store. gabby giffords survived and is still recovering. he will avoid the death penalty. after the hearing a number of survivors came together outside the courthouse. >> give up this hopelessness in this country that we can't do anything. because we can and we must. >> these taboo words, gun control can be spoken plainly in the halls of congress again. >> one of ways i believe we can make good come out of this, is to begin some common sense discussion about who should bear arms. what hands should firearms go into. >> kyung lah was in the courtroom. >> he seemed calmer than previous appearances. clearly medicated. when he first walked into the courtroom, he did have an unusual look on his face a he looked at the public at his family and reporters and some of the victims. he looked very briefly at everyone and sat down. he was very calm. he sat very still and he was able to engage with his attorney as well as respond to questions from the judge. this is different from the jared lee loughner ha reporters had seen in the past. in his first appearance he smiled when the charges were read against him. in another appearance, he had a loud, very sudden outburst and had to be subdued by the judges. what the doctors have testified to is that he is responding well to medicine. and it is his mental illness, his schizophrenia that prosecutors say they had to take into account for the plea deal. here's what the prosecutor told us. >> the doctors who have treated and observed mr. loughner since the shooting agree that he suffered from a severe mental illness that is severe schizophrenia at the time of the shooting and before the shooting. the fragility of his continued competency to stand trial was taken into account. >> so how severe the doctor who was treating loughner told the judge that loughner's illness, not the absolute worst is one of the worst she has ever seen. >> thank you very much this morning. simon was shot twice and she was serving as the outreach director at the time and she was in the courtroom when he entered the plea. pam, good morning to you. >> good morning. >> when you first heard guilty, what was your reaction? >> my reaction was one of this is going to be closure, not only for myself but for many of the other survivors and families of the victims. >> that's interesting you use the word closure here. this is a man, pam, who trialedo kill you. he shot you in your chest and hand. you were inside the same room, sharing the same air as this man in the courtroom. how did he appear and how did you feel sitting in the room with him? >> well, i've attended the other hearings as well. a terrible irony is that the shooter was a student at the junior high i taught in over 20 years so we walked the same halls. i did not know him at the time. my only thought for him now is just remorse that something couldn't have been done earlier, that he couldn't have had the medication he needed earlier and this tragedy would not have happened. but it was very emotionally charged and as he said the words that he pleaded guilty to each count that was read, many of the survivors, including myself and families of the victims held hands or put our arms around each other. it was very tense. >> very tense and emotional. i know that beyond -- >> i know beyond the courtroom just yesterday, you were outside basically calling now for more gun control as we're hearing this echoing throughout the country. i'll get to that in a moment. i talkeded to mayor nutter out of philadelphia, he's part of this coalition, mayors against illegal guns. you're demanding a plan. let's look at this ad. >> i'm a veteran. >> a mother. >> a teacher. >> we're survivors of the tucson shooting. >> our leaders gave us a moment of silence then. >> but haven't given us a plan. president obama. >> governor romney. >> we demand a plan. >> you're demanding a plan, i spoke with someone else yesterday in similar shoes as yours also demanding a plan. why do you think the president and mitt romney have been reluctant to address this issue? >> rather than spending time on why in the past what we're doing is looking forward and asking e american people to join not only us but the families of on average 34 people every single day are murdered by handguns or by some weapon in this country. every single day. and so we think the time is now to ask people to sign onto the online petition so that we have some political will to take to both of the presidential candidates and say now is the time. now is the time that we need to open this discussion and prevent further tragedy. >> i know that -- i want to share some numbers with this research poll. they took a poll after the colorado massacre in aurora, 47% say it is more important, here are the numbers, to control gun ownership, very close number, 46% say it's more important to protect gun owners rights. there's no real change in the numbers since the horrendous scene inside the movie theater. what do you say