welcome to the beat: weekend. i'm ari melber. let's get to the headlines. we begin with breaking news today out of the spring court and is feeling concerns about the increasing partisanship, credibility crises, and corruption on display in this court. let me tell you what's going on. conservatives now reversing one of the only measures for gun safety that was actually passed and the recent era, and again you can put all politics to the side, as a measure of how extreme the support supreme court is today with his ruling. this was one of the things that got through the broken, hyper partisan washington we hear so much about. it even had centrists and moderate and republican support to try to deal with one part of our gun crisis in america. today the court reversed a ban on something called bump stocks . and the opinion was 6-3 meaning the conservatives and all three trump justices are making it easier to get deadly weapons in america. the other three justices from democratic appointees dissented. all you need to know about the bump stock thing is it takes weapons and make them deadlier pick it makes a faster semiautomatic with a higher rate of fire. you can go hundreds of rounds per minute, which from a legal perspective goes well beyond what most people would ever need for self-defense. you do not need to shoot off 100 or 200 rounds per minute to stop one or two people that may be legally justified in shooting at them to defend yourself. but not 200. that is more like more. you may recall that we heard more about this in america after something terrible happened in las vegas. october 2017 mass shooting is still the deadliest such mass shooting in american history ever. i'm not trying to make this too dark. were not just going to show terrible images or anything too extreme. these images are of the general situation and some people who were alive for i will tell you for your knowledge that 58 people were killed that day and over 800 -- let me repeat that. over 800 were injured. there are many mass shootings of this one may have learned with others in your memory but this was the worst ever and the shooter brought 12 rifles that were all basically supersized in two-part deadlier weapons with these bump stocks that i mentioning. the shooter was able to fire off more than 1000 rounds of ammo. that is a wartime level ticket was so extreme and so deadly that it jarred the republican party, which as you have heard, usually says after any shooting it's not a time to act. it's too soon. just scream. but in response even with a republican president, then president trump they decided to make a measured move. and again i'm telling you legally and policy wise how this worked. it wasn't some sweeping restriction on confiscating guns and taking back guns or anything like that. they bans just this device that makes these guns deadly. and they did it through executive action, as you know. it's hard to get a three through congress and especially gun legislation through. but donald trump did something that overlapped, and i would say one of the only gun our domestic safety measures he did that overlapped with what president obama talked about, which is sometimes using the powers of the presidency, executive action, rather than going through congress. there are many ways to do that that are generally lawful. if you are building on, for example, agencies are regulations that already exist under law but the congress has been much slower are generally blocked or transcended filibusters do not allow majority votes on this. i mentioned to president obama, who also ran into those congressional roadblocks after the terrible massacre of sandy hook. >> the majority of those who died today were children. beautiful little kids between the ages of 5 and 10 years old. we will have to come together to take meaningful action to prevent more tragedies like this , regardless of the politics. >> that is definitely true, regardless of the politics. if you define politics as with the whole country generally wants, well, most people want more gun safety regulations, especially if it does involve the more far- reaching measures. if you talk about limiting semi automatic's are having background checks are doing these basic things, widespread support for obama was referring to the politics of congress where the nra has a stranglehold and is been able to block registration. obama later said that figure to get the universal background checks, which does not take any guns but make sure criminals are people who are very dangerous or mentally unstable, are embedded and are able to just get deadly weapons. he said it everything that happened in his two terms of the fact that even after sandy hook they could not get those background checks through was his biggest disappointment but the roadblocks salt legislation and that is key to what i'm telling you about today. mass shootings have spanned all of our recent history. >> survivors of gun violence will meet with lawmakers to discuss new legislation. >> tonight the entire town showed up to pray together and comfort each other? >> state leaders joined hundreds packing the uvalde county arena in prayer for the 21 lives lost. >> that has never before been a sit in the floor the house by congress. >> rang common sense gun control legislation to the house floor. >> this is one of the great crises in americans. it's a problem that is partially of our making because other places with similar populations and systems have found ways to reduce gun violence without giving up all liberty. like i said universal background checks restricting certain types of ammunition and certain enhancements of guns these are things you can do by letting people who have regular self-defense handguns are rifles for hunting can keep them. and it's a personal issue because even president trump, who is generally cozy with the nra, took this action, which the supreme court overruled today. president obama, seen as a moderate, did not push for sweeping gun confiscation and said he could not get the background check done. and in many places, people have lived through the center