friends and family of the victims comfort and healing. it's also to wonder whether we could have done anything, anything at all to stop it or whether there was something more we can do to stop the next madman who wants to do something like it. since the mass shooting in aurora, we have been told over and again we must avoid politicizing what happened. what that means is don't have that conversation. don't talk about gun control. we should be clear. when one of the first things in a particular set of politicians do after a tragedy is warn other political actors not to talk about a certain set of policies, that is almost by definition politicization. the argument itself is politics. they're laying a kind of political trap for those who would talk about gun control in the aftermath of aurora. the threat is if you talk about gun control, we'll punish you, we'll punish you by accusing you of politicizing a senseless tragedy, by trying to profit from a horror.

that is not just a political argument. it is in fact a political strategy, one that favors those who prefer the status quo to reform of the nation's gun control laws. max reed, a writer at gawker had i think the right take about the argument. he wrote, james holmes did not materialize in a movie theater in aurora free of any relationship to law and authority and the structures of power in this country, nor did he exit those relationships and structures by murdering 12 people and injuring several dozen more. before he entered the theater, he purchased guns whether legally or illegally under a framework of laws and regulations governed and negotiated by politics. in the parking lot outside, he was arrested by a police force whose salaries, equipment, and rights were shaped and determined by politics. you cannot politicize a tragedy because a tragedy is already political. when you talk about the tragedy, you're already talking about politics. but for all that, we must be careful when a specific tragedy or event leads to a broad national conversation.

the thing about a horror like aurora, the reason the whole country is talking about it and grieving over it, is that it is unusual. it is rare. and as such, it is dangerous to generalize from it. so tonight on "the rachel maddow show," we're going to try to step back a moment. it will be some time before we truly understand what happened in colorado last week, if we ever do, but it is possible to understand broader facts about guns, about gun violence, and about gun control in the united states of america. and one thing we can say for sure, to begin, is that america is an unusually violent country. this chart comes from kjeron healey, a social yol -- sociologist from duke university. they show deaths from assault in 23 develops nations not including our own. that line way up there, above all others, that line shows deaths from assault in the u.s. we're an extremely violent country, it's true, but look at this. we're not nearly so violent as we used to be.

our assault rate peaked in the late 1970s, and awful events like aurora notwithstanding have been falling continuously ever since. within america, the south is by far the most violent region. it has the most deaths from assault. then comes the wests where the shootings happens followed by the midwest and northeast. thanks again to karen for this chart. also, gun ownership is on the decline. the percentage of american households that say they own a pistol or a shotgun is about half what it was 40 years ago, according to the general social survey. and the most recent numbers from gallup which aren't on the graph have show an uptick in gun ownership. although we don't yet know if that is a statistical blip or the beginning of a reversal in the trip. this map, which we made with data from the new england journal of medicine, compares a

number of suicides by gun ownership rates. it's four times as high in states with a lot of firearms. even when you factor in suicide by other means, any means at all, states with a high rate of gun ownership still experience twice as many suicide. gun ownership and suicide are in the evidence links. and so are gun ownership and homicide. i don't actually have a graph for this one, but the harvard injury control research center assessed the literature on gun and homicide and found that more guns tends to lead to more murders. this holds true whether you're looking at different countries or states in this country. it remains true after you control things for poverty and urbanization. as for the role of gun control laws, economist richard florida finds in states with relatively strict laws, fewer people die from gunfire. states with relatively looser gun control have a higher rate of death from guns. yet for all that, gun control is

not popular. and it is getting even less popular. gallup has been asking people whether they want stricter gun control laws since 1990. the number of people who favor them has fallen by a lot. the number calling for either looser laws or the status quo has nearly tripled. and in recent years has come to be larger than the number calling for stricter gun laws. that is some of what we know about americans and guns and violence. we're not as violent a nation as we once were though we are violent and gun ownership tracks with violence and suicide and so do loose gun laws, which people say they prefer. for all that, we should be clear. there are no easy answers to what happened in aurora. not in why it happened and not in how to stop it. james holmes had no criminal record. so it would be difficult to deny him weaponry under any gun control regime at all. he had a number of legal explosives in his home. he could have turned to that method of murder. if he wasn't capable of getting high amounts of weaponry fast enough. we must be humble when thinking

