can you get historical background on the nra and guns and gun control? i read that it was once a supporter of gun control. can you explain not? >> yeah, he nra is known for being a rarely compromising opponent of gun control. but it wasn't always this way. the organization was founded after the civil war by soldiers who were convinced that union marksmanship is why the war had lasted so long and wanted to improve marksmanship training. the 1920s and 30s, the nra went undrafted in inverse gun control laws, restrictive laws requiring anyone's who wanted to carry a concealed weapon to have a license and only allowing licenses to go to people who are suitable people with a reason for carrying firearms. i did some research and found in 1934 when congress passed its first major federal gun-control law, which outlawed king stirred an outside access to gangster weapons like machine guns and shotguns, the president at the time was asked to testify about it and specifically the second amendment have any relevance to the national firearms act? his answer from the p

guns and that was only 60 percent of the guns sold. so if you do a better job with that, if we did a better job delivering mental health services, if we have a better juvenile justice system and better able to deal with the cultural issues that lead to this, it will all work to our advantage in the end. rochelle dicker. >> thank you very much for being here. i am one of the trauma surgeons at san francisco general hospital and i think maybe i can speak for dr. campbell as well when i say i would really like to make my job obsolete. there are a lot of appendicitis cases to deal with. we have ideas on implementation of public health model. mayor lee, you spoke to this a little bit. we have a whole cadre of hospitals out there and a real alliance of hots and trauma surgeons, emergency medicine physicians, social workers, who get to the root causes dr. marshal has listed over here. we have these capacities and we would love now to know where we can glean more resources and what's happening with the cdc as far as allowing for resources so t

the different pieces of a gun whatever. and so we end up in this debate where on one side it's. no gun control whatsoever and on the other side it's we're going to do these moree medial things like ban certain types of assault weapons and you know have universal background checks but the hope there is that over time through attrition less guns will end up in the hands of criminals because less of those types of guns will be purchased and then stolen but that doesn't really get to the problem what if we want to solve the problem of gun violence in this country in addition to the issues of mental health and everything else we have to do the things that you're talking about which is licensing which is registration and i think that that would go a long way you oftentimes hear that a gun used in a crime the legal owner of that gun had no idea it was missing in the first place if somebody had to reregister their guns like they do a car maybe not as frequently maybe every three or four years. we'd have an idea of when those guns h

but the person who sold him the gun sold him the gun. cannot sue that guy? you cannot sue the guy. it is the only industry in america that you cannot sue. why is that? >> john: you know why. >> privacy. >> john: we have to go break but i will say the next, my panel stays with me after the break when we talk about talking about sex. we'll be right back. come in now and sea food differently. now, buy one lobsterfest entree and get one 1/2 off with a coupon at redlobster.com. >> john: welcome back to "viewpoint." today on social media, i asked all y'all if y'all thought obama's hopes for immigration reform had any hope of happening well joanne, i'm afraid these days, the republican party seems to be more sylvia platt on oven-cleaning day so i don't think they'll help their own cause. if you have a comment for the show, do tweet us at john fuglesang or use the hashtag "viewpoint" or post it on our facebook page. now, how do you teach the biology of human sexuality without saying the word vagina. sorry, mom, i know you're watching. with repro

these are the guns. why did they name those guns?y're hoping the next time something happens, they say, we would have banned that gun. here's my point, the guns that were used against me, they weren't on their special list. what happens to all those crimes? okay. >> if you have a law, this is my main point -- >> how many guns are currently banned as it is in. >> in this country? depends if you have a pistol grip, a sliding stock. >> there are other 50 types of gun control already in existence in america. do you support all of those? >> i don't know if i support all of them, and the reason why i say this is because i think some of them are repetitive. ia look at columbine. 22 gun laws specifically, more than 100 laws were broken, but more than 22 gun laws were broken there. if you add another one on there, is it going to fix the problem? no. i think we have -- >> how do you know? >> because i think if you're not prosecuting the guys who are committing these crimes, if you're noting have a background for mental health, that's where i l