open to the idea that we can do something more to protect ourselves. don't mention this only cover shootings in the middle of them because we are focused on gathering that information but i can tell you i went to a high school that had a shooting in it when i was there in high school in seattle and they had another went recently. whether you are a student, graduate, parent a member of the community. you look at the risk to innocent people and children and you think what can we do? as i'm telling you tonight in a world where there so much polarization, donald trump and barack obama did agree on this one thing you could do. you could use executive powers to deal with some of the deadliest enhancements to weapons. i'm telling you this because that is the context. we live in a world of headlines and partisan sniping and it would be easy to forget that we had some bipartisan, moderate, not major, but moderate centrist steps toward gun safety. and even that is too much for some of the extremist members of this supreme court took this case here, the court was once a lead if you go back a ways to a different type of conservatism. it's almost like you can't use the same word. people at the time were on the right and at the time affiliated with the republican party. look at former chief justice of the supreme court warren burger. he was a nixon appointee. and after he retired, he spoke out quite clearly about the difference between what the constitution historically has meant about guns come and out -- how it has been perverted. >> the second amendment. >> which says? >> a well regulated militia being necessary for the defense of the state. people's rights to bear arms. this is been the subject of one of the greatest pieces of fraud -- i repeat the word fraud -- on the american public. by special interest groups. >> what a lifetime it was. that nixie appointee republican saying, quote, i repeat the word fraud. he was talking about the special interest group, the nra. other people in the republican party who support hunting and self-defense and law and order and police and all that type of stuff we hear about would also say that there is a reasonable our moderate conservative way to also protect the innocent with reasonable gun safety measures. >> i believe in background checks at gun shows or anywhere to make sure that guns don't get in the hands of people that shouldn't have them. >> we want to do everything we can to prevent guns from falling into the hands of people who are mentally unbalanced are criminals. >> i do think we ought to extend the assault weapons ban. >> i do believe that an ak-47, a machine gun, is not a sporting weapon. or needed for defense. >> reagan with the applause and all. those are republican party leaders. i could show you centrist and independents, democrats and liberals known to even lead for this and more strict gun safety measures. the problem with gun violence is worse here. one study found that firearm homicide rates are not double, triple or quadruple -- quadruple means four times as many deaths. but 19 times greater than in france. a whopping 77 times greater than in germany. and if you do comparative policy, which is what the congress and other policymakers are supposed to do to look at different options and make decisions, you can just see if you look around the world at the spectrum. somewhat may say, the german example, where it's 70 times safer but there's a lot more restrictions on gun rights and liberty and even hunting. some may say the u.s. doesn't want to go that far. okay. that's a fair and valid debate. we try to deal with facts and policy and law, not her purple lisa maybe you don't want to go all the way here. but you could be here in the middle or here or even be here. i want to be clear the supreme court is pulling all the way off the map. justice thomas writing today in this ruling says they conclude that semi automatic rifles equipped with what i mentioned, the bump stock, are not a technical machine gun because it doesn't fire more than one shot by a single function of the trigger. if that sounds like something different than traditional constitutional law, that's because it is he was doing it's words on top of words and justice thomas was parsing a law that is almost a century old from 1934. it went on like this but because the ruling isn't really about the words, i'm not going to read too many of them to you. in the dissent, when i see a bird that walks like a duck and swims like a duck and quacks like a bird. i call that bird a duck. the bump stock automatically is more than one shot. she explained that buyers with more than one shot without manual reloading by a single function of the trigger so she said because i like congress call that a machine gun, i respectfully dissent. again, if it sounded like a lot of word salad, that's what court debates can be like. but you have the republican appointees seems like they basically wanted to even take the most moderate, mild, small gun safety world that came out of donald trump's white house and knock that down. it seems like they had that plan before they went into write about what a machine gun means in their own mind. conservative majority has done this. we have covered how the corruption here gives you a window into what they really think? some of them, at least. justice alito's wife flying the flag in solidarity with insurrectionist. justice thomas pocketing millions of dollars from a controversial republican billionaire who has a copy of hitler's mein kampf on display in his home. these people want you to believe that what they did over the last couple weeks or however long they worked on this case was parsing the meaning of the word machine gun and go back and study this 1934 law. and the problem is, and this is a problem larger than this ruling today. i went to law school where a lot of time is spent respectfully, almost referentially looking at what the court writes as if it's true. but the larger problem is a lot of this stuff doesn't sound very credible because it's not. and think about this. justice thomas, would have you believe, that