about what in this particular case could have been done. but we cannot be scared away from thinking about what in the future we might yet do. joining us now is michael nutter, mayor of philadelphia and a member of mayors against illegal guns. mayor nutter, today, announced a new partnership with the department of justice for the reduction of violent crime in philadelphia. mayor nutter, thank you so much for joining me tonight. >> thank you, ezra. >> after the shooting in colorado, you issued a statement that was equal parts condolences and a call for stricter gun safety laws. so did some other mayors like mayor bloomberg. can these two ideas go together? can we have a discussion over gun control and aurora that is not disrespectful to the victims? >> absolutely. and again, let me take a moment to just express my deepest condolences to the family members who lost loved ones in that carnage just a few days ago. and those who are injured and still recovering.

we wish all of them a speedy recovery and hopefully a healing in aurora. i have talked to the mayor out there, mayor hogan, as well as the nearby mayor, mayor hancock, and anything that we can do from philadelphia or through the u.s. conference of mayors, certainly we extend ourselves and just continue to pray for the people in that city and those who were killed and injured. i think we have to be able to be mature enough to have a legitimate non-hysterical, adult conversation about gun safety and violence prevention. this is not a conversation about taking someone's gun away. i'm a big supporter of the second amendment, but as i have said on numerous occasions, i also believe i have a first amendment right not to be shot. those two ideas are not in conflict with each other. with those -- with any right comes a significant amount of responsibility.

clearly, there's something wrong with that individual, but beyond that, we need systems in place to red flag, if you will, some of the things we now know in the aftermath that apparently we didn't know just in the last -- wednesday or thursday. 6,000 rounds, the purchase of an assault rifle or weapon, for what reason would any individual, other than law enforcement or military, need such weaponry? body armor, again, those are things that law enforcement and military use. and so i think that this issue, we have seen aurora, the shooting of a member of congress, representative giffords, columbine, virginia tech, the list goes on and on and on. just over the last ten to 20 years, we go through these

situations, and much is talked about. we need some action. we need reasonable, rational, gun safety regulations. procedures in place for violence prevention. you said earlier that you almost can't have a discussion, and it becomes political. no one thought that in the aftermath of 9/11. now, we did a lot of things after 9/11. 11 years ago. we created a whole new federal agency called the department of homeland security. as well as the tsa. billions of dollars have been spent to make sure that we're safe as we fly. no one has said that airplanes were not going to go up in the sky. no one said that people couldn't ride. we put in extraordinary measures to red flag and act as preventative measures to ensure airline safety and that everyone would be safe. well, we need the same thing, quite honestly, on the streets of america, in our cities and metro areas all across the

country. >> i have been struck between the difference of mayors in different cities like you and mayor bloomberg, who have been aggressive trying to talk about gun control, and national politicians like president obama and mitt romney have backed away from such talk entirely. what is different on the local level that accounts for the different political approaches we're seeing? >> well, i can't speak to the moment, either mr. romney or the president has spoken out, and i expect that he will do so again in the future at an appropriate time. i think for mayors like mayor bloomberg, he and mayor menino out of boston are co-chairs of mayors against illegal guns. i see it myself. every mayor is really on the front line when it comes to public safety issues. if someone is shot or killed in our cities, the public where we live expect us to do something. and so that's why you're hearing

