If the president took a position on a bill so that we knew we would actually be making a law and not just having rows, id be happy to put it on the floor. Martha what will President Trump do . I support safety for citizens. I support keeping guns out of the hands of sick people, mentally ill people. I will say this. If you look at background checks and if you look at some of even the more severe and comprehensive ideas that are being put forward, it wouldnt have stopped any of the last few years worth of these Mass Shootings. Martha we are going to talk about that and get the taste of what the showdown is going to look like. Take a look at this exchange. This happened today between republican dan crenshaw of texas and democrat alexandria ocasiocortez of new york. Crenshaw retweeted a story about a Domestic Violence victim, commenting situations like this story are why we protect the Second Amendment with universal background checks, i wouldnt be able to let my friends borrow my handguns when they are traveling alone. Aocs response, you are a member of congress. Wiry lending guns to people unsupervised who cant pass a background check. The people you are giving a gun too, she says, have likely abused their spouse or have a violent criminal record and you may not know that. Why would you do it . Was quote republican senator john kennedy joins me. Good to have you with us tonigh tonight. Its an exchange between texas and new york that illustrates sort of how this conversation is going. What do you expect to see when your colleagues are back and what are you willing to do to do something, as everybody wants these days . Here is my starting point, martha. I believe love is the answer. I also own a handgun just in case. In fact, i own several. Shotguns too. Thats my right under our bill of rights. The bill of rights is not an a la carte menu. The Second Amendment is just as important as all the other amendments. Some of my colleagues argue that by further curtailing our Second Amendment rights, they can enhance Public Safety. Fine. The burden of proof is on them. I am willing to have that debate, but i want the bacon without the sizzle. No speculation, no false comfort, no pulling stuff out of your orifices. Show me causal, Scientific Evidence that Mass Shootings are going to be reduced or prevented. Martha all right. Im just curious because you told us that you own guns. Do you own an ar15 . I dont, but i have the right to. Martha do you think would you want one or why do you think people would want one . A lot of people like to use them for recreation purposes. Not just selfdefense. You say they should have the right to do that. I dont think its governments place to ask why. I hope they could governments place to ask why i might Say Something in a particular sentence in a letter to the editor of the newspaper. That is my constitutional right. We know that our rights are not absolute. Our rights can be curtailed in the interest of, for example, Public Safety. But the proponents of the legislation are saying well, Public Safety will be enhanced if we do x. All im saying is okay, we are talking about a constitutional right here, prove it. How many Mass Shootings martha some of those rights have been curtailed, as you put it. This is a look at what it was like during the ban, a graph that shows massive shooting deaths which they defined as more than four people killed. It dipped a little bit after 1983. There we go. The area thats in the middle is the 10year period during the assault weapons ban and the period after that is 20052017 where it looks like it about triples, may be more than that. What do you say to that . I say correlation is not necessarily causation. Look, heres where im starting from and i think in dealing with any constitutional right, you have to start by saying the burden is on the government. When i jihadist blows up a schoe all muslims because of the active one. Ill be with that. I agree with that. How come the same rule doesnt apply to the hundred Million People in america who choose to exercise their constitutional right . I think it does. I would also make the point that if you really want to do something for Public Safety with respect to guns, fix the current database, the current database, do you know where we get the information . From the states. A lot of states dont send in the information. There are holes in the current database that you could drive a humvee through. If you extend the database martha its definitely something worth talking about. The shooter in texas fell through the cracks in that regard. Theres been moves on the part of the administration to close some of the mynett loopholes. That is something thats worth discussing there are no loopholes to close. The states need to turn over the information. Part of the reason they dont turn over the information, they are worried about violating federal law. We have a federal law called hipaa which protects medical records. People are worried if they turn over information about Mental Illness that they will be sued under hipaa. Martha the odessa shooter was rejected in the federal background check that already exist on the basis of Mental Health and then someone sold him privately the gun he used to kill in odessa despite the fact that he had severe Mental Health issues. Some people want to close that. They want you to have to produce that paperwork even in private sale. Are you against that . I listened to the exchange between the two members of congress, ms. Ocasiocortez and i forget congressman crenshaw. Crenshaw, good