President obama and communities all over america paused in a moment of silence. President obama is calling for a ban on assault weapons. Today, the nra offered a rather different solution. Publicly breaking the silence. The silence for the First Time Since the massacre, the nra proposed a sweeping plan to have armed guards at every school in the nation. The truth is our society is populated by an unknown number of genuine monsters. People that are so deranged, so evil, so possessed by voices and driven by demons that no sane person can ever possibly comprehend them. They walk among us every single day. And does anybody really believe that the next adam lanza isnt planning his attack on a school . Since when did a gun automatically become a bad word . A gun in the hands of a secret Service Agent protecting our president isnt a bad word. A gun in the hands of a soldier protecting the United States of america isnt a bad word. And when you hear your glass breaking at 3 00 a. M. And you call 911, you wont be able to pray hard enough for a gun in the hands of a good guy to get there fast enough to protect you. So why is the idea of a gun good when its used to protect the president of our country or our police but bad when its used to protect our children in our schools . To be clear, this wasnt a press conference. It was a statement. No questions were taken. That doesnt mean there werent any interruptions. Stop killing our children. Its the nra and assault weapons that are killing our children. Protesters accused the nra of having blood on its hands. Ill be speaking to one of those in a moment. Wayne lapierre paused and then continued and blamed the violence on video games, on the media, on just about everything but guns. They said the news media is consumed with hate for the nra, but the proposal to have armed guards in schools in america is stirring the most debate. Jeffrey, let me lay my cards on the table off the top here. I watched that press conference or that statement with mounting horror and anger, but i was also aware that a lot of people in america would have watched it and said hes right. Yeah, people will say that the answer to every escalating sort of violent act in america is the ability to use more violence to counter that. And it never stops. So youre going to give a Security Guard a regular gun against someone who has an assault weapon. So when the assault weapon overpowers the regular gun, you give the Security Guard in the school an assault weapon, where does this end . It doesnt end. That was the most irresponsible and i think hurtful response to an american tragedy that i have heard. And he should be ashamed of himself to come and tell the American People im not going to do anything reasonable, not one thing. I dont care if its 100 kids killed, i would have said the exact same thing. Lets get more people with guns and surround our kids. We have to as a nation examine our souls and say how did we come to this . It was really, i found, horrifying, because i watched the whole thing. At the end, i thought two things are going to happen here. One, the nra is going to get a lot of people joining it as a result of this. Secondly, gun sales, assault weapons, are going to rocket because of this. This was a promotional tool, this statement, for encouraging more americans to go and arm themselves. And it really cut to what i think the nra and other gun lobbyists in america do. They play to fear. They play to peoples fear. And they commercialize it and they sell more weapons on the back of that. That is why its shameful. It is shameful because they can give you not one logical reason that an american citizen needs an assault weapon. Not one. They arent good for hunting. They serve no purpose. In the hands of someone really mentally ill, they can do damage that is its inconceivable to us. And weve got to put an end to that. This is one of those issues, piers, where i think the American People have to say, some people you just sort of cant have a rational discussion with. We have to take this matter into our own hands and protect our children. I think thats what our country has to do, i think the president , the speaker, i think senator reid, folks have to come together and say lets put children first, and lets not deal with people who are just, i think, irresponsible in their responses to a tragedy in this country. We have covered this ever night since the sandy hook massacre and we did the same after aurora and others and theres been this escalation in the scale of these atrocities and i have been getting angry this week at some of the gun rights people who have come on the show, very angry, and i have been accused of being rude and all the rest of it. If you cant get angry over the coldblooded murder of 20 School Children age 6 and 7 years old, when do you get angry . Who do americans say enough, this is not going to continue . By the way, what he didnt mention today, Wayne Lapierre, he didnt mention anything about assault weapons other than to try to play down what they are. He didnt mention highcapacity magazines. He didnt explain why the killer in aurora needed 100 bullets in a magazine. What is the purchase of the mass slaughter. Nor did he mention background checks. 