a great deal from the mayors. we have a duty and responsibility on the ground to try to solve these issues, prevent tragedy, and we certainly need additional help and resources. >> michael nutter, mayor of the great city of philadelphia. thank you so much for your time tonight. >> thank you. presidential politics resume today with a note to mitt romney. if you want to attack president obama on a certain position, make sure there's no videotape out there that shows you endorsing the exact same idea using the exact same language. proving the position you were attacking is in fact one you also believe. mitt romney caught on tape, next. a moment of geek tonight that is all at once a tragedy, a comedy, a scientific mystery, and a self-help cautionary tale. also, it describes a practice, and i can't emphasize this enough, you should not try at home. or actually anywhere. just don't do it. and it really doesn't make sense until i found my number. i tried the free dr. scholl's foot mapping center. in two minutes, i got my foot map and custom number. i'm a 440. that matched up to the dr. scholl's custom fit orthotic inserts with the right support and cushioning i need.

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comedy, a scientific mystery, and a self-help cautionary tale. also, it describes a practice, and i can't emphasize this enough, you should not try at home.

or actually anywhere. just don't do it. and it really doesn't make sense to pay for the opportunity to try it. though some actually do that. some very hazardous but very awesome geekdom coming up. wç

last week, the 2012 presidential campaign was dominated by one remark that president obama made at a campaign stop in roanoke, virginia. you did not build that. all at once, the entire republican campaign apparatus mobilized itself around the one comment from obama.

now, president obama was saying something fairly clear. i mean, you can listen to it yourself. >> if you have been successful, you didn't get there on your own. you didn't get there on your own. if you were successful, somebody along the line gave you some help. there was a great teacher somewhere in your life. somebody helped to create this unbelievable american system that we have that allowed you to thrive. someone invested in roads and bridges. if you have a business, you didn't build that. somebody else made that happen. the point is that when we succeed, we succeed because of our individual initiative but also because we do things

together. >> in the annals of controversy political statements, this should not be a particularly controversial one. it's the idea that human beings rely on each other as well as themselves. that they rely on the societies they live in as well in order to succeed. it is the idea that if you were born in north korea, you would not have the same career trajectory as if you were born in america. the idea if you love math but got here before newton invented calculus, you would have had a tougher time of it. the institutions we have here matter, infrastructure matters, trains matter, the teacher you had in eighth grade matters, the support your parents gave you matters. and you, of course, matter. as americans we know all that is true. without a doubt true. and it's part of why we call this the greatest country in the world. if individuals were all that mattered, why would you care what country you were in? last week, republicans pretended

not to know any of that. >> he said this. if you got a business, you didn't build that. somebody else made that happen. to say that steve jobs didn't build apple, that henry ford didn't build ford motor, that papa john didn't build papa john pizza -- to say something like that is not just foolishness, it's insulting to every entrepreneur, every innovator in america, and it's wrong. >> i got to be honest, i tune out of these things sometimes, and this is one of those times. i didn't take any of it seriously when it was unfolding last week, not a word of it. because the fact of the matter

is mitt romney is not a stupid man. he knows better. i mean, mitt romney ran bain capital. it was a firm that went in and tried to help different people helping other businesses become successful again.

and it did so in large part with help from the government. they used government tax deductions to carry out essentially interest finance takeovers in order to bring these companies back to profitability or barring that to strip them bare before they turn them out into bankruptcy. he's telling them if those businesses had not had access to romney and their team, they would have been in much worse shape. in any telling, if they had not had access to outside financing and taxing to death, they would have been in much worse shape. romney knows that. he knows the government has a role to play in helping businesses succeed, that other people have a role to play in helping businesses succeed. his criticism to the contrary struck me as ridiculous and insincere. but republicans this week are still pushing this thing really hard. today, the rnc held a conference call with a pair of small business owners to highlight president obama's supposedly offensive comments. this was the backdrop at a mitt romney business round table in california. we did build it, it says. i bet romney didn't actually build that banner, but whatever any suspicions, i bett a u toda athle didn't >> you g and losi you get he for most sis your hopes, coaches guided, al c org shoulde them. we have already cheered the olympians. let's also all right. >> got that, olympians? you didn't build it. you couldn't possibly have achieved what you have achieved

to this point without the help of others. without the help sometimes of even the government which helped build the venues you compete in. i couldn't believe that quote when i first watched it, actually. like david axelrod went back in time and put the precise words he needed into mitt romney's mouth. romney even praises government in there.