he spent all this time carefully parsing what the law from 1934 said, not with his own agenda to help the nra or the gun groups or even the donors he consorts with, but with an open mind because all he did was parse those words. but then you have to remember on something that hits much closer to home the ethics code that requires certain refusals and suggest the judges avoid the appearance of a conflict of interest that operates right now , 1934, justice roberts sent it out this year after the thomas and alito scandals. justice thomas does not parse that at all. he doesn't pretend to look at it or read it or ask linda is why he defines it. he just flouts it. it may be time to put away the reverence and the difference and understand that this crisis as part of the other crises we have in america. that's why, although i could have another fellow jd holder, a fellow lawyer come in today, we decided having explained the ruling to turn to someone with knowledge of politics and the right-wing movement. our special guest is here when we are back. bye-bye dry. hello glow! in just 14 days. indulge with olay body wash. but st. jude has gotten us through it. st. jude is hope for every child diagnosed with cancer because the research is being shared all over the world. 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(vo) new and existing customers get iphone 15 on us when they trade in any iphone. verizon somehow this has become routine. the reporting is routine. my response here at this podium ends up being routine. and what has become routine is the response of those who oppose any kind of common sense gun legislation. >> then president obama on the gun safety impasse in our country. we're joined by one of his former campaign aides. thank you for joining us this friday. >> good to be here. >> you see a link between the courts' credibility crisis and its creeping corruption and these kind of rulings, which as i mentioned are legally out of the mainstream and politically even against trump and some of the recent conservative mainstream. explain what you mean and what we should understand from today's ruling. >> the court corruption story and the court ruling are not separate stories or separate events. they are linked we have a supreme court that no longer serves the american people, no longer search the constitution. they serve the republican party of donald trump. you saw that with this ruling today. this ruling in many ways was a trump campaign message event. it was a sign to the pro-gun constituency in this country and in the republican party that donald trump and his supreme court have your back. they support your. they support your right to have access to these weapons. they support the idea of male dominance, which is central to the entire gun discussion in this country. there was a very famous ad, i think for an ak-47, that said this is your man card. they use masculinity, a sense of wounded masculinity and appeal to that over and over again for and that's what the supreme court did but he did exactly what donald trump and the republican party want with this ruling and other rulings. >> yeah. that makes sense and i appreciate your blunt clarity. justice sonia sotomayor notes that these kind of enhancements, basically taking this rifle and making it far deadlier, not really for self- defense purposes, as i mentioned in the lead. self-defense means one or two people are coming at you or you live in a rural area and police are far away. that's more like war. she said they put this enhancement of bump stocks back in civilian rather than law- enforcement hands to do so they cast aside the court's definition of machine gun and seize upon what is inconsistent with the meaning of the text unsupported by context or purpose. am i being too harsh in noting the gap between the suppose it parsing textualism of clarence thomas on this 1934 law while he just ignores the other rules. be at the u.s. flag code for alito or ethics rules for himself? >> no. i don't think you're being too harsh. i think the reality is that this court now serves donald trump in his political interests, not the constitution. the textualism of clarence thomas was largely a front. the front to get himself on the court it was a front for other justices and people in the federal society to say this is what we stand for. they do not stand for that. they stand for the immediate, urgent priorities of donald trump and the republican party. and i think if you look at the ethics issues that clarence thomas has run into, you know, there is really an underlying message here, which is ethics are for democrats. constitutional standards are for democrats. they are things that we used to apply to others, not ourselves. can you see this repeatedly over and over again and a political dialogue where one side constantly claims that standards and rules do not apply to them, but apply to the other side. >> i think that's very true the way you put it and that's why there is this double standard on that policing and in a different context we see this with how people use the justice system. i think you make fair points. moreover on time but as i mentioned and bring you on tonight, when you have a certain challenge in life come if you call an account that's different than calling a lawyer, which is different than calling a house painter or hitman. who you call focus is on what kind of challenge you think you have and we called you as a shrewd observer of politics because i can't seriously look at this ruling as a legitimate, legal outcome. it looks more like a political outcome and you helped us with that. thank you. >> thank you. we have the hunter biden verdict that came in with our friend prosecutor david kelly. and feeding their dogs dog food that's actually well, food. developed with vets. made from real meat and veggies. portioned for your dog. and delivered right to your door. it's smarter, healthier pet food. get 50% off your first box at thefarmersdog.com/realfood sfx: [screams] [crowd gasps] bleeding gums are serious, jamie... dr. garcia? 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