In pardon melankland, florida. This time its in santa fe, texas. Its a common story as is the absence of action. Intermittent gunfire across the country, political silence here in the capital. This time ten people are dead. 23450i nine students and a teacher. This time all hell broke loose before 7 30 a. M. Local time. Several witnesses say they heard a fire alarm go off. Then shots rang out. Nobody thought it was a shooting. Everybody just thought it was a, you know, normal procedure, practice fire drill. And next thing you know, we just hear so many three gunshots, loud explosions, and all the teachers are telling us to run, run, go, run. I was scared for my life. Nobody should go through this. Nobody should be able to feel that in school. This is a place where were supposed to feel safe. This is somewhere we come most of the week. Nobody should have to go through this. Nobody should feel that pain. We heard more shots and the teachers screamed at us to run. So everyone started running, taking off. People were getting hit and everything. Its crazy. Ive heard that like someone that a guy came in with a trench coat and like a duffel bag and he had a shotgun and started shooting people. I dont really know what else happened. Officials said investigators also found explosive devices in the school and in surrounding campus areas. The suspected shooter is in custody. Hes a 17yearold who attended the school. Hes being held without bond on capital murder charges and hes expected to make his First Court Appearance momentarily. Texas Governor Greg Abbott told reporters two types of weapons were used in the attack, a shotgun and a. 38 revolver, both owned legally by the suspects father. Abbott also said that one or two people of interest are being investigated by authorities in connection with the shooting. We come together as we deal with one of the most heinous attacks that weve ever seen in the history of texas schools. Its impossible to describe the magnitude of the evil of someone who would attack innocent children in a school. We need to do more than just pray for the victims and their families. Its time in texas that we take action to step up and make sure this tragedy is never repeated ever again in the history of the state of texas. For more im joined by representative Joaquin Castro of texas, shannon watts, founder of moms demanding action for gun sense. And greg pittman, a history teacher at Marjory StonemanDouglas High School in parkland. Thank you all for coming here tonight. A grim night again. Congressman, tell us what you know about this shooting by this 17yearold down in texas . Well, you know, that area is a small town, probably about 13,000 people on the edge of rural and suburban, and its in between houston and galveston. And a fairly conservative area but, you know, just like any other place in america, you have students who are finishing off the school year, maybe just finished up with prom, getting ready for graduation. And then theyre confronted with this massacre and this tragedy today. Do most people in that area can you generalize and say whether or not they own shotguns . If they have weapons in their homes . Generally in texas, you know, there are a lot of folks that hunt for sport. A lot of people do own either shotguns or handguns. So, you know, im sure santa fe is just like that. What do you think should be done . Maybe this is a bad question, but its certainly in peoples minds. If a kid grabs his fathers shotgun and his. 38 revolver and heads out to shoot people, should the father be held accountable for the fact he let the gun sit around the house . That is a tough question. I think we need gun owners to be much more responsible. Ive agreed with some of the comments that were made by the texas leaders even though texas state officials have done very little to stem gun violence. I agree that parents need to be more responsible in making sure that their guns are locked up and kept safe from their kids. The Lieutenant Governor is out there talking about his solution is to have one door rather than two doors to the school. Is that it . Is it the single door policy, thats going to deal with this issue . Is that serious . I was really dumbfounded when i heard that comment by Lieutenant Governor dan patrick. Lets listen to it here. Let everybody judge for themselves if you think this is a serious response or not. This has been going on too long in our country. Were going to get back to that. Let me go on to shannon. What action can we expect here . I mean fairly i dont expect any action. I think we live in this country. Its a gun tootin country. We believe in the Second Amendment as part of the constitution. We live with it the way its been interpreted by the Supreme Court i think is irresponsible, but here we are. You know, we have seen significant change on the ground even just since parkland. Weve seen republican governors sign sweeping gun reform into law. So we are seeing movement state by state. Red flag laws being passed, laws that disarm domestic abusers, states continuing to close the background check loophole. There have been 20 Mass Shootings in the state of texas since 2009, and all weve seen is greg abbott make it easier for dangerous people to get guns. I know Everyone Wants a cathartic moment in congress but it is on us in november to elect lawmakers that will vote the right way on this issue and that will act. All i hear is calls for open carry in saloons and restaurants. People want to walk through the malls with guns, toting guns openly. It always seems to be going in that direction. More guns in more places more openly. Well, you know, we have something no other developed nation is which is the gun lobby. And nra lobbyists are always fighting for guns for anyone, anywhere, anytime, no questions asked that. Thats how they continue to sell more guns. Theres a 100 million loss in gun sales since donald trump was elected. And the nra is trying to figure out how to make up for that loss in sales. Part of it is to do things like arming teachers. If they arm just a fraction of americas 3. 