going to be making the rulings on the benches. >> isn't your issue with the minds of the second amendment advocates what he is going to do and what he is going to do other than what he has done. has he done something thus far that you believe threat ens the second amendment rights? >> well, the main thing of course is the anti-gun judges that he has appointed to the courts. but if you look at the record when he was a senator from illinois he was hostile to the gun rights and not exactly supportive of the gun rights and

supporting antique firearms in the united states, and the calls of the administration putting out test balloons to also have the ban on semiautomatic assault weapons. wi we know where his head is, and he has not met with any pro gun o owners at all, and we know when the time is right, he will push for his agenda, but right now, it is going to make it difficult for him to get any legislation passed. >> and i think that you remember that talk show hosts propelled the ammunition, and he is going to come for the bullets and your guns, and the fact is that the obama administration has not moved on the gun issue. do you agree? h. >> no, but quickly, michael, those of us who believe in the second amendment and believe in gun control know that the second amendment like all amendments has the limits. the first amendment clearly spells out the right to free

speech, be you can't go into the crowded movie theater and cry fire. you are not allowed to do that, because there are limits. there are limits on what is reasonable gun ownership, and that is all we trying to do. >> why has gun debate dropped off of the radar and this is an example of the folks addressed it. in the "daily beast" new york mayor michael bloomberg says that to hear the pundits americans are hopelessly divided by guns, but we are not. nra members support the right to keep guns out of the hands of criminals, and support common sense steps to ensure that guns are kept out of the hands of criminals, and also, it is as if to avoid gun control at all costs has become a plank in the democratic party platform. react. >> well, first of all michael bloomberg is -- >> he is a loser. >> no, they are not a loser. they are not a loser. >> you can respond, mr. mayor.

>> people like mr. gottlieb and others are effective at lobbying, but take a law i tried to get instituted in pennsylvania, it was a law to stop people from buying more than one handgun a month. it would ban straw purchasers, but allowed 12 handguns a year, and 24 if you are married a thabd is no limitation in any practical sense. so 70% of republicans favored the law and i koud not favor it, because the nra has done a good job of spooking the cowardly legislators. >> and mr. gottlieb, the success you have had is from the mindset of the slippery slope. you can't give an inch, because if we give anything on any issues, it is the ammunition, and the -- >> purely bull. purely bull. >> unfortunately, we have seen it happen in other states and other countries as well. what the former governor is

talking about here is prior constraint and limiting what kinds of guns you can buy and limiting the ammunition and limiting the magazines. we never gave up a fight against the first amendment, because clearly you can't yell fire, but the problem is keeping the criminals off of the streets -- >> and keeping the magazines off of the streets like the crazy guy who shot gabby giffords. >> and mr. gottlieb, hold the thought for a moment. as governor of pennsylvania, you vetoed stand your ground, am i corre correct? >> correct. >> it was your successor tom corbett who came in to sign it into law, and you are look like a soothsayer in the aftermath of trayvon martin, but the question is, do you think that the trayvon martin case is going to cause a serious re-examination of the stand your ground in those states across the country that now have it on the books? >> i hope so, and mayor

bloomberg has called for it. it is interesting on the stand your ground legislation, every police group in pennsylvania and the pennsylvania district attorney's association, made up of 50 republican d.a.s and 17 democratic d.a.s all urged me to veto it. so why don't we listen to the law enforcement, mr. gottlieb, because they are asking us to do something to stop the gun violence and let's listen to the police and the d.a.s. >> well, it is great to listen to the police, but we don't want a police state. we enjoy the freedom in america and not like a lot of other countries run by dictators. >> like the british. >> and let me return to this issue what the president is about to do. the president does not know if he is getting a second turn so if he were the manchurian candidate to be prepared to do evil things, wouldn't he do them now, and not wait for a potential second term? >> well, the good question and the real battle is in the courts. if you look at the appointmens s

of barack obama appointed to the federal courts you cannot find one person who supports gun rights, and that is the problem. >> i support ed rendell and alan gottlieb for being here. >> thank you. and also a slight by hilary rosen against stay-at-home moms, even still mitt romney has a real gender problem. we will get to that next. this is "hardball." hmmm. for half the calories plus veggie nutrition. could've had a v8.

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welcome back the "hardball." a cnn contributor with no role in president obama's campaign became a major talking point for the romney team and conservatives in general this week. hilary rosen kicked up a storm this week about her comments about ann romney and by thursday everybody from the president to the first lady to the vice

president had responded and distanced themselves from her comments. stephen colbert had some fun with the faux outrage from the right. >> full disclosure, i have a personal stake in this issue, because i have a mom, my mom. which makes me half mom of my mom's side. and these remarks infuriate me, folks. i have to tell you, folks n is good. this is good. this story is delicious. jimmy, jimmy, put rosen's quote up on and the crawl right now. put it up there all of the time. that is nice. that is not enough. now, play the quote on a loop. play it on a loop. >> his wife has actually never worked a day in her life. his wife has actually nef worked a day in her life. >> now, add the beat on it. >> his wife has actually nef worked a day in her life. >> lost in the firestorm were the deeper eshissues that many female voters care about. and mitt romney has a long way

to go after the bruising image against women, and michelle bernard is the director of public policy for women, and michelle goldman is a contributor to the "daily beast." thank you, ladies, for being here, and the comments were so incendiary that today mitt romney introduced his wife where but at the nra convention and then both romneys talked about, not surprisingly the subject of motherhood. listen to what was saidm. >> i happen to believe that all moms are working moms, and if you have five sons, why, your work is never over. >> let me give a shout out to all moms that are working, and by the way, to all dads that are working. we love all of you. you know, i often think that you're only as a parent as happy as your saddest child, and you never ever stop being a parent.

