and here we have a serious problem america is addicted to oil. and it's the addiction the us cannot seem to kick so one year after the worst oil spill in history why hasn't anything changed the director of spills the crude intentions of big oil corporations. that you need to take in columbine there are some serious things in that they don't allow guns it's always a criminal is it with guns so with openly carrying guns the answer to a safer america. and why is cold war thinking tying up trade relations between russia and the u.s. today could lawmakers playing politics be to blame. laws against sex crimes against

nature how you have sex in the state of louisiana who put you behind bars but who is this law really targeting. anything it's wednesday april twentieth at eight pm here in washington d.c. i'm lauren lyster and you are watching our t.v. now today is the anniversary of the mass shooting at columbine high school this month marks several anniversaries the anniversary of the oklahoma city bombing the virginia tech massacre and the siege of the branch davidian compound in waco but some americans nonetheless see carrying firearms anywhere and everywhere as the only solution first say for america our kids killing board has a story. greg rutherford spent years carrying a gun in the past. is in rochester defense tactic.

in kenya he didn't see a reason to put it down being a former deputy sheriff i felt that it was necessary to. obtain a concealed handgun permit to protect myself but it does it might just conceal this guy he wants to curia out in the open to me it's the constitutional way to cure your firearm. and i think that. if you don't exercise your rights eventually you will lose on. his way to get drunk won't leave the house without her maggie three fifty seven pistol it's already checked into this special handbag for packing heat. in croatia it was nothing can. be done during the war you know. it's not. like. when i. was like i was.

like i was watching t.v. . and i am walking with a gun on my hip there are two hundred fifty million guns in the hands of american civilians and rutherford as he spent more than twenty five thousand dollars on his personal records i mean how many pairs of shoes you have. i mean. i see guns and i could do it every day each one brings back memories. this was. my grandfather shotgun. well you want to do that and i was going to. record for it carries his gun everywhere he legally can and even encourages his daughters and nephew as well and they live just rather free of virginia citizens defense three towns two thousand five hundred members they organize events like this one at

parks restaurants and other public places where they openly carry loaded weapons in an effort to normalize their critics say. i believe that you should be able to carry a firearm in any manner you choose on an airplane and in school virginia tech and columbine are some serious things and if they don't allow guns it's always a criminal that gets the guns and you can't have a gun in a gun free zone so guns going to be allowed on campuses the virginia citizens defense league is part of the greater open carry movement a well organized network of gun owners in forty three states. that makes it basically makes it easier to screw with the message that prepares. for send in the open carry movement it's about more than security it's about forming a militia defending themselves from government tyranny and even organizing an insurgency in ford artsy carrollton virginia. and far more open carry gun laws and

the movement is john pearce his co-founder and spokesman of open carry dot org i want to thank you so much for joining us now we just saw story all about several people that some scribe to this movement but i'm wondering what your rationale is for open carry because from what i've read this is a contentious issue even within the guns rights community. well i think your church the primary focus. carried out a war which is the realization of open carry open carry is the right that is protected by the second amendment whereas concealed carry is a state created privilege and so what we would like to see is that people who might feel uncomfortable around firearms because they think they don't know anyone who carries a firearm or who owns a firearm we realize that they have many friends neighbors and loved ones who do in

fact own foreigners who carry them here and by bringing that out in the open it brings forward that process of normalization but why why shouldn't gun owners have been carrying guns out in the open be a normal thing why should it not be something that makes people at concerned over peace and security or and be thin is a provocation why is it important here wrote us several questions there the only thing that should be seen as a provocation is in fact a provocation the peaceful exercising of a right should never be seen as as a provocation and the reason that it is important is exactly why you asked because citizens have a fundamental right to be placed in a situation where they can protect themselves just as they have a right to carry a weapon though i mean i one example that i read was a group that has been doing open carry demonstrations in children's libraries for

example why should there be a man with a rifle and a children's library i think that's something that you know no matter how you feel about about second amendment right think and ownership puts people off. well there's two parts to that question first of all that open carry don't work we focus on the open carry of properly holstered handguns not a long gun so moving past that the issue that you're addressing there is actually in lansing michigan and in point of fact they were tearing into a children's library they were carrying into their own public library which happens to have a children's area and the real problem there is if you start making places all limits because children are there you're doing two things number one you're eliminating the majority of our public spaces because we take our children everywhere with this and number two we are true then seeing children from seeing

grownups responsibly and safely exercising their rights which is so important you know that the small number of him go to accidents that there were career every year can watch really be attributed to parents who did not properly educate their children about firearms safety i want to know what kind of data supports that because just looking at the idea of gun ownership and what impact that having thought is have shown that i do have a gun at home at six times more likely that i've used woman will be murdered or it's twenty two times more likely to be used in accidental shooting a murder or a suicide than in self-defense are the is the data stacked against your hypothesis about gun ownership being as something to promote safety and security. not at all as a matter of fact there is a steady dr gary kleck of the florida state university several years ago during the clinton administration in which he tried to determine how many turns that law