6 million teachers, they could easily recoup that loss and get ready to hear those talking points tomorrow morning. Lets see what the Lieutenant Governor of texas, when this happened today, had to say. His name is dan patrick. Hes a fierce gun control opponent. He offered his own solution to reduce gun violence in schools today. Maybe we need to look at limiting the entrance and the exits into our schools so that we can have Law Enforcement looking at the people who come in one or two entrances. Were going to have to be creative. Were going to have to think out of the box because from what we know, this dude walked in today with a long coat and a shotgun under his coat. Its 90 degrees. Had there been one single entrance possibly for every student, maybe he would have been stopped. Well, let me go to greg pittman because youve been through this before, sir, as a teacher at a school that was hit hard by gun violence. What do you think of politicians who openly say their entire philosophy is answered in fewer doors . And somehow, seriously, the guy shows up, you know, dressed like hes in the movie the matrix with a long coat on. You think they would have noticed that behavior before and not have a law about it, but common sense would have told them this is a troubled kid out to make a point. What do you make of a politician, Lieutenant Governor of a state whos entire response to this is fewer doors . Again, i think, chris, one of the things here with that, that certainly might help in one way. But we go back to the problem of the question of the guns, back to the question you all raised earlier. Here we have a 17yearold that was able to obtain the fathers guns. Why did the father not have them locked up . Again, there is some responsibility borne by both the father, the mother, the parents here with this kid being able to access guns. One of the big problems in our society is no one ever is responsible anymore. Our politicians arent responsible. Theyre not responsible to the people. The parents here arent responsible. Somebody needs to be responsible for some of the actions and just the idea of limiting the doors, that certainly may help. I know at douglas, weve tried to limit theyve tried to reduce the Access Points so they can better watch the students as they come in. Theyve gone to these clear bags. Theyve gone to these other things. Again, if they really want to get a gun in, you can still get a gun in. Thats not going to stop it, not unless they search every single kid with everything they bring in. It goes back to the access, to being able to obtain the guns to begin were. It goes to raising the age, i think, to be able to obtain guns. How do these 17yearolds so many of these shooters the shooter at our school was 19, who was able to legally buy the gun at that time. Florida has raised the age to 21. Many of these states need to raise the age to 21 or perhaps older. Very easy to get guns. We need to extend background checks, which wouldnt have prevented this. But, again, back to some responsibility of the parents or someone on controlling the guns. Whose fault is this supposed to be . It cant be no ones fault. Someone has to be responsible for this, and i dont understand why the parents arent ever responsible anymore. Thats one thing that we see at schools now. No one is responsible for anything. The only ones that are ever responsible are the teachers. The teachers are being asked to do everything. We cant. Governor abbott of texas also said he planned to hold roundtables around the state to discuss how to prevent further shootings in texas. Heres the governor of the state. We will assembly all stakeholders to begin to work immediately on Swift Solutions to prevent tragedies like this from ever happening again. We want to hear from parents. We want to hear from students. We want to hear from educators. We want to hear from concerned citizens. We want to hear from those who hold the Second Amendment right in high esteem. We want to hear from everybody who has an interest in what has happened today so we can work together. Im sorry, congressman. It makes me convinced that politics is an acting profession. That was an act. Let me ask you this. Everywhere in the world, this are countries that have violence, of course, but they dont have School Shootings. We seem to have a lot of them. Every couple months, it happened and every couple months somebody like the governor says were going to have roundtables and talk about it and the pro gun people say do nothing, and we go back and think about Something Else the next two days. I mean, chris, it is a shame that the United States congress has not done anything, anything to protect our students from gun violence. Whats the nra say . Do you feel their prevalence in your life . Certainly in texas. If you vote for any gun safety, you know theyre coming at you, right . Sure. Ive stood at polls and asked for peoples support, and theyve said before theyre not going to support me because the nra said she shouldnt because theyve got a list of approved candidates. But greg abbott there was basically lip syncing, that man has stood by while tragedy after tragedy has happened in and has hurt texans and hes done nothing. When they have those roundtables, i have the first suggestion for them. He should allow, under texas law, local governments to take action into their own hands. Right now texas state law doesnt allow any local government to do anything about gun violence, to make their own laws regarding any of this. He should free up local governments to do that, especially if theyre going to sit on their hands and do nothing. Shannon, when looking at the people here, the parents apparently recover. Well, theyre not going to recover from this violence because its a hell on earth situation. But what do you think is about america that has this headline now around the world i mean if youre in tokyo right now where they dont have this, or london where they really dont have this, or paris or anywhere in the world, south africa, they dont have this kind of stuff. You go, whats with america . Whats with us . Do we have that many angry kids that are 17 years old, angry at the kids in class who dont treat them right and go out and start shooting a bunch of them . What combination of facts do we have that nobody else seems to have . Every nation is home to disgruntled teens, to bullied teens. What we have that is different is easy access to guns in this country. If more guns and fewer gun laws made us safer, wed be the safest country in the world. Instead we have the high ef rate of gun violence of any developed nation. 