40 of all gun trades, theres no background check. Had he done any of those things, someone would have said, hes making some good effort. There was nothing. Thats right. A guy like me who thinks theres just too many handguns in america and we need to do something about it, they would consider me extreme, right . But this was a moment for a rational sort of compromise that says to america, okay, guys, maybe this is too far. Maybe you cant allow a person to come in with 100 bullets and slaughter people, our children. Maybe we should stop that. The fact that they did not make even the most minor compromise or to give our president and our congress the confidence to say that this is extreme, or this kind of extremism will destroy america. Were already a country awash in handguns. Everywhere you go, our citizens are being slaughters. When do folks stand up and have the courage to say to the nra, you are wrong, were not tolerating this anymore . Real reasonable Gun Legislation is what america has to do. I would be curious how many members of the nra actually agreed with what Wayne Lapierre said today. I cant believe that rational americans do not see the need after three Mass Shootings in the last few months that involved an ar15 assault weapon. He said they claim these firearms used by the military are the most powerful rifle calibers, all factually untrue. These are fine, these weapons. The ar15, when its been modified by someone who knows what theyre doing, can fire 4 to 6 bullets a second and 100 bullets in one minute. Theyre killing machines. They are machine guns. Look, were allowing people to have higher sort of firepower than our police. You do not see Police OfficersWalking Around with weapons like this because these weapons are used to fight in wars with soldiers. Theres no excuse for this, piers. Theres no rational explanation for allowing this to go on. The nra has bullied our congress. Lets be honest. They have bullied them with money, threatened to put them out of office, and we have people in congress who so want to cling to their office that theyre prepared to sacrifice american children, and its about time someone called them out on it and said, stop it, guys. These are our kids. We have to fight for them. If it means we get out of office, we get out of office, but we save the country. Were going over a moral cliff. You cant just morally justify the slaughter of american children, and by the way, 350 kids a week are shot or murdered in this country of ours, thats every week. Thats 14 classrooms and no one does anything about it. Its like thats normal in america. Thats an outrage. I couldnt agree more. Jeffrey, thank you so much for coming in. Thank you. Good to see you. The nras Statement Today was interrupted by two protesters. One was nadea. Welcome to you. It was quite a moment when you managed to infiltrate this nra statement, as it was. What struck me most ironic, of course, there he is talking about security, and you were able to get your way into his own little press event and make your protest known. Well, thats right, piers, but i went in prepared with a banner, but i wasnt necessarily going to pull it out because i naively thought that the nra was going to make some concessions. I thought they were going to Say Something like, yes, we understand that something needs to be done and thats why were supporting a ban on assault weapons or something they were going to give us as the American People. And my jaw dropped when Wayne Lapierre started out swinging, saying that we need to put more guns on our streets. So i was as shocked as i think a lot of the reporters in the room at what the nra had to say. It was an extraordinary event. I mean, in a way, i was thinking to myself that it was so it was so uncompromising. It was so lacking in any kind of compassion or anything, really, that i found it could backfire pretty badly on the nra. Thats why im curious how many of its membership actually go along with the sentiments he expressed. What would you think . I dont know. So many of us are parents. I cant imagine that parents want their kids to see armed Security Guards on their way to school every day. And these Security Guards would probably be private contractors with firms that are taking people that have been in combat overseas, have ptsd, could also snap. The more weapons around, the more unprotected i think our children are. So i hope it backfires. And i hope people saw that lack of compassion that you mentioned. Thank you very much for joining me today. It was an extraordinary moment to watch your protest. And it went around the world. Thank you for joining me. Thank you for having me on. Next, debating the nras plan with people from both sides. And cory booker and others join me for my debate on guns in america. I always wait until the last minute. Can i still ship a gift in time for christmas . Yeah, sure you can. Great. Wheres your gift . Uh. Whew. [ male announcer ] break from the holiday stress. Ship Fedex Express by december 22nd for christmas delivery. Trust duracell to power their donated toys . Duralock power preserve. It locks in power for up to 10 years in storage. Guaranteed. Duracell with duralock. Trusted everywhere. And this is the nokia lumia 920 from at t. Its got live tiles so all my stuffs always right there in realtime. Its like the ultimate personal assistant. But im me, and me needs handlers. 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Call your doctor right away if you have persistent diarrhea. Other serious stomach conditions may exist. Dont take nexium if you take clopidogrel. Let your doctor do his job. And you do yours. Ask if nexium is right for you. If you cant afford your medication, astrazeneca may be able to help. There exists in this country sadly a callous, corrupt, and corrupting shadow industry that sells and stows violence against its own people. Through vicious, violent video games, with names like bullet storm grand theft auto mortal combat and splatter house and heres one. Its called kindergarten killers. The nra blaming video games for creating a culture of violence in america. Are video games really to blame, though . Well get to that in a moment. First, republican strategist and gun owner hogan gidley. What was your reaction when you i think the nra missed a huge opportunity. To come out and say we want to be on the forefront of having