abiding citizens use thought arms. waffle self-defense every year and that includes tribes when the fire was not this surgeon simply displayed to avoid a confrontation his numbers that came back were in astonishing. half million true and her year now the clinton administration have the department of justice follow up on those numbers and i am going to go ahead and just give the department of justice numbers the benefit of the doubt because they are lower the department of justice came back with one in a million times per year american citizens use carmen's to prevent what breeze rapes murders and other crimes against persons so even if we use the department of justice numbers under the clinton administration which was no friend of girders what you see is that there is a remarkable number of turns christians were true then and it looks like there's

also a remarkable number of times that where violence is tell a crying at the head barrel of a gun and i want to thank you for that perspective on what you're doing in your movement that was john harris co-founder and spokesman for open carry dot org thank you now it has been exactly one year today that the b.p. oil spill sent millions of barrels of crude spilling into the gulf of mexico and what was the biggest spill of this kind in history and with gas now averaging three dollars and eighty three cents a gallon a dollar more than a year ago may be no surprise that gulf coast lawmakers on both sides of the aisle are again chanting drill baby drill and it's my p.p.s. mistakes that led to that spill doesn't seem like much of a change from the oil industry when it comes to new rules and regulations why might that be. it's the. record breaking profits.

record breaking profits a may come as no surprise but earlier i talked with scott roberts he's director of gasohol a documentary about what the oil companies don't want you to know here's part of our conversation. other than the fact that you and i are paying a lot more for gas than we did a year ago and you would think that we would be paying these prices last year after the spill rather than paying them now after things that are going on in the middle east especially libya where we get no oil from at all well that's an interesting point there are a lot of theories about why gas in some parts of this country are now more than four dollars a gallon we just heard president obama blame it on oil speculation on the part of investors we talked to a number of people who blame it on concern over the unrest in the middle east which is a big source of oil what do you think is the reason and i think it's a little combination of both i mean you look at it two days ago you know opec said that they were going to cut eight hundred thousand barrels per day from saudi

arabia because they said we were over supplied and then the next day we hear that crude tops out over one hundred nine dollars per barrel because we're under supplied so who really has the answer president obama is correct it definitely has a lot to do with speculators you know a lot of people don't even realize the read get a majority of our oil from canada we get as much from canada as we do from saudi arabia and venezuela combined so when something happens in the middle east the speculators go crazy in the in the price skyrockets well that's one theory now i want to ask it back to the subject of regulation are you surprised that congress hasn't passed major reform in response to the largest environmental accident and u.s. history. well after doing so much research for the film nothing really surprises me coming out of washington d.c. from either side of the aisle it's you know a lot of people talk about alternative fuels and they talk about new ways and if

you look at our film we go back all the way to president nixon in soundbites from presidents who say we need a comprehensive energy policy we need to be energy independent and it's a matter of national security and no one republican or democrat has really done anything about it i think it comes down to money i think will companies. like i said really don't care about the consumer it's business as usual they're making billions and billions of dollars they throw some money towards the alternative fuel industry and doing research and we feel with what we found in the film you know a lot of that is green washing but why change business as usual when you're making billions of dollars we live in a society where people know more about the american idol contestants than they do their own representatives we all have to get involved we have to push legislation and we have to vote in the people that are going to make a difference and do something about it but it was that he said that democrats and republicans neither of them will really tackle the oil industry somebody needs to

step up from from either party or a different party and make that priority number one and then we have to lay it out we have we have to have a natural like project and not the like and i think an army absolutely and something that's. an interesting analogy because now we just have one more minute and i just want to ask you you mentioned americans you mentioned consumers that's something that's interesting because if you look to europe you see everybody driving these little cars still efficient diesel fuel the united states consumers despite the b.p. oil spill despite gas prices rising despite a lot of concern paid to where oil is coming from in the united states you don't see americans trading in their s.u.v.s and lining up to get it's more fuel efficient smaller cars why do you think that it. americans we like our big tories we really don't like to sacrifice our lifestyle for the better of the long term good it seems i don't know in the in the car companies are producing cars that

s.u.v.s trucks things that really aren't that great on fuel economy we as consumers are buying them so they're going to keep making them and i know in your. documentary you actually talked about the oil industry perpetuating that cycle but what role have they played. well one of the job dropping things about the film and what people really get surprised about is the fact that we go back fifty sixty years and and have found patents and technology with the help even of a retired shell scientist who was the top scientist of inventions that would have drastically increased fuel economy over the years and they've either bought or suppressed or over over regulation and red tape of kept them from coming to market . that has got the roberts director of the documentary gas will now meanwhile president obama is getting sued a lawsuit was filed this week in u.s. federal court to require president obama to remove a cold war restriction still tying up u.s.

