Transcripts For MSNBC The Ed Show 20121218 : vimarsana.com

MSNBC The Ed Show December 18, 2012

Nras power. Mayor Michael Bloombergs right hand power. Will real america come around on common sense gun laws . John nichols on the conservative push to keep common sense gun laws out of the middle of the country. Plus, republican obstacles to reduce violence with jonathan and alex wagner. And dr. Gail saults on the role Mental Health professionals need to play to reduce the vie lensz. No single law. No set of laws can eliminate evil from the world or prevent every senseless act of violence in our society. But that cant be an excuse for an action. Good to have you with us tonight. Folks, thanks for watching. Almost 24 hours ago, president obama called for a change in this country. Now, its up to all of us to make sure changes come to pass. The community of newtown connecticut is still deeply mourning the lives of 26 people, 20 of them children. The president struck an almost impossible balance of heartfelt emotion and out rage. Clearly, president obama feels the weight of the moment. No american can relive the horror of this. We cant tolerate this anymore. These tragedies must end. And to end them, we must change. We will be told that the causes of such violence are complex and that is true. No single law, no set of laws can eliminate evil from the world or prevent every senseless act of violence in our society. But that cant be an excuse for an action. Surely, we can do better than this. This is a moment in history where an event alters the direction of a country and moves lawmaker fos unity. Diane feinstein was the first to announce an update on an assault weapons ban which she introduced in congress and will introduce it early next year. I intend to introduce a bill. And i intend one way or another, no matter how long it takes, to get that bill through. Theres one thing im sure of. That in the absence of doing something, that is sound, that is practical, that is workable, these incidents are not going to stop. Ive watched them now since the texas bell tower in 1967. Feinstein was author of the weapons ban which was allowed to expire under george w. Bush. It would include semiautomatic rifles, handguns and shotguns. It bans devices capable of carrying more than ten rounds of ammunition. It also exempts more than 900 specific weapons. Its not a ban on all guns. Its a ban on unnecessary guns. Today, senator frank loutenburg of new jersey also introduced a plan to ban the sale of highcapacity magazines. Senator pat leah yrksz of the Senate Judiciary Committee Says he will hold hearings on gun safety issues early next year. Democratic lawmakers were holding action. The mayor of chicago where an insidious 5,000 people have been killed by gun violence since 2001. He spoke about turning on the pressure for tougher laws. Its time that we as a city, a state, a country get backed up and say we support our men and women in Law Enforcement community and then not have the laws on the books that help you do your job every day. And its time, as a city, we have an assault weapon ban. Its time we, as a state, have an assault weapon ban. Its time we as a country have an assault weapon ban. And i would hope that the leadership in congress would now have a vote of conscious. Members of congress are feeling the pressure. Some progun senators understand things need to change. Senator harry reid of nevada has received some stellar grades from the National Rifle association, despite being democrats. He said every idea should be on the table. Senator warner told the Washington Post theres got to be a way to put reasonable ideas on the table. Senator manchin is one of the nras brightest stars on capitol hill. The nra endorsed him in his 2010 West Virginia senate race. Manchin filled a campaign ad where he filed a bullet through the copy of the cap and trade bill. Now manchin is open to the snat tors bill. I believe its time for all of us to sit down and look at the bill. If diane is saying basically assault weapons, i dont know anyone in the sporting or hunting arena that goes out with an assault rifle. I dont know anybody that needs 30 rounds in a clip to go hunting. Okay, its encouraging to see so many lawmakers speaking forcely about the need for change. But its frustrating to know that weve been down this road before, a 1989 1989 shooting led to the first assault weapons ban. But here we are. No ban is in place today. The kbun industry couldnt be happier or more profitable. And no ban is there. So they can give us wonderful stuff like this. This is a drumstyle magazine from an assault rifle, just like the one the newtown shooter used. It can hold up to 90 bullets at a time. Let me read you a description of this product from a gun product that we wont bother the name so we wont give you any publicity. Ultrahigh capacity for increased shooting funnel. Ultrahigh capacity drum style mag sooenl allows extended shooting springs and plenty of shooting fun with your favorite ar15 or m16 rifle. I ask you tonight, what purpose does this serve in a Civilized Society . Increased shooting fun . Those words should make your blood boil. The nra has spent billions of dollars lobbying for these weapons manufacturers. And the gun makers convinced people to go ahead and buy them with ads like this. Consider your man card reissued, it says. Black friday gun sales broke records across the country. Keep in mind, these weapons are being sold to a population where 40 of all gun buyers are not required to undergo background checks. Well, the nra sells people on buying these weapons and then convinces people that their freedom is going to be taken away from them. I want them to tell the people of newtown connecticut just how fun this is. I want elected leaders to explain how much fun this past weekend has been for the entire country. Some people are calling this the tipping point. I think were well beyond that. The tip of the spear is you. The american people. Lawmakers need to fear and cower in front of voters. We need real change in this country. We need to get on the phone, as americans, with every e leblgted official who is opposed an assault weapons ban