to nearly half of america who say, i have a right to carry a gun? >> well, i think there are some simple things that we can start with and we also need to do some educating. i have learned so many since joining with the other survivors working with mayors against illegal guns and one of things that i think a lot of people don't realize is 40% of the guns purchased in the united states are purchased without -- legally without a background check. because if they are not purchased -- if they are purchased from a gun show or online, no background check is required. the second thing i didt realize, is that many states do not put their records into the national data base. so if someone had a criminal record and that record was not entered, then they aren't going to be found when they go through when you purchase a gun. >> in the case in aurora, there was no criminal record. he obtained those weapons perfectly legally. i have to ask ts final question. jared lee loughner, have you for given him? >> absolutely. it was not his choice to get a serious mental illness. and i think what we need -- it does not take away the pain and grief and especially those that have lost someone. i lost a dear friend and my colleague gabe zimmerman. but it's time to forgive. it's time to move on and it's time to find ways that we can both help people with the type of illness that jared lee loughner had and also ways that we can find some common sense ways to examine who is going to be able to have a firearm. >> pam simon. thank you. >> i always find that so remarkable, the human capacity for forgiveness. stunning. we have other top stories making headlines. we may never know why wade page killed six people at a sikh temple near milwaukee. he did not leave behind letters or any obvious clues about his motive. meanwhile, south milwaukee police arrested page's former girlfriend on a gun charge. the 31-year-old waitress shared page's interest in the white power movement and was active in at least two neo-nazi organizations. after a tough two-year legal battle, vandalism and a bomb threat, the islamic bureau in tennessee will open this friday. it is taking place just one day after a mosque burned in joplin, missouri. get ready for the storm. ernesto slams into mexico's yucatan peninsula. it seems to be fizzling out. >> ernesto has been downgraded to a tropical storm. but the danger is far from over. alexandra steele is tracking ernesto for us. good morning. >> you say the danger is over because it has the propensity to once it gets into the bay of campeche strengthen into a hurricane once again. here it is. here's the center of circulation. it came ashore last night with hurricane-force winds. now winds down to 70 miles per hour. you can see how small and tight, see the circulation right there. those maximum sustained winds of 70 already expand out by 30 to 35 miles. we're going to watch it and continue on its west movement, moving at 15 miles per hour. and backtrack westward we're expecting to continue at the same pace. it went over land so it weaken pd but the expectation going over the warm waters of the bay of campeche and reinvigorate and make the second landfall tomorrow, tomorrow night. we'll watch is move westward and again potentially do that. forecast rainfall especially in the mountainous region, could see a foot of rain. the quadrant of concern pretty small because the center of circulation is pretty tight into and of itself. >> thank you. >> the faa is imposing stricter rules on airplane traffic after a scary collision at reagan national airport last week. it is temporarily burning two-way air traffic when planes fly in opposite directions as they arrive and depart from airports. the faa says it is also considering other measures in the wake of the close call when an air traffic controller accidentally sent two computer flights in the path of a third inbound jet. >> take a look at this photo. this is not exactly what you want to e out your window. thchs taken by a passenger on an alaska airlines flight. she looked out the window and saw this. a damaged spot on the wing with a handwritten note. can you make this out? it says, we know about this. something is funky with our wing, we're aware. the airline says the plane was safe but did apologize for the sign. a maintenance technician wrote ito let the flight crew know it was an approved trim repair. >> i would have freaked. >> excuse me, we need to land this plane right now. >> bold. ahead on "starting point," an epic hack. thieves crack into apple and amazon accounts exposing massive security flaws and haven't heard the scariest part. romney hood or your favorite word obamalony. >> you nailed today. >> it's like robin hood in reverse. it's romney hood. >> if i were to coin a term it would obamaloney. >> okay. have we hit a new low in the campaign? romney campaign spokeswoman andrea saul joins us live. you're watching "starting point." ♪ ♪ three, six, nine ♪ the