So clearly the idea that were going to make ourselves better off by getting rid of guns doesnt work, as a number of callers already pointed out. Criminals dont obey the law. Thats sort of the way criminals are. And they will get guns and the question is, are we going to make it easy or hard for the good guys to be able to defend ourselves . Host and as mr. Pratt mentioned, hes joining us from blue ridge arsenal from chantilly, virginia. And pedro is out there as well. We are joibd again by mark warner. How many stalls do you have here . 20 lanes total. Tell us about the range, whats it made of and how is it assigned to safety . With our rifles, handguns, shotguns. Our backstop is steel. At about 40degree angle. It slows down. So it flashback or ricochets. In this section you can fire handguns, rifles and shotguns. And on the other side . Handguns only. We will start with glock 17. Go ahead and load it up, get ready and hand it off to me and fire it and see what happens. Ok. So as he does that, just to let you know, hes getting the protective gear on. Its a must when you do these type of things. The weapons are ready. Lets give it a shot. Nice and firm. Look through your sights. Ok. Ready. Pull the trigger. [gunshots] all right. Now, that is the now, how many how many bullets in that magazine . 10 pounds. That took about 20, 30 seconds to empty. And probably 12 seconds if you were better. Good shot, too. Load up the rifle. Again, same thing. Hell get it primed and ready to go, hand it off to me and ill shoot it and ill hand it back to them. Regulations. Safety is on. Safety is on. So ill go for it. Ok. Put your thumb up in here. Safety off. Switch it down, correct . Yes. All right. Look through here. Front sight, rear sight, target and youre ready. Ok. [gunshots] le safety on. Safety is on. Yeah. Hand it back to you. One thing you dont get is the recoil of the kick on the shoulder. Small round. Its very light, actually. When you say its a small round, that means if its a larger round that was a. 223. Very small bullet. A lot less recoil. During the course of the morning well learn more about ammunition. Another part, mark warner, thank you again. Youre welcome. Host and as we continue our live program from blue ridge arsenal, that was pedro shooting the gun. I wish they had brought the target in so we could see his results a little bit. Larry pratt is still with us out there at blue ridge as well. Paul in middlefield, ohio, democrats line, please go ahead with your question for larry pratt, gun owners of america. Caller thank you for taking your gun. When i purchased my most recent firearm, everything went smoothly. Background check went ok. The guy asked me, do you even lift . I said, you are one cheeky cut, mate. I swear. Host dennis, youre on the air. Caller good morning, gentlemen. Thank you for having this on tv. I am a gun owner. Proud gun owner. I served in the military during vietnam and i believe everyone should carry a gun. More guns in this country, the safer we would be. The manufacture deems that guns have 18round magazine and 30round magazine. Thats what the private person should carry. We in massachusetts has a governor that wants us to have five rounds. We cannot protect ourselves. The Police Department cannot be here when i need them. I was attacked in my front and it took the police eight minutes after the fact. We need to protect ourselves. Thank you very much. Keep up the work, mr. Pratt. Host dennis, what kind of firearms or weapons do you own . Caller i have i have three ar15s. I have four handguns and shotguns. I am a threegun competition shooter. I shoot about 6,000 rounds a year. Host whats your hobby cost . Caller excuse me . Host what does your hobby cost you a year . Caller i do all my own loads myself. I probably spend about 1,000 in gunpowder and primers and stuff like that. But other than that, i do my own reloads. Pick up the blasts at the range, clean it and remanufacture it myself. Host thank you for calling in. Out at blue ridge, pedro is going to show us his target. Lets look at that target, pedro. Lets see how well you did. So heres the target. Here is the shots from the glock. 9 millimeter. Here is the shots from the rifle. The reason im left eye dominant. So he says with i might become better at it. Thats a look at the target, what they brought in. Thats what happened. Host and back to your calls. Cannon core oweno, california, please ask your question for larry pratt, gun owners of america. Caller i own a Security Guard firm here in california, also in the state of louisiana. Here in california its a huge problem with the ban on where you the gunfree zones. In los angeles, East Los Angeles area, theres a High School Named locke high school. Locke high school has armed Security Guards. I was one of them. I was part time doing all the special events, all the events they have at that school. They got gangs all around that area, all around that area and so all the crime is coming from there and its in a school zone. Locke high school is owned by a Charter School system called green dart schools. Are you familiar with that, sir . Host ken, where are you going with all this . Caller well, the question is. They enforce all these laws but we as armed Security Guards have been in gunfire area for a long time. I mean, we are under fire all the time with small calibers. Were carrying 10 rounds. Thats all were allowed to carry in california. We under fire, even the Sheriffs Department is under fire and ungunned and unmanned. Host larry pratt. Guest its an interesting comment that a professional Security Guard is outgunned in a school zone. That tells you how poor judgment, put it very mildly, many of our legislators when they tell us that nobody should have a gun at a school. Well, thats just inviting the criminal to be the only one with a gun if he wants to engage in this criminal activity, whether its mass murder or gang banger, such as the caller was describing. These gun control laws do not affect the behavior of criminals, and hopefully were maybe were