and tell them you will not get my vote. As the plt said, we can no longer sit back and do nothing. Are we really prepared to say that were powerless in the face of such carnage . That the politics are too hard . Are we prepared to say that such violence visited our children year after year after year is somehow the priesz of our freedom . We are the people. We are the constitution. We can shape this country to whatever image we want. The change and the time is now coming close together. The time for change is right now. Get your cell phones out, i want to know what you think. Tonights question, will you support any politician who doesnt support reasonable gun laws . Text a for yes, text b for now. Well bring you the results later on in the show. Joining me now is michael eric dyson, msnbc political analyst and professional at georgetown, university. Doctor, good to have you with us. Thank you, sir. Will we finally see changes . Im going to be harsh on lawmakers. Their number one concern is goating reelected. Is this that moment in time theyre focused on doing whats right . I think so. I hope so. And i pray so, ed. Think this is a convergence of a historic period in time where finally, people who have been ardent supporters and advocates for the Second Amendment get some common sense. That you dont need clips, strips and drums of the magnitude you talked about, of that high a capacity to go out and hunt. Theres no justification on earth for us to be able to retain this kind of assault weapon ri in defense of our Second Amendment rights and, ostensib ostensibly, for the purposes of hunting. So with that put on the table, and even as youve shown, some conservative republicans and some democrats who have been receiving great grade from the nra have finally come to their senses. The nra lobby must not be allowed to be a shadow goovt. What weve essentially done is to pay deference to the nra to be able to gain our credentials as citizens who are cardcarrying defenders of the constitution and the Second Amendment. No more. The death of those children in newtown, the death of children in chicago, detroit, philadelphia, new york, the death of children across this country is enough to say to us we must end all of this madness, come to the table and i think politicians finally get that. Can the nra, can the influence of this organization, which has intimidated lawmakerings for years, thrown money at people that they dont want to see in the congress because they want to protect all of this fear mongering that they do. Can they finally be defeated by this public outrage . I think thats where we are right now. Its good thing theres not an election tomorrow, the nra would be in serious trouble. But its the fear mongering that theyve done. Can the public finally overcome that . I think so. But lets not undervalue them, so to speak, or at least lets not underestimate them. We know that the nra is laying in the cut. They know better to come forward because they know that feelings are tender, that the National Conscious has been sered. They know that people are outraged and fed up with all of this madness and bologna. Theyre going to be waiting for the right time to reemerge and say look, all of us lament and mourn these children. They will be putting forth arguementeds saying if teachers are better armed, if people in the schools are better armed, then well be able to take care of our own. Studies have been done. We neglect our own academic scholar ly insight. Weve got to put that on the table and fight the nra. But i think weve galvanized enough unified voices here to say to the nra you will not cower us. We will not be intimidated by you. And i think that poll tixzs finally have gotten that message as well. Well, theres a lot of components that go into this gun violence in america. Well explain more of them later on in this broadcast. But i cannot let anyone off the hook who says that they think that guns should be in the schools. The teachers, the administrators, theyre not professional firearm handlers. Thats not why they went to college. He didnt go to college to do this kind of stuff. If you want to put cops in the schools, thats a totally different i. Scenario. But to call on an administrator or a teacher to be armed is absolutely outrageous. Great to have you with us tonight. Share your thoughts with us on twitter at ed show and facebook. Coming up, mie mayor michael bloomberg, his organization, mark glaze about bloombergs call to action on gun control. Later, im getting a lot of reaction from my commentary on friday night about gun activists hiding behind the Second Amendment. Ill respond to my detractors tonight. Stay with us. Well be right back. Nope. Am i on this one . No, no, no, no, no. I am on this one. [ male announcer ] for every 2 pounds you lose through diet and exercise alli can help you lose one more by blocking some of the fat you eat. Simple. Effective. Beltfriendly. Lets fight fat with alli. Have a healthier holiday at letsfightholidayfat. Com. Have a healthier holiday try running four. Ning a restaurant is hard, fortunately weve got ink. It gives us 5x the rewards on our internet, phone charges and cable, plus at Office Supply stores. Rewards we put right back into our business. This is the only thing weve ever wanted to do and ink helps us do it. Make your mark with ink from chase. Boproductivity up, costs down, thtime to market reduced. Those are good things. Upstairs, they will see fantasy. Not fantasy. Logistics. Ups came in, analyzed our supply chain, inventory systems. Ups . Ups. Not fantasy . Who would have thought . I did. We did, bob. We did. Got it. This is an outrage. We are killing each other. And were the only industrialized country in the world doing it. New york mayor michael bloombe bloomberg, earlier today, leading the charge on gun control. And over the weekend, bloomberg challenged the notion that pushing for tougher laws is impossible, giving the influence of the nra. But, today, the nras power is so vastly overrated. The public, when you do the polls, they want to stop this carnage. Today, the mayor echoed those sediments calling out elected officials on both sides. This is not a partisan issue. This is just a bunch of people who i think are cowed by the nra. And as i said yesterday, if you think the nra has power, just remember, the number one priority was to defeat barack obama. Last time i checked, hes going to be innaug rated again. Earlier protesters gathered outside the offices in washington. The nra, again, declined to comment. The groups social media interaction has come to a halt. The nra had stopped tweeting. And it also took down its Facebook Page on friday, just one day after it celebrated a milestone of 1. 