let's talk to a guy who has been in the inner circle richard feldman who is a former lawyer and political organizer for the national rifle association, and they are now a little mad at him because of a book he wrote called "ricochet" and he is starting independent firearm owners of america. thank you for joining us. >> thank you for having me. >> cenk: talk to me about what motivates the executives at the nra. >> well, the nra has a board of directors, and the staff is obligated to do what the board instructs them to do. i looked at the testimony about 13, 14 years ago, and our organization strongly endorses mandatory background checks for the transfer of fire arms at a gun show. gun shows are very different than when you sell a friend or transfer a gun to a relative. you know who you sold the gun to. at a gun show you are just like a retail firearm dealer. you are open to the public and you don't have a clue who you are selling the guns to. that's why licensed dealers put people through the background checks. everyone should go through that check at gun shows. >> cenk: let me give some n

pleasure to meet you richard feldman. i thank you and all responsible gun owners for being part of this dialogue. >> thank you. >> john: thank you. for more on the possibility of passing new gun control laws, despite the nra and its allies, i'm happy to be joined by tina dupuy, editor and chief of the contributor and political reporter joe williams. welcome to both of you. >> thank you for having me. >> john: you just heard that. i want to thank mr. feldman again but it is clear he is out of the mainstream of registered gun owners. >> did have a couple of points. >>. >> i agree with him on. i don't believe the atf has the budget to enforcer the laws on the books. it is a good point. that's common ground that everyone can come together on and actually agree upon. the thing that was really interesting to me is he did this classic thing that everyone who just doesn't want to see anymore gun violence, not even -- doesn't like guns, doesn't like being shot, suddenly, with the -- has to get into what i call weaponese. we have t

richard feldman, president of the independent firearm owners association. he was there. what he thought of the meetings. business news as well, christine. >> business of the flu. taking it's toll on your health. but what the sick days are doing to our economy. and worse, those of you who aren't taking sick days, the cost of that. you're watching "starting point." ♪ ♪ ♪ we're lucky, it's not every day you find a companion as loyal as a subaru. love. it's what makes a subaru, a subaru. officemax can help you drive supply costs... down... ...and down. just use your maxperks card and get a case of x-9 paper for only 1-cent after maxperks rewards. find thousands of big deals now... ...at officemax. ...so as you can see, geico's customer satisfaction is at 97%. mmmm tasty. and cut! very good. people are always asking me how we make these geico adverts. so we're taking you behind the scenes. this coffee cup, for example, is computer animated. it's not real. geico's customer satisfaction is quite real though. this computer-animated coffee tastes dreadful. geico. 15 minutes could

richard feldman is president of t the, former nra lobbyist. will cain is a cnn contributor. do you think it will be concrete action? i know no one's mind was changed there. but is it the beginning of something different this time? >> well, clearly, the horrific events in newtown were a game changer. what concrete changes in the law are going to be really remains to be seen. as to the firearm industry, which i represented during the 1990s, regardless of anything that occurs in legislation, certainly the companies on the big boards, smith & wesson and ru ruger, they're going to be manufacturing. orders are back ordered for probably a year or more. even if a couple of guns ended up being on a ban list, that's not going to have any impact on the bottom line of those companies. >> you know, will, americans support some kind of action on gun violence. 47% favor major restrictions, 43% favor minor restrictions. banning the sale of high capacity ammunition magazines, requiring background checks at gun shows. how can we talk about this, though? it nearly goes back to they're trying t

richard feldman, president of the independent firearms owners association. also author of "ricco che"ricoc confessions of a gun lobbyist. >> good morning. >> what do you not like about what the senator proposed? what doesn't work for you about another assault weapons ban? >> it really is the animal house approach to legislating policy. we outlawed these guns 20 years ago. it didn't work then. why by putting american gun owners on double-secret probation, will it have any different impact this time around? instead of focusing -- >> go ahead, sir. i'm sorry for interrupting. >> instead of focusing on the gun, we need to focus on the problem, which is always in whose hands are the guns? >> isn't there some evidence that the ban did have some xwekt 20 years ago. the updated assessment on gun violence, '9 4 to 2003. done by the university of pennsylvania. they found that the share of gun crimes involving automatic weapons in that period of time declined by 17%. on page 2 of their summary of finnin findings. that would indicate it did have an effect on automatic w

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meeting at the white house earlier today, the president of the independent firearms association, richard feldman and executive director of the firearms import-export round table, johanna reeves is with us. let me start with you, a lot of americans would have liked to have been in that meeting, we see guns sales through the roof and hundreds of thousands of people joining the n.r.a. bring us inside the white house. >> thank you, sean, for having me on your show, i appreciate the opportunity. i agree with what the n.r.a. said, that essentially the meeting was unproductive. i think that most of us had very low expectations going into it. and basically, our presumptions were met. i think that he -- he ran the meeting the way he saw fit. we had the opportunity to speak and i think there were a lot of things that we agreed on, but at the end he chose instead to focus on our differences. >> sean: let's go to what it is he might have agreed on. apparently little time was use today discuss how to keep our kids safe in school. i thought that was the purpose after the newtown shooting. what were they speci

we had richard feldman who is a gun lobbyist on the show last night.o gave a poll to the nra members last summer, 87% of the members agree that they should try to keep the guns out of the hands of criminals. >> stephanie: john that's the way it seems thus far is of course as usual, everybody is coming to the table except the gun lobby. >> because they only represent gun manufacturers and the only thank they want out of gun owners and is their money and donations. so you are getting so many emails hustling you for nickels, when in reality they are working against their own membership. >> stephanie: that's right. good morning. >> caller: hi, i have been just absolutely livid. i am a news junky, and we're missing an opportunity to really use this issue to point out, not only the rank hypocrisy of the right-wing, and i want somebody to ask them why is the second amendment sang row sang when they have no problem with steve king trying to pass a law to change the 14th amendment, redefine it regarding the citizenship. they have no problem passing anti-abortio

. >>> coming up on "starting point," soledad will speak with richard feldman of the independent firearmsy threats from north korea overnight. they warn of what they call physical countermeasures against south korea if they directly participate in u.n. sanctions against the north. the statement calls seoul a puppet to the west and says the latest u.n. resolution is equivalent to a declaration of war. >>> rhode island could be the next state where same-sex couples could get married. house lawmaker as proved a measure by a vote of 51-19. the bill has been introduced every year for 11 years. this is the first time it made it out of committee. if it survives, the government will sign it. >>> a catholic hospital in colorado argues it's not liable for the deaths of two 7-month-old fetuses, because those people are not people. an interesting case, this goes against the catholic church's teachings that life begins at concept. this all from a 2006 case where 31-year-old lori stodgehill died. the lawsuit blamed st. thomas for failing to perform an emergency c-section to save the fetuses. so far, co

we'll talk to richard feldman, a gun lobbyist with the independent fair arms owners association. he was in that meeting and will join us for a chat. we'll have bill mccibben, and talk about climate change and i'll break down the difference between ted nugent and rosa parks. [ lisa ] my name's lisa, and chantix helped me quit. i honestly loved smoking and i honestly didn't think i would ever quit. [ male announcer ] along with support chantix is proven to help people quit smoking. it reduces the urge to smoke. it put me at ease that you could smoke on the first week. [ male announcer ] some people had changes in behavior, thinking or mood hostility, agitation depressed mood and suicidal thoughts or actions while taking or after stopping chantix. if you notice any of these stop taking chantix and call your doctor right away. tell your doctor about any history of depression or other mental health problems which could get worse while taking chantix. don't take chantix if you've had a serious allergic or skin reaction to it. if you develop these stop taking chantix and see your doctor