he didn't need to do that. he didn't need to bring up venues, but he praises government. you know, the reason he said it is it's all true. you could make a pretty good case that, say, a marathon runner did it mostly on his own, but most athletes like most benefits benefit from the institutions that exist in their societies. mitt romney knows that. he knows that when it comes to olympic athletes and he knows that when it comes to american businesses. this gets to something larger

that we are seeing a lot right now in american politics. the effort to take relatively modest policy differences and blow them up into gigantic yawning chasms of philosophical difference.

in reality, the difference between barack obama and mitt romney in terms of specific policy that comes from the idea you didn't build that or you did build that, is about a percentage point of gdp and taxes. maybe a little more or less depending on how you score the tax cut plan. mitt romney doesn't think there should be no taxes, he doesn't think there should be no public investment, and barack obama doesn't think we should have a 100% tax rate and 75 times more public investment. they both think we should have taxes that people pay because we're better off for helping one another out and both men think we should have public investment and public goods because there are things we all need to band together to do collectively if year going to succeed individually. the question is simply where to put the balance between the two. now, mitt romney may want to admit this, but he doesn't really have a choice anymore because the fact of the matter is he already admitted it. he admitted it ten years ago when he was kicking off one of the greatest spectacles to individual achievement one can possibly imagine, and he told those athletes at that time in effect, you didn't build it.

mitt romney was right back then about those athletes. they were helped even though they did much on their own. he knows he's wrong right now as he tries to run against obama's comments on american businesses.

joining us now is e.j. dionne, washington post columnist, brookings institution senior fellow and the author of "divided political heart" which i'm told bill clinton has been talking up in public speeches. congrats on that. that's a lot to do all on your own. busy guy. >> i didn't build it myself. i had a great editor, a lot of friends, great colleagues. >> one of the things you talk about in the book, which is wonderful, bill clinton is right, is that in american history, there have been these competing threads between individualism and the emphasis on community and what we need to do together. it seems, at least to me, and i'm not the historian you are, that in recent years, much of that has been jettisoned by the republican party in an effort to paint themselves as the saviors of free enterprise and paint the democrats and obama as something radically alien and outside the american consensus. is that a fair judgment? >> that's a fair judgment. i think you had two things happen at the same time. i think you had the republicans entirely abandon what had been for them and for conservatism, a very strong communitarian commitment.

bill buckley shortly before he died -- >> editor of national review. conservative journal. >> right. and bill buckley wrote a book called "gratitude" where he talked about what we owe back for growing up in this society, for being nurtured by it, for being protected by it. i.e., we didn't do that on our own. if he tried to run on that book in a republican primary now, he >> tonight, as part of my career as a cable television dare devil, i will make my second attempt at something that has never been attempted before. i tried it the first time on this show. i survived my first try and i'm back tonight to defy the odds again. this time, with even more spectacular results. maybe. possibly. that is next. daddy, come in the water!

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election, and circumstances where the control of government is uncertain or divided. and in those cases, parties will be unwilling to pay the price that pursuing unpopular policies would exact. >> so this sounds really bad to folks, but one argument you hear people make, i have heard people make, anyway, is that it doesn't

really matter. we're looking at the wrong thing. that what voters want isn't for politicians to follow their opinions on policy but for politicians to deliver a rising standard of living. if that comes from choices that are different than the ones the voters would have made, so be it. >> there certainly are voters whose primary concern in an election is how either their own household is doing or more commonly, how the country is doing economically. but there are many voters, most voters, who take into account a much broader segment of issues and set of considerations, and for them, where a politician stands on a variety of things are important and voting is sometimes a matter of balancing economic performance against other kinds of considerations. >> so one of the findings in your book i found fascinating, i wouldn't have expected, you say gridlock makes parties more responsive because it acts as a filter because only very popular policies can get through gridlock.