7 million likes. There are signs that the nra might be losing a script on washington. In,ra memg ber and senator joe manchin now says hes rethinking his positions on gun control. But as dave weigal points out, the nra habit lost any Gun Legislation since 1999. The five republicans who voted aye are all gone and al gores tie breaking aye became a focus of the nras campaign against him. And just somedays before the slaughter at sandy hook elementary, the nra was actively fear mongering over gun laws. An nra spokesman told the Washington Examiner on december 5th that the organization was preparing to battle with the president. Were not optimistic. Were planning for the worst. Weve told people to plan for gun bans and a Supreme Court stacked with antigun judges. The president has a variety of om options and a disposal we dont take any of them for granted. Lets turn to mark glaze. Hes director of mayors against illegal guns. Is this a historymaking moment with firearms in this country. It absolutely is. To me, it feels like us who are at the Oklahoma City bombing. Where things have gotten so bad that you had this explosively terrible moment that people just reev reevaluated. Today, we had celebrities, tech leaders, thousands of new supporters come across. That doesnt happen every day and it doesnt happen at every mass shooting. It sounds like theres a coalition coming together. Elected officials with the mayors organization. Tech leaders that yudre talking about. Ground swell support from people across america who are afraid and have just had enough. But the nra, mayor bloomberg says that their influence is vastly overed. There are people who disagree with that. If you sit down and did an analysis, what they do is overwhelmingly endorse incumbents who are going to win anyway. They spread a lot of money very thin across few people. And people on our side dont really get involved in politics. As a result, that i hadre the only game in town. But just look at this last election. The nra only put more than a hundred thousand dollars in the seven senate races, six of them lost. In Rural America, for instance, in the wisconsin recall that well talk about later, they depiblgted scott walker as a guy who was going to grab all guns. It has an e feblgt on Rural Americans, dont you think . I think that gumpb issues is one of the things that people use to pay democrats in particular as being too liberal. But its just one of a lot of things. Tom barrett, who ran in that race who happens to be a member of our coalition was not talking about guns in that race. Thats not the reason he lost. There are other reasons he lost, we regret. We have 750 mayors in this coalition who understand if you do the right thing, the politics will take care of themselves. They run and they win. What do they hope to achieve . And what kind of Gun Legislation do the mayors want . There are three big fixes that you can make. First thing is few people know this, only 60 , maybe even fewer, get a background check. Thats because of the gun show. 40 of the sales are at gun shows. Now its even broader. It used to be the gun show,but that was really before the internet. And now a huge and growing share of the private sales that take place in this country are online where there is no background check, no record of the transaction and no questions asked. So you should require a background check for all gun sales. Second thing you should do is take a very serious look at whether we can craft an assault weapons ban and a limit on highcan passty magazines that cause i nenormous amounts of mayhem. You should find a way to do that seriously. Third thing is, believe it or not, there is no federal statute that makes gun trafficking a crime. And if i go in straw by a gun, sell it to a mexican drug cartel, the penalties for that are the same as trafficking chickens. So all of the mayors are on board with these three things . We had a Conference Call with our mayors tonight which we dont do every week because were busy people. Weve had hundreds of mayors from across the country join us. Weve had the mayors of tucson of munci indiana, mayors in ohio call to join us because they hear about what were doing. Theyve had enough. Whether were republican or d democr democrat, they understand the politics are right. The people have just reached a point where its beyond time to act. All right, mark blaze with us tonight. The divide between urban and Rural America is never greater than on guns. John nerks nichols joins me next. Republicans are hitting the same nra talking points. Stay with us. [ male announcer ] you are a business pro. Omnipotent of opportunity. You know how to mix business. With business. And you. Rent from national. Because only national lets you choose any car in the aisle. And go. You can even take a fullsize or above. And still pay the midsize price. I could get used to this. [ male announcer ] yes, you could business pro. Yes, you could. Go national. Go like a pro. Ooh baby, can i do for you today . [ female announcer ] need help keeping your digestive balance . Align can help. Only align has bifantis, a patented probiotic that naturally helps maintain your digestive balance. Try align to help retain a balanced digestive system. Try the 1 gastroenterologist recommended probiotic. Align. Welcome back to the ed show. Thanks for watching tonight. Whether we want to believe it or not, there is a divide between urban unrule in this country. Gun control is still the biggest sticking point, i think. And if you think about it, its possible for a democrat to be elected in the

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