96 americans are shot in this country every day, and we talk about it when ten people are killed at a time. But the reality is theres gun violence in communities all day long that isnt being addressed or seen or even reported on the news, and these families are suffering. It is on our lawmakers to account a. They could stop this. We know that in states with strong gun laws, they have much fewer gun deaths. And yet these lawmakers are sitting on their hands. Were watching now the suspect being brought into court for the first time. This is the 17yearold who is suspected of committing this horrible crime today in texas, santa fe. Here he comes. Lets watch. Can we slide him over . To his left. Were watching the suspect in the School Shooting down in santa fe, texas, today, where ten people were killed and ten others injured. Some of them also victims of shotgun violence. Hes being brought in for the first time right now to face the court, to face a judge. This of course the first step in any kind of judicial proceeding. Hes being brought before the system basically. Its strange now hes standing behind that partition in the doorway there, but lets listen to this. My name is judge henry. You have been charged with capital murder, and you have been charged with aggravated assault against a public servant. Im denying your bond on both charges. You have the right to obtain counsel. You have the right to remain silent. You have the right to have an attorney present. You have the right to terminate that interview at any time. You have the right to request appointment of counsel if youre indigent and cannot afford one. You are not required to make a statement. Any statement made by you may be used against you. Are you a citizen of the United States . Are you a citizen of the United States . Yes, sir. Are you requesting consideration for a courtappointed attorney . Yes. Are you out on bond for any other charge . Im going to ask you to sign the front page, which is just acknowledging that i read you your rights this afternoon. Youre not entering a plea today. Im going to have you sign a second time, requesting consideration to be appointed a courtappointed attorney, and a third time saying that youre keep your appointments and tell us if you change your address or phone number. One more time right here, please, say youre requesting that courtappointed attorney. The next window. Oh, the next window . Do i need to do it over again . All right. Do you have any questions . All right. We are finished. Theyre going to work on that application a little bit later. Congressman, do you expect well, youre a texan. I mean its not texas isnt responsible for this obviously. One person is. Perhaps the situation he faced at home had some role in it, having access to the gun. Texans arent going to change, are they, or anybody in this country. It sounds like were going to be back here in a couple months with another one of these. I think things are changing. I think theyre changing too slowly. But i think the public sentiment is changing in texas also. Unfortunately the politicians have not changed with the sentiment. Nra still calls the shots . They still have a lot of sway, but i think thats waning also. Greg, what were the reactions today of your students in parkland who have been through this hell before up front . Again today, this afternoon, i was with my fourth period, which is a class that i was with the day of the shooting at douglas on february 14th. And all the kids were very upset about it. They wanted to watch. They wanted to see what was going on. Some were very quiet, but they were very interested but also upset, and it was bringing back, you know, some of the same feelings we went through. The fire alarm goes off. Everybody starts going out. Starts the same kind of things we did that same day. And then its so similar as to what we experienced. And so again, kids were upset by it very much. The other thing ill just throw out, not only that, but before this, our kids our teachers, our school is suffering from ptsd. Even the people that werent in the building directly where the students were shot and teachers and others were killed. It has been a very slow process to get to where we are right now. We are definitely not healed. The school is not normal. Weve got this we joke about it or call it this new normal, which is nowhere near what we used to be. Its very difficult. Three months out and then obviously this just kind of brings it all back to life again for us. And i can only sympathize with the community there on what theyre going to be experiencing because i understand what its like, and its going to be a long, difficult road, and theyre going to need a lot of support. So certainly im sure well try to help support, but theyll need support from all around the country because its not an easy easy thing to deal with. Then you go back. I mean its not like many other places that youre at some other random place. This is where the kids go to school. This is where we go to work. We dont use that one building at school. Well go to the school. I mean weve got three more years of kids before they graduate and the teachers obviously will still be there. Im so proud of the fact that your students have spoken out and i hope they keep speaking out because the one thing the gun lobby has going for it all these years is theyre obsessed. I think the people who want gun safety have to be equally obsessed and that means relentless. It seems to be true with your students. Thank you, Joaquin Castro. By the way, you were going to come on anyway, but thank you for coming on despite this. Shannon watts, keep up the wonderful work. Youre a wonderful spokesperson. We need you. We really do. And greg pittman, again, sir, teachers are grea