goose drank wine ♪ the monkey chew tobacco on the streetcar line ♪ ♪ ♪ cla pat, clap your hand ♪ pat it on your partner's hand ♪ ♪ right hand ♪ clap, pat, clap your hand ♪ cross it with your left arm ♪ pat your partner's left palm ♪ clap, pat, clap your hand, pat your partner's right palm ♪ [ male announcer ] it's back. the volkswagen beetle. that's the power of german engineering. the lines, the cost, the hassle. ♪ express yourself [ female announcer ] why not try coffee-mate? with over 25 delicious flavors for a fraction of the cost of the coffee house. add your flavor, with coffee-mate, from nestle. add your flavor, chase scene netflix coming soon extra butter tickets swoon penguin journey junior mts movie phone evil prince bollywood 3d shark attack ned the head 5% cashback signup for 5% cashback on movies through september. it pays to discover. an australian rescue team on the way to antarctica to help an american expeditioner dealing with a medical emergency. they are trying to help transport the expeditioner out of the station. it is negative 22 degrees there right now. also this morning, more than 20 suspected islamic terrorists killed by egyptian air strikes in sinai overnight. these follow attacks by armed gunman at checkpoints near the israeli border. last sunday, 16 border guards were killed by suspected palestinian terrorists. john? >> mitt romney will be in iowa as president obama makes campaign stops in the swing state of colorado and may have his work cut out for him. a new poll shows mitt romney ahead in colorado. voters who choose him there, 50% to the president's 45%. things look better for the president in virginia, 49 to 45%. in wisconsin, he has the advantage, 51 to 45% from the latest polling. we're joined this morning by andrea saul from the great state of massachusetts, boston, mass there. your campaign is running ads in all of these key swing states right now dealing with the issue of welfare reform. specifically a letter that president obama, his administration sent trying to grant waivers to some of the states to make adjustments to the law. let's listen to this ad. >> under obama's plan, you wouldn't have to work and wouldn't have to train for a job. they just send you your welfare check and welfare to work goes back to plain old welfare. mitt romney will restore the work requirement because it works. >> politifact, gives this the rating as pants on fire, which means really really false. president clinton who signed the welfare to work law says it is not true and says the administration has taken important steps to ensure that the work requirement is retained and that waivers will be granted only if the state can demonstrate that people will be moved into work under its new approach. >> look, john, if president obama didn't want people to think that he was going to waive the central work requirement in welfare reform. his administration shouldn't have written a memo say it was going to waive the work requirement in welfare reform. sthaz what they've done. they can issue blog posts and have surrogate statements saying that's not what they meant. the memo still stands. that's exactly what it says, like giving a teenager, give me the keys, i'm not going to drive your car, i promise. it's ridiculous. presiden obama has been a vocal opponent of president clinton's bipartisan reform in the '90s. it should come as no surprise that this would be something he would want to do. >> among the teenagers asking for the keys to this welfare waiver car, was then governor mitt romney in 2005, who asked for just this kind of waiver when he was governor. he said increased waiver authority allowable work activities, availability of partial work credit and ability to coordinate state programs are all important aspects of moving recipients from welfare to work. whys had governor romney's opinion changed over the last seven years? >> it hasn't at all. there's a big difference between asking for more state flexibility and gutting the central work requirement in welfare, which is what we see now. when governor romney was governor, he actually strengthened work requirements. he vetoed a bill that would weaken them. for the obama campaign to try to say that when someone is working to strengthen work requirements, somehow that was weakening them, that's not right. also, with president clinton, what we had was a bipartisan bill that went through congress. what we see time and again with president obama, he signs execute orders and gets no one on board to work toward any kind of agenda. he decides what's going to please his liberal base and with a stroke of a pen waives the wo requirements. >> you say liberal base but it is some republican governors asking for this waiver right now. let's move on. there are some other new polls. >> the republican -- i do want to correct that. the republican governors that you're referencing actually didn't request that. they didn't think it was in his legal