a gun" tray.laughter] then, if gun deaths go down, we'll know definitively if more guns really make us safer, and everybody gets to keep their guns. and if gun deaths skyrocket, then everybody still keeps their guns. 'cause what are you gonna do, take them away?[cheers and applause]spheench welcome back, everybody. my guest tonight is a former death-row inmate who was exhonorated by dna evidence. you know what they say: if the deoxyribonucleic acid don't fit, you must acquit. [laughter] please welcome kirk bloodsworth! thanks so much for coming on. all right. sir, you were the very first inmate to be sentenced to death but exonerated through post conviction dna testing. it's all written about in the book "bloodsworth" which has been out nine years. that's not really why you are here tonight. you are they're talk about your quest to get rid of the death penalty state by state. >> that's right. >> stephen: how many states strilt death penalty? it's 33 right now. that's counting maryland, the state i

own a gun.wave of gun enthusiasm is finding a home on the shooting range. here's abc's juju chang. >> reporter: for these women, girl power means fire power. >> ready, bust it. >> reporter: welcome to advanced defensive pistol training. these are the sure shots, a women's only shooting league based in austin, texas. >> rock out, girl. >> that was awesome. >> reporter: nationwide, gun ownership is at an all-time high, and now a report 23% of women say they own a gun. the surprising spike has spawned a cottage industry from hello kitty handguns to this blinged out revolver tweeted by kim kardashian. but make no mistake, these women are dead serious about the right to bear arms. >> you have to say it defensively all the time. you have to think about it when you're in your car. you have to think about it when you're at the grocery store. it just takes a second for everything to change. >> reporter: holly is a mother of two who says she joined sure shots to learn the best way to protect her family. >

laws against gangs with guns, felons with guns, drug dealers with guns. >> and you support those as felonies? charging them with a felony? >> absolutely. we want them taken off the street. if you're the president and the vice president and the attorney general and your job is to enforce these laws -- i'm talking about drug dealers, gangs and felons walking around with guns on the street and you don't do it, you bear some responsibility. >> do you think the nra can prevail in new york? you heard mayor bloomberg saying you can bring suits but it's within the realm of new york state to do so. >> they are some of the most commonly owned sporting firearms, target shooting firearms, self-defense firearms and, yes, they're protected under the heller gun state ban. >> you brought up school safety. you were here last time and when you addressed newtown you said that's the key. more armed guards in schools. south dakota has passed a law allowing that. 27 provisions now being undertaken to arm school personnel. were you right? >> 90% of school administrators 90% say that armed security, police

gun control.w a couple of things happen in the senate this week area leader reid, the head of the democrats in the senate is coming out now with a proposal, a gun bill. guest: his abilities going to of -- include the pillar his efforts, which is universal background checks. currently, it is against the law to purchase a gun if you are a criminal or have a dangerous record but not all require background checks. democrats are trying to put forward a bill that requires universal background checks. that has been the top priority for president obama. this bill will not include the assault weapons ban, which would ban certain types of high- capacity assault rifles and other weapons. there was not enough support in the senate to feel like that was possible to include and be able to pass the floor in the senate. it is a bit of a blow to the president agenda. host: here is the headline in the "washington post" -- how significant is it that the lead democrats and the senate is coming up with something and i

he pulls out a gun, other people pull out a gun and he's in trouble. it really doesn't give a chance for others to respond. you have to realize that the choice of using observation to before hand. when they have a choice, they chose machine gun. this evidence bill landis at the university of chicago found when they moved to bombs u.s. terrorist attacks. the point has had a choice when they were forced make the change they switch to using bombs. the benefits are not just people on the street. the question i was just raised for school and other places. people don't realize prior to the federal act and the end of 1995 states that still carry laws, allow people to carry handguns on school property. if this attack had occurred before 95, there's a good chance somebody might of been there does need to carry concealed handguns. you may notice the modern school attacks we've been having started after the act in 1997. in fact, the interesting thing is the person who stopped the tailor their in which two people were killed as a former marine. apparently had a co