russia trade now despite lip service for ending what's called the jackson vanek amendment for two decades under both democratic and republican presidents still on the books and congress hasn't acted either earlier i spoke with anthony t. salvia he's a plaintiff in that case he's also an expert on u.s. russia relations and former reagan administration official he told me why these old restrictions make no sense today take a listen. for several administrations and. presidents of have you know certified that russia has been in compliance with immigration there was nothing no longer. immigration free immigration out of russia and in addition to that russia is no longer a so-called non market economy which is what it was under the soviet union and so the language of the law you know applies to russia that no longer exists really opposed to the old soviet union when there was you know things like central planning you know nationalization of industry and private property no price

mechanism so it was a non market economy and that's that's the precondition for the amendment to go into effect first so you've got no market economy and then you have to be imposing an undue restrictions on the immigration to the free travel of people immigration people right and now you and me more than one that's already missed out on your words but all the reasons that you give are good reasons for why that man which they no longer exists or doesn't matter anymore why is it still on the books right well you know i mean it is always holding us up. right it's you know is it is there's a nourish about the whole thing you know it's you know the obama administration including the you know the clinton state department you know supports the repeal of the objects and that i should or shouldn't do should be set aside that's actually the case would we're trying to do in this particular legal action is simply to show that if you did that a very straightforward reading of the language of the law clearly indicates that

the president has the right to get rid of jacksonville on his own and that for the congressional action is required a certain culture is built up around jackson benefits is that because the congress you know in effect force this on a republican administration way back when the gerald ford administration which was very interesting pursuing the top of the soviet union in the time of his injury secretary of state of the time it was a congressional action is a feeling that somehow because the current congress impose it on an unwilling us administration that somehow congress sets the list the law but it doesn't the president who our message to president obama is yes you can you can all right on authority you can you can move jackson better some people do have political reservations about about having a more open attitude towards russia this may reflect as you've indicated sort of lingering sort of cold war mentality on the part of some people. i you know as a reagan administration official who was you know really supported and you know very strongly and i worked actively in the kind of the you know the anti soviet

kind of policy in the closing years of the cold war you know i now have a very different view of all this kind of thing and i think that you know russia is no longer the soviet union and i think russia you know needs to be brought into the into the european family of nations and i think these kinds of old restrictions you know just make no sense as every thought the a former reagan administration appointee and a leader in the fight to abolish the jack and danica amendment now it is virtually a commandment in the french quarter lie they were told were day or end. not my broken french but in the english transit lation let the good times roll grab a little something to drink taken a show with a gentleman's club maybe go back to the hotel with a little something or someone that's a look at many people on your bourbon street go for a place that sells under the covers on the police are cracking down on it but you may never guess who they're busting what they're busting or more importantly why our teeth said we're going to ship a story from new orleans louisiana. this is the carnival of colors and

sounds. that is new orleans louisiana. a mississippi river port city awash in its southern roots its colorful french creole charms and its overtones of piety the. it's very catholic very catholic very bad just even very very the the city that lives according to code the orleans gets stuck in this kind of like puritan mentality that's completely antithetical to everything that's happening people come and have conventions year because they know there's the french quarter they know there's strip clubs prostitution. this is bourbon street. for about two hundred bucks you can buy yourself six more specifically straight up intercourse. with

a new orleans street walker anything else or start saying all sides can be negotiated but anything else is also. against the law. according to a law called crime against nature it basically prohibits anything other they are ordinary intercourse there's no police out there going into neighborhoods saying you can't have you know sex with your husband you can't have oral sex with your wife right no one's actually enforcing back but it isn't forced and enforced heavily on the prostitutes of new orleans these are people who can least afford to be charged with something like this right now you have to do is have an undercover officer driving around in plain clothes in a plain in an unmarked car and all of those drive around and drive up to people who they believe are are prostitutes or known are known prostitutes. and just ask how much and she answers. she's just opened this huge hole in her life.