man. I listened to their exchange. I would remind both of them that just because we passed more laws, that doesnt mean that theyre going to be followed and therefore reduce gun violence. Let me tell you a secret. Criminals will big gun laws like politicians keep promises. You go into the inner city in chicago or new orleans, in my state, and you say well, guns, by private sale, you have to check the recipient of the gun purchases and you have to pay a 30 fee. Do you think that the criminals are going to abide by that . Of course not. Martha i get your point. All im saying is show me the proof. Martha all right, senator, good to see you. We shouldnt blame this on trump either. This is a congressional decision. I find what the president says to be persuasive but not dispositive. This is congress decision. Martha thank you, senator kennedy. Good to see you, as always. Also here tonight, karl rove, former deputy chief of staff to president george w. Bush. Matt bennett, former director of Public Affairs for gun safety and cofounder of third way. Matt, he listened to the center. Hes right about the fact that a lot of the things that need to be changed need to be passed through congress and is the responsibility primarily. Whats your reaction to what he had to say about wanting to see proof with these changes that you want to see made will actually keep americans safer . Martha, i was struck by a couple things the senator said. He said this is after congress and yet his own leader, Mitch Mcconnell, has that weve got to wait. The president is going to decide this. Martha i think i will let you finish. Sorry to interrupt. I think what Mitch Mcconnell is saying is he wants to be sure that the president is on board. It doesnt any sense to get something to go through the senate if its not something the president will sign. Generally the way legislation works as you have hearings about things and you unearth details. And then you can get the administration to weigh in. To your broader question about where this whole debate lies, as you pointed out, the odessa shooter was stopped by a background check and then was able through private sale to get his hands on the gun. Thats a catastrophe. You have to remember there are 34 gun murders every single day in this country. Its not just the Mass Shootings. Its the epidemic of gun violence that this country and only this country experiences because guns are so easy to obtain. Of course its true. Criminals will still be able to get their hands on guns if they are determined, because there are 350 million guns in private hands and not everybodys going to abide by the law. Its also true that 100,000 prohibited buyers were stopped by background checks just last year and the system works. The loopholes are enormous and weve got to close them. Martha karl, what do you think . I take senator kennedys point about evidence. Last year the Rand Institute did an exhaustive study on gun policies, they looked at 13 common gun policies and they looked at thousands of studies, and they found that of all those 13 policies, including things such as banning the socalled assault weapons, that really only three demonstrated strong evidence of having an effect on violence. The strongest evidence was for child access laws which produced not only suicides but injuries to children and accidental deaths. There was moderate evidence them background checks reduced, interestingly enough, suicides, not Violent Crime but suicide and that Mental Illness laws reduce Violent Crime. Those were the three gun control policies that were seen to have an effect. Stand your ground laws which are supported by Second Amendment advocates, theres evidence that it may increase mildly homicide rates but the rest of the things were shown to not have an effect. We get in a situation like this, we ought to as a country and actively try and do something. We ought to try to do something that actually will have an effect. Martha would you agree that what we are doing isnt working . What were doing is not working. We have an epidemic of shooting in this country, not only in Mass Shootings that weve seen but also as matt points out and we have covered a lot, the kind of killings in chicago, mostly handguns. We have over 30,000 people died by guns each and every year and twothirds of them are suicide. You think if we are really concerned about stopping the 20000plus deaths a year by gun violence that are selfinflicted, we would be talking about red flag loss for things it would make it more difficult for people with Mental Illnesses to get guns. I dont want to diminish the horror of these mass killings about of the people who are killed in mass killings, its one half of 1 of the totality of gun violence. I think we ought to be focused on what will actually reduce gun violence in america rather than just sort of an existing div, kneejerk reaction. I appreciate matts candor. Needing to reduce the amount of guns available to americans. Thats not what i said. Thats what i heard you say earlier. Guns were too available. Martha you did say that. He said they were too available. Please restate. I said there are a background check loopholes that allow people who are prohibited from owning guns from getting them. There are so many guns in circulation and no one is talking about banning guns. What we are talking about is prohibiting people who should not have their hands on guns, criminals, the mentally ill, domestic abusers and others, from getting them. The way that we do that is that we shore up the enormous holes