we have gun violence. that gives us opportunity to choose in cooperation to decide where the charges are best brought and a meaningful sentence might be sound. in the spring of 2011, in aurora by coincidence, there were officer shootings. there was great concern that we were about to embark on a summer of violence, so to speak. with other chiefs in the metropolitan areas, we convened a group of law enforcement folks, atf included, and enacted a summer initiative aimed at aggressively reaching out and arresting felons and other criminals who were attempting to get the guns or were trying to buy them. there were a total of 85 criminal prosecutions and convictions. they were a mix. there were a substantial number that we took stateside, so to speak. that was the most effective way to approach the case in a particular area. to go to your question about trafficking, part of the difficulty we had and part of the reason we have asked the committee to consider and the president has proposed a stronger gun traffick

gun owners are for it. i myself am a gun owner and i'm behind this as are all of the people that i talk to throughout the country. this sunday, i was at an event where we shot skeet and trap. and everybody there talked to me about this and there were probably 200 gun owners, gun enthusiasts, people who belong to a club and break clay pigeons on their time off. they were in agreement that -- it is the necessary step that should be taken. 40% of the guns purchased in the country today don't go through background checks. so only 60% of them do. that is tantamount to only screening 60% of the people that get on airplanes. it makes no sense. >> john: are proposing the armed person act of 2013. can you explain the goal and purpose of this legislation? >> sure. that's a different issue. but what's happened over time, there are a lot of people who legally purchased firearms. many with a background check. and subsequent to that legal purchase and taking possession of the firearm there are some folks who went afoul o

they go we want to ban that gun. their gun. this is my point. the guns that were used against me. they weren't on their special list. so what happens to those crimes. if you have a law this is my main core >> how many guns are banned as it is. it depends on whether you have a pistol grip. there are over 50 types of gun control. you look at columbine. 22 gun laws specifically. more than 100 laws were broken. if you add another one on there. is it going to fix the problem, no? >> i think if you are not prosecuting the guys, that is where i look at it and say, when they were dealing with mental health in washington, d.c. today. there is a huge loop hole, it is not the loop hole to buy gunning on the market. it is the loop hole of the mentally in sane people, now would that law fix it? probably not. i would rather have laws that have an impact right at this moment in time. >> we agree been a number of things. >> you are coming around. >> i haven't changed at all. >> i would like to see that reduced. but i think that this kind of debate is constructive. it worries me that i hear that v

guns. clearly adam lanza's mother did not do a good job of securing those guns and preventing her son who she knew better than anyone else had some issues, from having access to those firearms. even if she had done that, we can't sit here and say a tragedy wouldn't have occurred. all we can be clearer on is that the tragedy wouldn't have occurred with those particular firearms. that, we can probably say. but you don't need a firearm to cause horrible tragedies. a gallon of gasoline can cost the lives of 100 people or more. we have seen it in brazil. we saw it in the bronx in the 1980s. the happy land fire, one gallon of gasoline, 87 people were killed. you don't need a gun if your intent is to cause mayhem. >> but you do, you think, need a situation in america where you have more gun murders a year than the next 22 of the richest countries in the world combined. >> well, we have some serious problems in this country but our politicians really don't want to address the problems and have that

measure of guns.t how many of those we have per capita, we lead the world in per capita guns, we also lead the world in per capita gun violence. there is a correlation here. and we ought to be fighting just as vigorously for the freedom to live our lives unmolested, uninjured by gun violence as fiercely protecting the right of people to have guns. >> hear, hear. i totally agree. >> when you're in danger, you don't want an unarmed security guard to show up an hour later. you want the tactical police department to show up right then and there. >> what i don't want, i don't want someone showing up to my children's school with an assault weapon and when the police are called in, i don't want the police outgunned by someone with an assault weapon. i would like frankly the police to be better armed than the civilians out on the street or bad guys that get ahold of military style weapons. with extended clips that are only good for one thing and that is killing people very rapidly. why do you need an extended