coming to the point where were beginning to see that and hopefully theres going to be a pushback. I think were beginning to see that, and politicses are going to be hearing from people such as the caller that you guys got it wrong. We got to change these laws. We got to get rid of these bans because they only apply to us good guys. Host larry pratt, youre sitting at blue ridge arsenal out in chantilly. What kind of a process would a gunshop like that have to go through to get a federal license . Guest well, they would have to contact the a bureau in the Justice Department, apply for a license. They would have to be approved, background check by the federal government, pay fees and eventually they would be able to get their license and engage in retail sales. Its only with that license they would be able to buy product from manufacturers and distributors. Host should gun shows and federally licensed dealers be treated the same legislatively . Guest well, thats a question that is heading toward the background check, i think. And the background check is something that we know from studies that have been done and published in the antigun journal of the American Medical Association dont lower crime. They dont have any utility as a crimefighting tool. And so we dont think that private sales should for a minute be subjected to the kind of background checks that already been shown to be few tile when required at futile when required at retail sales. Host is that the only difference legislatively between gun shows and licensed dealers . Guest well, at gun shows, most of the transactions actually are carried out by licensed dealers. Theres only a small handful of sales that occur from people who perhaps have their own collection and are selling it off, or maybe theyre trying to trade and complete a collection by getting a certain firearm that would round out their collection. Those are the minority, strong minority of the transactions that occur at gun shows. Most sales actually are conducted through licensed dealers. Host when we talked with allen a little earlier, he said if someone would come to buy five or more weapons, then the gunshop has to fill out a special form, is that correct . Guest actually, i think its three. In any case, yes, theres a multiple sales requirement that a special report be sent to the bureau of alcohol, tobacco, firearm and explosives and what that means is that they will actually look at that transaction whereas theyre not looking at other transactions. Host do you support the multiple sales, raising kind of a flag . Guest no. Actually we dont. We dont think that the federal government has a legitimate role in this, and its not been shown that any of this infringement has done anything to fight crime, and if anything, sometimes these approvals are delayed and delayed and delayed. My name may be similar to someone elses name and if the government does not give a clear goahead, a lot of stores, a lot of dealers for fear of the reprisals from the federal government, even though its legal to go ahead and sell a gun where there was maybe my name was the same except for a middle initial or Something Like that of another person, they just wont go ahead and make that sale. People are unnecessarily and improperly denied because of these inadequacies of the background check. So there are problems that people dont hear about, but which affect probably some 10 of the transactions. Host back to the Christian Science monitors report on guns in america. Gun deaths, rifles vs. Handguns at the heart of the handgun movement is a revised assault weapons ban that would focus on militarized semiautomatic rifles like the ambs r15, which has been used in several recent Mass Shootings and has been a symbolic americas gun culture. Bill in boca raton, thanks for holding. Calling in on our gun owners line. Caller it is interesting to listen to you talk. I am a gun owner, and more on the gun control side of things. I watched people like you all the time and infuriates me checking your veracity. You said three things that i understand to be wrong and i wonder what else is just isnt correct. You explained in the recent Mass Shootings that there was one exception to gunfree locations. Your thesis is that we should have more gun available places that would stop this but thats clearly not true. The second thing is i dont know where you get your statistics about britain being the third most violent in the world but that is clearly wrong. Maybe industrialized country . Thats clearly wrong. And licensed gun owner gun shops, back ground checks having been ineffective, well, im not certain but i believe there have been a couple hundred thousand gun sales that have been prohibited over the years, over the last decades. Host what kind of gun do you own . Caller my point is out of those hundred thousand, there are is probably a few of those, at least one, that is effective. Host bill, what kind of gun do you own . Caller a glock. I can count the number of guns i own. Mr. Pratt doesnt know how many guns he owns. I mean, i cant i dont know that to be false. Host bill, why do you have a glock . Caller i enjoy, actually, target shooting. Host thank you for calling in this morning. Mr. Pratt, three points. Number one, the gunfree locales. Guest well, the gunfree locale whether its a matter of fact, whether its virginia tech, the aurora theater, newtown, they were gunfree zones. They were posted as such and in many cases the law itself allowed the theater to post no guns or the school was required by state and federal law to be a gunfree zone. Whereas i said earlier, here in fairfax county, virginia, where guns is readily available, as this gun store is evidence, and people can carry concealed firearms and the state of virginia makes it fairly easy to get a concealed carry permit. We have a murder rate that is lower than most countries in the world. England happens to be the fourth most violent country exceeded by el salvador and honduras and i forgot the other one thats more violent than england. So doing away with