in background checks. Let me make a point about that. If you go onto farmslist. Com, you can find tens of thousands of listings for guns that say no questions asked, no background checks. Thats appalling and thats huge problem. Martha nine people were killed in dayton in under 30 seconds. We can talk about the fact that thats not the largest part of the problem, but for these individuals and i think we have pictures of them on our wall and their families who are wishing this person never had access to the gun. We all know that a person pulls the trigger, not the gun. Weve got to find a way to get in between these two things in the situation so people dont have to suffer. Thank you so much for a thoughtful conversation. Karl rove, matt bennett, good to see a break coming up next, are democrats ready to settle for joe biden . Compared to trump who thinks Frederick Douglass is alive and looked directly into the sundering and the clips, this guy is albert einstein. Martha brit hume says this. 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Exactly. 7. 99 so you only pay for what you need. Nice. But, uh. Whats up with your. Partner . Not again. Limu thats your reflection. Only pay for what you need. Liberty, liberty, liberty, liberty because theres always another team looking to punch one in. A spectacular touchdown grab with nfl redzone from nfl network on xfinity, you get every touchdown from every game on sunday afternoons, all season long. Watch every breakout star, every heartpounding running attack, and every big time defensive stop. Sundays were made for football on xfinity. Thats simple, easy, awesome. Add the Sports Entertainment package for nfl redzone. Click, call, or visit a store today to learn more. If you listen to joe talk about it, his main argument is that his election is going to be a restoration of the the obaman administration in essence which is a move literally backwards in time. Joe biden and i have some disagreements and i believe he hasnt gone far enough on health care. Joe and i have our differences in terms our vision of the future and our records are very different. Joe voted for the war in iraq. Joe voted for the wall street bailout. Martha contrasts starting to happen and what the candidates are saying. Obviously hes the primary contender that everybody hopes to take down at this point because hes the front front runner. Former Vice President joe biden has a lead with 30 in the real clear politics average which puts him ahead by about 13 points but his emergence as the steadfast front runner has shown some points of weakness, putting his electability on a bit more fragile footing these days. Here is brit hume, fox news senior political analyst. Great to see you. Thanks for being here. In the beginning there was a respectful tone from the other candidates towards joe biden. I remember asking Bernie Sanders in our town hall and he said hes my friend. Im not going to talk about joe biden. That has changed. I think thats because bidens apparently it has proved durable, at least up to a point. Its worth noting, by the way, that while he has a doubledigit lead in National Polls in the first two states he has singledigit leads and is barely leading at all in New Hampshire. Just buy a point or two. His situation is more precarious than it might seem because if you go into the early stages with a National Lead and get bumped off or do poorly in the early states, that usually means youre done. Biden has a lot to worry about. One of the other thing is happened is biden has always made a lot of these mistakes where he blurts things out that are impolitic and they get them in trouble and they are embarrassing and we have known that about him but they seem kind of harmless and perhaps they are. A classic one was when he said poor kids, smart kids, white kids. It was a classic biden stumble. You kind of figured what he meant to say and he didnt mean to sound like he was racist or anything like that and i take them at his word on that but in more recent times, youre beginning to see signs that hes making mistakes because his memory is failing him. Classic. He said the parkland students had come to see them when he was Vice President. He was he had been out of office for more than a year when they visited him. That is a flatout memory failure. I am the same age as he is. I have those memory failures. Men that age do. I think thats happening to biden. He couldnt remember whether he was in New Hampshire or vermont. Hes forgetful, its confusion. Martha very unlikely he would be in vermont at this stage. Exactly. Martha New Hampshire is where you want to be. Its also worth noting that his team has expressed some lowering of expectations in iowa, saying if he doesnt win guy a while, its not going to be a big deal. We are looking at the super tuesday, it reminds me of the Rudy Giuliani strategy which didnt work out so well. The other parallel is giuliani had a lead that lasted for a long time that year. And then he never got anywhere. I think bidens situation quite precarious. I say this with a certain amount of regret because biden is a nice guy. Ive known him a long time and ive always rather liked him and i still do but i think his age is catching up with him and i think in the long, roughandtumble of a primary campaign, i think the test may prove to be too much. Martha its interesting, hes had over the weekend or maybe yesterday, he said why do you want to run. He said its not like i cant die or leave this earth without hearing hail to the chief played to me. Didnt really plan t