than guns. >> a thousand actual gun deaths a year?bill: if you think there is a thousand. i don't know where you got that number from. i think it's closer to like 30,000. >> yeah. >> bob. >> way low >> bill: you are way low. pools can be dangerous too. but don't equate pools with guns. i haven't seen -- by the way, you know, i haven't seen many people walk into a school and blow 20 kids away with a swimming pool. jesus. god. you know, if you -- if you are an nra mer and a gun owner get a better argument than that one. jamie calling from francisville indiana. what do you say? >> caller: good morning. how are you doing? >> bill: good >> caller: i was calling because i consider myself a very strong liberal growing up in chicago and moving out to indiana afterwards. >> bill: uh-huh >> caller: because i work in the agriculture field. so i live over here in the middle of basically everybody over here is a republican and they pretty much hate obama and love their guns and i, myself, am a proud gun owner. i have about 15 right now. >> bill: a

we've localed guns into a false sense of security. we have guns just for weapons. still this inaction hasn't deterred some gun control advocates. we spent time with one especially determined group >> contrary to popular belief not not all gun owners are against gun regulation. some have acknowledged they're a hazard >> the firearm is dangerous. we're doing everything we can to correct this problem. >> reporter: and he has identified the biggest danger of all. >> the problem with guns is theyey're just too loud. >> reporter: too loud? just too loud reporter: that's the problem yes. every time you fire arrival without hearing protection, it will do permanent hearing damage to you. every time. you hear with your ears but what people don't understand is you hear with the bones in your face and your skull as well >> reporter: yes. while most experts have studied gun violence from the perspective of the bullet, few have studied it from the perspective of the sound. you see, when you fire a gun, it has 140 decibels of sound waves which can cause severe and irreparable hea

we don't know who owns guns. we don't know who is exchanging guns. if someone has intent to commit a crime, you really think they're going to ask their uncle for a gun, that they're then going to go to a store and get an fbi background check if they're not legally supposed to be having one? let's say tomorrow we congress, say congress said tomorrow somehow this got passed which it's not going to, but let's say somehow congress passed a law that says any time you transfer a firearm in this country, you have to call the fbi and get a background check. >> you know what? we somehow figured out how to do it with cars. you can probably figure out how to do it with guns. i don't really know how the car system works. you know what, it seems to work. i'm buying a car right now. it's a pain in the butt but you got to do it. so that works. >> if you were going to take the car to do a drug deal to steal the car, you're sure not going to the dmv first. number one. number two, driving is a privilege. owning a firearm is a right. the government does not have to be

these guns do travel. i know the mayor is doing so much locally but have our national leaders to our right here standing up saying it's so important to have a national discussion, to have all these laws apply nationally and the decision that they did say banning dangerous weapons still presumed legal and kuepbs stal, i would say machine guns and weapons of war that kill kids are unusual and unusual enough for me and i'd like to have them gone. >> thank you very much for being here. leader pelosi, thank you for being here. (applause). >> distinguished panel members, thank you for being here today. thank you for what you do here every day. your service is very very much appreciated and your help in this is just so important i can't begin to tell you how important it is. and i want to leave you with a couple thoughts. jackie spear talked about 100 shot magazine. nancy pelosi said that i call them assault magazines. i don't know what else to call them. 30 shots? it's an assault magazine, that's all that it can

is mark -- guns? >> and there are a lot of physicalcause of the capabilities and poking its nose and every area of people's business and in terms of all of the stuff that you have created paranoia and this country, some of it is justified. and we areintrusive not a limited government anymore. if you go back to our founders, the best government is the destined smallness government is the best government. we are saying gun owners will be responsible. people know how to use a weapon thomas how to handle a weapon, how to store a weapon. we do not want anything that would inhibit that. >> if i may shift gears once again from the gun issue onto another hot issue that is immigration, there is a group of senators that there meeting and putting out a plan on some sort of comprehensive immigration overhaul. senator paul gave a speech not too long ago outlining what he inks should be done. where do you stand on the pathway of citizenship that is going on these days? a you are not going to get comprehensive immig