guns does not make a Society Civil or a Pleasant Place to live. Host and finally, licensing gun shops, ineffective the background checks . Guest well, we know from the study that was published in that journal of the American Medical Association that the background check before and after they were in effect did not contribute to lessening crime. And for the jurm of the medical Association Journal of the medical association, to their credit because they have a decidedly antiSecond Amendment editorial policy. The fact is what deterse crime is people who might be victims being armed. We have locales in this country where people can carry concealed firearms and readily so. Those are areas where we tend to have our lower Violent Crime rates. Whereas places like the District Of Columbia, where its virtually impossible still to get a gun, there the Violent Crime rate is quite a bit higher than it is out here in gunfriendly fairfax county. Host dave in tallahassee, please go ahead with your question or comment for larry pratt . Caller thanks for cspan. Good morning. I am a retired Police Officer. I was a Police Officer for 37 years. Worked what people call the hood for like 20 years. I witnessed thousands of times where people with guns were able to defend themselves and thwart crimes and protect the people around them. I dont believe that the american citizen should ever be infringed upon. Thats why they call us free. But the people who are out to remove guns are people who dont understand them, havent witnessed real crime and i dont know. They just dont trust americans. Host mr. Pratt. Guest thats a very good point. Theres a lack of trust by those that typically are involved in trying to get rid of guns, at least out of the hands of the average citizen. They think that guns only belong in the hands of the government. Well, the country was founded on a very different philosophy that guns belong in the hands of the average person. And when the British Crown embargoed the importation of ammunition into the colonies, that was just one more evidence to the colonists that they were getting close to cutting the chord with mother britain. Host finally for you, mr. Pratt, gary dan tweets in, will 3d printers make gun laws obsolete . They are referring to an article in the washington post, frontpage article about people making guns or components of guns on their 3d printers. Guest well, if you make a gun with a 3d printer, from what i read, you might be able to fire it once. And then all you got is a mess of paper. Possibly the 3d printed magazine, the multipleround magazine, might be more feasible, but i think that still remains to be seen. This is a new technology. It has soming from implications for the future of gun control, and if it does develop further from where it is now, its probably going to mean gun control needs to be put into the trash can for real and for good. Host and weve been talking with larry pratt of gun owners of america for the past hour. Thank you for being on washington journal. Coming up well go live to capitol hill for a meeting of the House Democratic steering and policy committee. Theyre gathering this afternoon to discuss how the pending march 1 sequester will impact government employees. Among those well hear from, former federal Aviation Administration administer, mary ann blakey, and former illinois congressman jon porter. Thats live here at 2 30 on cspan. We were joined by a journalist who described her experience buying and licensing a gun in washington, d. C. From todays washington journal. Host i dont know if you just heard that caller talking about women and guns. Do you have a response for him . Guest well, ill say i only shot a gun for the first time a year ago and this is my oneyear anniversary of being a gun owner. I understand the first time at a range is scary. Its loud. Im sitting at a range right now at blue ridge and its loud. Like any skill you learn, you train and be responsible and now im much better and very confident in having a loaded gun in my own. Host emily miller, what is emily gets her gun . Guest it was a series i did for the Washington Times when i decided to get my own gun for selfdefense in washington, d. C. Host why did you get a gun . Guest i was a victim at a home invasion. I was dog sitting and taking the dog for a walk and not very frontly left the front door opened closed but unlocked and i came back and there was a man coming out of the house. And to make a long story short, he did not physically harm me, but he did steal my wallet, got away and i also not very smartly followed him down the street having watched too many episodes of law and order in my life thinking i was going to get a photo and when i turned the corner i found him about 15 other men in a pickup truck on a culdesac. I knew i was in danger. I ran back in the house. The police said their biggest concern at that point, the bad guys, because i spooked them and come home early, had left the windows or door open somewhere they would come back that night. I was absolutely terrified sleeping in this house alone. All i had to do was barricade myself in the bedroom, literally put a dresser in front of the door. I thought there lying there, if i had a gun by the night table, at least if these crazy drug addicts, bad guys come back, i had a chance to defend myself against them. Then i decided to get a gun and found out getting a gun in washington, d. C. Is one of the hardest things you can do. I believe unconstitutional in the way they set up the registration requirements. Host what did it cost you, how long did it take, what were some of the biggest obstacles that you faced . Guest it took me from the time i started to the time i actually took possession of my sig four months and 435 in fees. Thats not including the cost of the gun. So obviously it was prohibitively expensive for most folks in washington. It was expensive for me, i tell you. Host how much was the gun . Guest 780, i want to say. Host ok. Guest so it was quite an investment. The hardest part was there is this requ