this discussion, we definitely need to talk about gups and we also need to talk about Mental Health issues, talk about parental environment, talk about a cultural decline. We are as the nra for responsible gun ownership. This was clearly not responsible. We need to have that conversation and be out in front on this. Instead, they missed an opportunity blaming other people and really kind of drawing a line in the sand that didnt need to be drawn at this point. Youre a gun owner. Are you a member of the nra yourself . I am not. I support the nra but im not a member, no, sir. The relationship between an american and his or her gun is historic and something that creates great passion. What is your view about the specific campaign which i have been pursuing and the president is pursuing and others are pursuing which is not about banning guns, its about banning assault weapons, getting the kind of weapons which can massacre school classrooms, these military style machines, getting those off the streets . Right, when you have such a tragedy like we did, it was such a dark day for this nation. I think those types of conversations, talking about assault weapon bans and things like that, need to be on the table. The fact of the matter is if i went to the doctor and he said, you have cancer, i say how do i get rid of it, and he said take these two aspirin, and i said is this going to get rid of my cancer, and he said no, but it will make you feel better, we cant pass legislation to make us feel better. We have to protect our citizenry, our children. The nra missed the boat on this. You think assault weapons should be banned or not . Thats a good question. And the thing is, im not militant on it one way or the other. Im willing to have the conversation. You obviously think there should be. Give me the statistics. Lets have the conversation and im willing to come to the table and talk. If im not on the table im on the menu. Let me give you some statistics. The particular assault weapon that massacred the children at the sandy hook school, was the same one used in aurora in the theater. Its an a rrk15, a militarystyle machine gun. Those who say it isnt a machine gun have never seen it be modified and how it works. You can check it on utop tube. These things when theyre modified can fire 4 to 6 bullets a second or 100 bullets in a minute. They can wipe out 100 people in less than a minute. Those are some statistics for you. What i never hear back from anyone who defends them is what other purpose can they possibly have than mass slaughter . Thats the thing. If i own one of those weapons and i had clips of 100 or clips of 30, kids wouldnt be in danger. The irresponsible people with them, obviously, it makes the conversation different. Now were talking about being able to mow down a number of people in a matter of seconds. Thats a serious, serious problem in the hands of somebody who has a mental instability or is angry or should have no business owning a gun at all. Those are the kinds of things im willing to talk to anybody about, and those are the things we need to put on the table if we want to move forward. Thank you very much. I thank you. God bless. Were going to bring in Jeffrey Toobin and andre. Welcome to you both. Well start with you jeffrey. I want to play a little footage. This is an ar15. We found it on youtube. A cnn colleague found it. The point is you can see the kind of weapon it is, particularly when they get modified. They are military assault weapons. These are behaving like machine guns. The nra and other gun rights lobbyists would have us believe thee are singleshot semiautomatic relatively relatively harmless kind of hunting rifles, but that footage, which by the way, there are numerous examples on the internet, show you what they really are when theyre in the wrong hands. Not only that. As we saw in the News Conference by Wayne Lapierre today. They dont think banning any sorts of guns are the problem. They think there are monsters out there, as he said, but its okay for the monsters to buy weapons as long as the good guys have weapons, too. Thats the solution to their problem. So however many bullets you can fire at once, machine gun, submachine gun. Thats all fine as long as the good guys have guns, were saying. The more guns america has, the more gun murders occur. In japan where they have almost zero guns, they have almost zero gun murders. And the parallels are there all around the world. I dont get why the nra can get away with statements like this, and there isnt just a huge outcry. Well see. I think things have changed somewhat. They remain a very powerful group. Theyre speaking to a constituency that really believes in their message, and historically, at least, that you cross the nra at your peril as a politician. They have a great deal of money. They have a great deal of influence. Politicians care deeply about getting a high rating from the nra. You know, it could be that newtown marks a turning point, but it also could be that it doesnt and thats why you have not seen a huge rush of politicians to embrace gun control in the past week. Let me understand, Michael Steele called the nra statement very haunting and very disturbing. Hes actually an nra supporting. Michael blook brg called it beyond believe that following the newtown tragedy, the National Rifle association wants to arm more americans. I want to turn to you. What some people thought was a point worth making is a violent association of video games to a disturbed mind and this leading to some kind of desire to do what they see in the games for real. You have this website which is very popular with gamers. What is your view about that . I dont see how video games can contribute to violence in that manner. Especially when most video games dont emulate real life. What