>> michelle bernard, what is the legitimate issue in all of this. clearly hilary rosen should nef have said that ann romney never worked a day in her life, and what the legitimate issue? >> well, the legitimate policy issues are should mitt romney be elected president of the united states and what policies will he put forth to help women whether they are women at home and work at home raising children or women out in the workforce and those are the most important issues. social security, health care, and the supplemental nutrition assistance program known as food stamps and the women and instfas and children program and my personal mantra is that all issues are women issues burk there are certain issues that are important to women, and they involve health care which is another discussion where we seem to be going backward in time and rather than forward and all of the issues i have set forth are

important to voters, period. >> you have raised a matter of substance, and michelle goldberg on the heels of that, some of the economic positions that mitt romney has embraced may hurt him with women. bloomberg news points out that the paul ryan budget has major red flags for a lot of women. here are examples. the plan would make cuts to the food stamp program while 2/3 of the food stamp recipients are female, and cut funding for pell grants and 2/3 of the recipients are female. and cut medicaid and 2/3 of the recipients are women. michelle goldberg, that is lost in all of this and instead, people are hung up on whether she has worked a day in her life and of course she has. >> the idea that women, and women voters who are going to be more influenced by something dismissive that a pundit on cnn said, than by the very real threats to their livelihood that a romney presidency would present is so much more insulting to women voters than anything that hilary rosen said. there's a reason that mitt

romney has lost the women's vote in every general election that he has ever run, and sometimes substantially. he was creamed by ted kennedy in 1994, and it is because when women get a look at his economic policies, because the social issues weren't an issue in the earlier races, because he was still pro choice, they recoil. >> in this case, michelle bernard, the social issues are a factor, and my view is that this is a part an parcel of the brand of the gop at present. and a couple of things that i wrote notes about. the whole vaginal probe in virginia issue, and the questions of contraception largely based on commentary from senator santorum, but governor romney did not pull in from it, and he wants to defund planned patienthood and overturn roe v. wade and those are all substances that will affect women. >> and the reason why they are important and probably more important today than they were in the 2008 election is that they deal with issues of personal liberty that 9 of 10 women absolutely had every

reason to believe were behind us, that were decided many, many years ago, and that the republican are brand not just mitt romney, but the republican brand in general seems to have a nostalgia for a bi-gone era that many women never ever want to go back to. >> and a blown opportunity by governor romney facing a 19-point deficit which is a real figure in terms of the one-on-one matchup with president obama. this is the washington post and abc news, 57 and 38 is the latest poll. thinking back to what went on with the limbaugh controversy and the horrific things that he said about a co-ed from georgetown and there was a perfect opportunity that he could have taken on rush, but he cowered in the face of the right wing of the party, an instead of ingendering support for females by calling it despicable, he hid under the desk. >> and let's compare the way he

handled this recent nonscandal with hilary rosen and he and the whole team went to dissociate from her innocuous comments although ill chosen and look at how mitt romney handles rush's vile three-day assault on the woman, and says those are the not the words i would have used. >> and mischelle, let me interrupt you to play it and then we will talk about it. roll it. >> it is not the language i would have used. i am focusing on the issues that i believe are significant in the country today and this is why i'm here in ohio focusing on jobs. >> that is the best he could do is that he would not have called her a slut, but called her something more decorous, but equally insulting. it is not that he doesn't get it, but he is not interested in

the issues that are fundamental in women's lives. and the uproar of what hilary rosen was responding to is that he said that his wife so-called reports to him about what women think. he cannot bother to pretend to women who are more than half of the electorate. >> thank you for the analysis michelle goldberg and i ap appreciate your comments.

welcome back the "hardball" and now time for the "side show." first up, and that was fast, after rick santorum's loss in the primary, some folks were wondering if he was setting his

sights on the 2016 race. >> next time? you have not talked to my wife obviously. >> and the next time though -- >> you have not heard me. you have not talked to my wife, because the last thing we are thinking of is next time. >> he struck a different tune on an interview on fox last night. >> i feel like a young man and i hopefully feel like a young man four years from now, and this is the last year that has put a couple of years on me, but there are issues that i care deeply about that we introduced into the debate. for us to do as well as we did despite the overwhelming odds that we faced on a variety of fronts, i think it shows that there are still a lot of people in the country who still believe in the things that made this country great. >> look, as i said in the commentary last night if, and that is a if mitt romney loses to president obama in november, it could be rick santorum stepping up in four years saying, i told you so to the republicans who shut him out this time.

and a nugget on the veep sweepstakes. remember this cringe face on the face off four years ago? >> it is not only the philosophy on issues, but can you get things done. and i believe i can. >> not a winning move for gore, but get this, bush was ready for it, thanks in part for a guy who is probably on mitt romney's short list for the v.p. mr. portman. he portrayed gore in mock debates and ohio representative rob portman noticed that in a previous debate he had left his stool and approached bill bradley in a question and answer trying to physical intimidation to rattle him, and portman did the same thing in a prep session so it was little surprise when he pulled the same move on governor bush when they were in a debate. that is all for "hardball."

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