authority to do so. again, requesting more state flexibility is a lot different than gutting the work requirement. >> so it's safe to say the ads aren't going away. let's move on, there are new numbers out from the abc news and "washington post" dealing with the issue of favorable. how much voters like the candidates. on this number right now things don't look all that positive for governor romney. the new numbers say americans favor the president some -- some 50% of americans view mitt romney unfavorably. right there only 40% view him favorably, 53% view the president favorably. that's mitt romney in august, 49% view him unfavorably. he's been running for president on and off since 2006. his poll numbers in the favorablety are low as any nominee since 1984. how come he can't convince people to like him? >> first off, people are still getting to know governor romney. but then the important thing that keeps coming out in survey after survey. americans think they'll be better off with president romney than under current president obama. they trust him most on the economy and to turn things around. that's the thing people care most about is getting a job, having more pay come back in their paycheck. under this president, we have seen the policies haven't worked. sure, he's a nice guy but doesn't mean people are able to meet their bills and get a job. those are the things americans care most about. >> are you saying people don't have to like mitt romney to vote for him? >> well, i think that the more people learn about mitt romney, the more they are going to like him and the more they see they can trust him to turn this economy around. president obama has not been able to get the job done and that's why middle class americans are suffering so much. governor romney is launching his bus tour to talk about plans to strengthen the middle class. that's what voters want to hear about while president obama doesn't want to talk about the issues at hand. >> let's talk about the bus tour. going through the swing states with pretty flashy surrogates who will be appearing with him leading them to speculate that he might announce his decision soon. give us news here. can you categorically state it won't happen before sunday? >> i can tell you, you can be the first to know if you download mitt's vp app from the website. you could be the first to know along with all of the other americans who download it too. >> politifact rates that as pants on fire. i'm not going to be the first to know if everyone is finding out at the same time. that's a load of obamaloney. did you come up with that phrase, by the way? >> i did not. you see with whd o brpresident obama, he distorts mitt romney's plans. to keep from talking about the real issues at hand. he's going to raise taxes on americans and raise taxes on small businesses where governor romney has a plan to lower trat and reform the tax code. >> we'll see you soon, i'm sure. we'll put the same questions to stephanie cutter who joins us in the 8:00 hour. >> baloney may be the favorite processed meat -- >> i'm with you, berman. >> security lapses lead to an epic hack attack. how easily it happened and how you can minimize your own risk next. check out this florida mansion. you won't believe how much it sold for. it's all ahead. you're watching "starting point." >> in your dreams. with real advice, for real goals. the us bank wealth management advisor can help you. every step of the way. from big steps, to little steps. since 1863 we've helped guide our clients, so they can take the steps to help grow, preserve, and pass along their wealth. so their footsteps can help the next generation find their own path. all of us serving you. us bank [ sneezes ] [ male announcer ] if you have yet to master the quiet sneeze... ♪ [ sneezes ] [ male announcer ] you may be an allergy muddler. try zyrtec®. it gives you powerful allergy relief. and zyrtec® is different than claritin® because zyrtec® starts working at hour 1 on the first day you take it. claritin® doesn't start working until hour 3. [ sneezes ] [ male announcer ] zyrtec®. love the air. join zyrtec® rewards. save up to $7 on zyrtec® products. 27 minutes past the hour. welcome back to "starting point." >> suing new jersey over the law that would allow sports betting there. the organizations say they want to protect the integrity of professional and amateur sports but the governor of new jersey says the government cannot ban sports gambling in some states and allow it in others. a miami mansion sells for $47 million, that is the highest price for a home in the country ever. but what does that get you? well, just a mere ten bedrooms, 14 bathrooms, a two acre gated island, wine cellar, fingerprint identification -- here's my favorite part. pink sand. >> pink sand. >> imported from the bahamas because the sand in florida. >> isn't good enough. >> you bring in your own pink sand. >> i say pink sand is a little special. >> mind