a huge hall because a crime against nature charges punishable by as much as a twenty year prison sentence incredibly large fines and. later you're talking about a woman who's in her early twenty's who has to register as a sex offender for the next fifteen years. for a city whose sole job quietly includes pleasures of the flesh why they need to criminalize sex acts in which just about anyone in cages in almost all of these cases and up in a plea to probation and finds fines and fees. and the important part about the fines and fees is that's all revenue coming in to pay for the court system to pay for police to pay for the jail to pay for prosecutors offices simply put an antiquated nineteenth century law. passed on the guise of christian values we are all only with whom being used today still to make money it's

a five year felony you can use that to encourage people to plead guilty very quickly it justifies higher bonds the hookers often instead plead guilty to a lesser charge of prostitution pleading down to a misdemeanor means you can charge higher fines and fees how do prostitutes who usually can't afford those fines and fees pay for them for by dinging them or prostitution which they get hit again then they get caught again and right they have been gauging where prostitution it's a vicious cycle this is an old law it's stupid law it's a law that a lot of people even within the criminal justice system don't agree with you know you can see how some are trapped in the carnival that is new orleans. and if you think they're the only ones which there are other. minorities to be continued. who are those others will according to reports members of the gay and the transgender community and take

a look at this map it's not just louisiana sodomy laws are still on the books and fourteen states nationwide you can see right there on those maps the blue and green states some of them specifically target only members of the gay community for more on these crimes against nature in louisiana earlier folk with jordan flaherty the community organizer editor of left turn magazine and author of this book here floodlight community and resistance from katrina to the jenna sex he told me about how he thinks this law is being misused and the effect it's having on the gay and transgender community. i talked to folks from the african-american gay and transgender community and almost everyone i spoke to had had some kind of incident with the police where they had been targeted they were finding the lead with difficulty hanging out outside of the black gay and transgender and arresting people basically according to people i spoke with the feeling was police after that

if someone is black and gay or transgender then they are automatically become enough evidence to arrest. their person told me that they've been arrested and they had been doing nothing but and they had friends arrested doing nothing other than being in the community and what about this and the crimes against nature law which is you know specifically gives harsher punishments for sodomy and oral sex how is that used to target the specific groups that you're talking about marginalize. well talking to public defenders when what i found is that it's a lethal never seem to have recorded their conversation with a person and when that happens. it seems to be entirely up to the police it's question whether they charge them with prostitution which is a misdemeanor or the crime against nature a charge which is a felony which lead to this registration and a whole number of penalty is printed on their driver's license sex offender they

have to register with the state including their address is on the list send a postcard to everyone in their neighborhood telling them that they're a registered sex offender women who i spoke to had said that they had men coming to their house proposition them because they were on the left. a number of limitations including when there's a hurricane they can't evacuate other shelters to go to a shelter if it's just for sex offenders which basically means prostitutes and child and that would not be the case that their crimes were were. the misdemeanor charge of prostitution is that correct that's exactly right that i remember completely different a different crime and all of what i was with that i'm against nature or these laws that were that were done or glory were child and as you know it. caught up in this web of thing of now one thing i want to ask one of the

allegations made in the story was that the police department prosecutors use this as a way to generate revenue that these are higher fines now our t.v. reached out to the police department they said hey it's our job to enforce the laws that are on the books and i mean that that is a valid point so why aren't legislators working to get these laws off the books if so many people agree that they're antiquated well first of all i recommend anyone look at the new documents that the justice department released a couple of weeks ago one hundred eight page report part of it behavior and they found racial and ethnic profiling and lesbian gay bisexual and transgendered their nation and sickly mentioning the crime against nature law and saying the police were using him so it's not just because they're saying that it's the justice department after studying the issue their nation so then why are these laws on the books still why hasn't there been an effort to get them off i understand that in some states people make quite an effort to keep them on the books. well you know there's been there's been some legislative effort

a lot with last year the lightly changed. for they don't have to go in the registry only goes for the second offense so there's been some slight thinking people are continuing to push in legislature unfortunately for the first time since the reconstruction era our legislature is completely republican controlled and i think those republican candidates have found that anything that can be seen as soft on crime is not something that they want to go if not with democrats and we'd be in a much better but it seems that there is a very small hope of a positive answer in terms of criminal justice or soft on crime or soft on the issues of homosexuality i think that's a good point so you think that it it is about targeting gays and kind of condemning homeless actual behavior t.v. news laws on the books i do but i think if you look at the victims they're mostly african-american and they're mostly gay lesbian transgender or who are women of

color who are fact. they're just not seen as a voting bloc by many of you and i think that they're not in as a community that they need to be represented they need to look out for the jordan flaherty he's a community organizer journalist and author of blood lines community and resistance from katrina to the jenna six now we want to take a moment before the show is over to honor the late tim hetherington he is a was a war photographer and co-director of this year's oscar nominated afghanistan war documentary restrepo arcades along with men cos he also had the chance to talk to him about that back in july she interviewed him on her show right here in washington d.c. now according to human rights watch he was killed in misrata libya when government forces shelled the city now a day before his death he tweeted quote in besieged libyan city of misrata indiscriminate shelling by qaddafi forces no sign of nato. that's going to do it for now for more on the stories we cover and go to our t. dot com.