and you say extremely competitive elections help because they only have reason to let popular policies go through. but when i look at the last few years of gridlock and fierce party competition, i see a political system being badly governed and much more to the point, i see a policy that is really, really unhappy. right now the parties are very closely matched. there's tons of gridlock, and congress is at its lowest approval rating since we started surveying that. doesn't that show the kind of idea that responsiveness is a wise goal for us to strive for? >> it's only one element of what we would want from the government. it's true that gridlock has negative consequences, and they're very evident, but it also has this positive side which i think has gone unrecognized previously. that is under the circumstances,

when not much policy is adopted, it doesn't mean that government is doing better, but it does mean those policies that are adopted tend to be more popular. it's a bit of a silver lining to an otherwise rather gray cloud. >> you're not that scary after all. martin gilens. author of "affluence and influence" which is terrific. thank you very much for being here. >> my pleasure. attention cartographers, if a certain republican congressman has his way, the world's maps will need to be redrawn to honor the star of the movie "cattle queen of montana." that is straight ahead.

in august of 1961, the government of east germany began

as a home, there are things i'm supposed to do. like, keep one of these over your head. well, i wasn't "supposed" to need flood insurance, but i have it. fred over here chose not to have it. ♪ me, i've got a plan. fred he uh... fred what is your plan?

do i look like i have a plan? in august of 1961, the

in august of 1961, the government of east germany began construction on a giant wall around the city of west berlin, which happened to lay in the middle of east berlin. you got that? it was as cold as a cold war could be. and it stayed that way for more than 25 years. complete with proxy wars, missile threats, nuclear arms build-ups and john le carr spy novels. then in june of '87, president ronald reagan visited the berlin wall and said these very dramatic and very famous words. >> mr. gorbachev, tear down this wall.

the wall did come down about a year later. and it made ronald reagan look pretty good. but reagan was just a man, right? and he's not even with us today, so how does he help us now? well, it appears some republican politicians believe there's some kind of problem solving nation protecting magic power in invoking the very name ronald reagan, in uttering the words ronald reagan. you can just say ronald reagan like a spell, and wonderful things begin to happen. in the 2008 presidential campaign, former massachusetts governor mitt romney introduced his reagan zone of economic freedom. not the romney zone of economic freedom, mr. romney does not have that sort of power yet. it was the reagan zone of economic freedom. president obama in his foreign policy team have pursued a

misbehavior to the world trade organization to try to stop china from cheating wherever possible and question their human rights, but romney thinks that turns america into a door

mat. he thinks president obama is letting china walk all over him. he would not push china on that wto stuff. his solution instead is to create a reagan zone. a reagan zone for all of the countries around china. while it is extremely unlikely china would join the reagan zone, our offer to allow china to join would modify their trade and industrial behavior. seriously, that's the plan. it's up there on the current campaign website. we create the zone, china says no to the zone, but the zone still gets china to participate in free trade on fair terms because, you know, reagan. but governor romney's reagan zone has been badly outdone in their devotion to those two magical words that solve problems by their very incantation. the prize for the assumption currently goes to republican congressman darrell issa. he's probably the most famous for holding all-male hearings about contraception and charging the attorney general of the united states with contempt. but congressman issa recently found time in his schedule to hold the president reagan can still hold all our problems sweepstakes. mr. issa's new bill would rename all the coastal water. it would be renamed reagan water. this slice of the world right here includes the united states and its territories there in the light green. the areas of blue, extending from 2 to 300 nautical miles offshore is something called the nautical zone.