to give up their guns. but it's more than what i believe in, it's the law. and the u.s. supreme court just ruled in the hiller decision that individuals do have a right to own firearms and we need to recognize that right up front. but at the same time i'm a father and i'm a grand father and i want to make sure that my kids and their kids and their kids grow up in a safe community, are able to go to school in a safe school and they are able to work and recreate in safe areas. and i know we can do boat. we can address this in a responsible way where we make our communities safer, we make the individuals in our communities safer and we still protect a lawful individual's right to own a firearm. as the chair of this task force i'm working with my colleagues and outside experts from every imaginable walk of life to make sure that we can do this, that we can reduce gun violence with full respect for the second amendment. i've met with everybody. i've met with democrats, i've met with republicans, i've met with gu

go to gun stores to buy guns. they recognize that prohibited persons do not now submit the background checks although they obtain guns which is why they want to expand checks. but they fail to recognize that criminals won't be any more likely to submit to expanded background checks than they are currently. they will go around supposedly universal checks to steal guns or buy them in the black market. when the universal background checks don't work, then registration will be proposed to enforce them. when that doesn't work, because criminals won't register their guns, we may be looking at confiscation. there is a refusal to consider that gun control of law-abiding citizens does not work. if gun control worked, we would expect to see that places with stricter gun laws would have less crime than those where it was easier for law-abiding citizens to have guns. instead, law-abiding citizens obey the laws and criminals don't. and those areas with gun control often have more crime. under federalism, state and local -- loc

. >> and gun safety. most of the nra members actually do believe strongly in gun safety. >> absolutely. now you can create something that's culturally consistent with people instead of fighting. you can't change culture that way. >> what is interesting is some of the history in terms the of other big social issues that americans have faced. drunk driving was a very popular thing to be doing 30, 40 years ago. then there was this horrific bus accident in the '80s, mothers against drunk driving got started because 27 people got killed. it became a huge turning point. watch a clip from one of those ads. >> are you okay to drive? >> yeah, i only had a couple drinks. i'm fine. ♪ >> keys can be a weapon. a few drinks can make you a killer. >> i mean, very powerful. and similar advertising has been done for the tobacco industry and has had an equal effect. smoking is far less popular now. it's not about getting rid of all guns. it's about make car driving, gun use safer. that's the realistic goal. >> our fight is

he sort of started to frame the issue of gun control, of gun safety legislation in a political context we're now familiar with. by breaking it down by percentages. i want to play what the president said about the 90% and the 10%. >> how often do 90% of americans free on anything? it never happens. many other reforms are supported by clear majorities of americans. and i ask every american to find out where your member of congress stands on these ideas. if they're not part of that 90% who agree that we should make it harder for a criminal or somebody with a severe mental illness to buy a gun, you should ask them -- why not? why are you part of the 10%? >> now benjamin, you've written a lot about the rural/urban divide on the issue of gun control. let's look at some of the people that would be i guess technically in the 10%. mark pryor of arkansas within his state 84% of people support background checks, universal background checks. mary landrieu, expect to be a potential no on gun control, she's in louisiana, 85% of people in her state support background checks. max baucus of montana, 79

the gun and die by the gun.pirit ism is, his fighting back because he wants that gun because he needs it to live on this earth. that is the only way he can make on this earth is with that gun. that is the reason why everybody in other and he's people's business because he's got to rule this earth the way he was set out to do. right now, we're just in turmoil because of his need for the gun. --t: on twitter the real d says -- will, florida, what you think? caller: the problem we have with these new laws is that the people writing them have very little understanding of the topic. it is like saying, we had a car accident, let's get the homage to run our motor be -- order vehicle department? people say, universal registration or back contracts -- my ancestors came from a country where they have a universal background check and universal registration. ghetto andup in the died there. the rounded up the people on the list first. you're looking at a lot of butle say as common sense, people are not looking at history, ev