he wants to rename them the reagan zone. president reagan established the so-called eez in 1983 to show that the united states has the ability of exploiting and researching the zone. because of that, darrell issa wants to name water after ronald reagan. it turns out i say darrell tries to sell the country on the reagan water bill at various intervals, having passed it at various times in congress. the process of renaming the ocean waters reagan land is virtually impossible. for instance, i went to the beach this weekend. >> how was the romney coldness? >> when that wasn't his title, if you would have vipred your cara larm and they were warned

ex clis itly by a loud voice, the voice, in fact, of darrell issa itself. which means that congressman darrell issa's proposal comes with the possibility of extra security for our great nation. protected by reagan power. stand back! stand back! meet the star of tonight's geeks, tony roberts. he is really tall and will be speaking really loudly into a headset microphone while pacing energetically on a stage for hours at a time. he'll be inspiring his listeners

meet the star of tonight's geeks, tony roberts. he is really tall and will be speaking really loudly into a headset microphone while pacing energetically on a stage for hours at a time. he'll be inspiring his listeners

to walk through fire to release their live prowess, which apparently looks something like this, according to a video posted on youtube. >> whoo! >> i don't know if that was a bona fide tony robins event as listed on the website. you have some loudness at the event and people whooping and hollering while he walks over hot coals. you have to do it without getting burned. as i said, the event usually ends with huge whoops and empowerment. last week, however, the jubilee was replaced by screams of pain while they get their feet

treated. he's been doing this for decades, but apparently this led their company to say they're working with authorities to improve safety. i have a suggestion for them right now about how to improve the safety of the hot coal thing. step one. do not do the hot coal thing anymore. but they're going to do it. perhaps. charcoal is a poor conductor of heat. as a medic writer who tried walking in 1985 put it, quote, perhaps that is easier to see it through the wood and would they

quick burn? >> the so-called myth busters also tested this back in '08. they look for a piece of charcoal that was heated 900 weeds. apparently, ashen and in theory, you should be able to pick up one of these goals which on one side is 950 degrees, and on the charles and have my food in the palm of my hands. they're making a fire significantly less hot to the touch. not as hot as you would like but not as hot as advertised. then there's the rate of speed as you walk. >> and the first set of results

up for analysis is the high-speed camera shots showing exactly how much toe touching time there is. >> so it turns out that my foot was only in contact with the hot coals from heel to toe for 9/106 a second and my full weight was only on it for 5/10 of a second, so right there might show the reasons you don't get burned when you walk across hot coals, because you're not touching the coals for very long. >> so the trick for walking through hot fire is don't worry about it too much and get out very quickly. get out of the fire. i'm not trying to take anything away from people who tried to walk in robert tony's life. i do have to say it's better with physics that show us having a relapse. anyway, just one more time. do not try this call walking thing at home. that does it for us tonight.

day in court. the world gets the first look at the man accused of won of the worst mass murders in u.s. history. lion's share. the ncaa imposes unprecedented sanctions against penn state in the wake of the sandusky sex scandal. and what's in a kiss? a royal receiving line smooch raises some eyebrows. good morning, everyone. i'm lynn berry. those stories and more straight ahead. this is "first look" on msnbc. and we are going begin this morning with dazed and confused. the man accused in friday's murderous rampage at a colorado movie theater made his first courtroom appearance.

all that happening on monday. leanne gregg joins us with the latest from aurora. good morning. >> reporter: good morning. the theater where the mass murder took place remains closed while the investigation continues. it could be months before the trial begins. yesterday the public for the first time had a chance to look at the alleged killer face-to-face. the make shift memorial keeps growing across from the theater, a day after a brief hearing to read 24-year-old james holmes his rights. the accused mass murderer seemed dazed, never looking anyone in the face, as family members of some of the victims sat nearby. >> he does look like demonic or something like that. his eyes are just crazy. kind of crazy looking, you know? something wrong with that man. >> reporter: holmes, once a top neuroscience student, recently dropped out of grad school. police say he spent thousands of dollars on weapons and ammunitions, dressed up like a villain yas