, but it does to a gun-gun manufacturer?can sue a bb gun manufacturer for not putting in a certain safety device. and that case will be heard by court. in fact, also the consumer product safety commission can require bb gun manufacturers to put safety devices into guns as it can do for any other product. guns get the double whammy. one, they get this special exemption from civil justice law, from products liability law. they also get exempt from consumer product safety commission. so the federal government can't force them to put in safety devices. as a result, there are safety devices which are literally over 100 years old. they cost less than $1. they would save the lives of children. there's no question about it. and, yet, they are not the industry standard in -- for guns in america. >> one of the reasons we've been trying to focus on the gun manufacturers and their relationship with the nra, is because i find it to be politically important that the manufacturers are able to essentially stay out of the spotlight political

over guns.t the nra i think is not trying to sell guns, and they are supported by -- i'm a lifetime nra member myself. so they're supported by citizens as well as gun manufacturers. this is making a statement about who we are. i know there was a car in a race recently devoted to sandy hook. i think that's a great thing, that i think it was darrell waltrip jr., i'm not sure of the driver. that's a wonderful thing. in texas, we can support and help and pray for the people who have been victims to gun crimes in our own state and other states. but here in texas, we understand that the nra is something that we can be proud to be a member of. let me tell you something, piers. when you were here, i enjoyed meeting you a few weeks ago here in texas, i said on finance and criminal justice, we're closing down prisons in texas, crime is down. people carrying guns in texas, concealed carry which we talked about on your last show, has a positive impact. i can assure you in chicago, where they have tight gun

gun ownership now is almost exactly back to where it was prior to the gun buyback.so if you look at murders in australia, they were basically flat for the seven years after the gun buyback went into effect. so they should've fallen and then gone back up. then it goes down a tiny bit. if you look at gun suicides, it is true that they had fallen after the buyback. but non-gun suicides fell by the same amount. if this gun buyback stops suicide, what should you have seen? it should have fallen. then they should've gone back up rather than falling by identical amounts over the same time. in any case, maybe we could have some kind of discussion there. but the fact is that it's not consistent. so here's the bottom line. and i think it is very important. the two groups of people the benefit the most from owning guns. people who are relatively weaker, women and the elderly. those people are likely to be victims of violent crimes. it tends to be poor blacks who live in high crime urban areas. it would be great if the police were there to protect. but they are not always there

gun states and eight in the low gun states. guys are unfortunately dead wrong. you are more likely to die if you've got a gun in the house. >> so if you're throwing in situations like we just had in houston where an untragedy where we had a 4-year-old that shot himself with his father's gun. if you're throwing that situation in where the father who was a drug dealer had stolen a handgun and left it out on the table passed out on drugs if you're considering that as being on the same level as legal gun owners owning weapons responsibly and storing them safely then you've got a context problem. cenk: you know what it is? you're using an extreme example but i can give you many more. >> i'm using extreme examples. >> you're saying that all gun owners that someday's going to die in the home. cenk: cindy i'm not saying that. >> no? cenk: no, not everybody is going to get killed, but you're more likely to get killed on that gun. >> i'm not out to kill anybody. i'm out to defend myself. >> exactly. if you're not trained on the weapon, w

at a gun show. and a lot of the guns control people would love to see that happen. but it won't be effective because if there is a true portal out there all they'll do is make an agreement is that i'm not buying this gun here at the gun show and i'll meet you a week later and i'll bring you my portal certificate and i will sell the gun and won't get charged to have it go into a federally firearm licensed book. >> so senator you think that's not effective. but does that pass the senate? >> will their bill pass the senate? >> yes. >> i don't think so. not at 60 votes. and if it does pass the senate, it certainly won't pass the house. and the whole idea is to get something that will pass both houses. >> senator maybe you can help explain what exactly the rationale is of people who are afraid of there being a federal record of gun owners. because when i go to the drug store to buy cold medicine, i have to hand over my drivers license. they have my record of that. why should that knot standard not be app