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"ac 360" starts right now. good evening, everyone. welcome to" ac 360 later." our panel is waiting to dig into tonight's topics, bringing their own perspectives and expertise to the table. we're going to begin with the navy yard massacre, 12 employees of the navy yard went to work on monday were murdered in cold blood. nine men, three women. each one had a family. a survivor of the massacre, john weaver, knows it's simple luck he is alive and they are not. here's what he told me. >> every one of those people who were killed were the nicest people that you could know. they were great co-workers and would never harm a fly. and they were responsible, great people. government workers and contractors. and i just cannot believe that they were subjected to that violent, horrible death that they had. and that's the most devastating part. for me, you know, i got away. that's no problem. i got lucky. it was my birthday, and i consider myself the second luckiest person on that day because my friend was the first luckiest person. but all those other people, they did not deserve that death to die like that. and it was horrible. that's all i have to say about that. >> john weaver also told me he wants know how the navy yard killer got his security clearance to begin with and then held onto it despite repeated run-ins with the police and alarming signs his mind was to say the least extremely troubled. many people wondering the same thing tonight. at the table tonight andrew sullivan founder of "the dish" cornell belcher democratic strategist and pollster for the obama 2012 campaign and an anne-marie slaughter. let's talk about the navy yard shooting. the whole issue of mental health in this country is something that we don't really deal with very well. continually it gets cut back on. obviously played a role somewhat in this. do you think anything will actually change? >> i think when you keep hearing in the budget debates cutting back on discretionary spending, discretionary spending. when you hear discretionary spending you should be thinking the safety net that takes care of people who say they're hearing voices, who are not getting care. it's real people who are not getting taken care of. >> it does seem, andrew, like there were a number of red flags. hindsight is very easy to look back and say. but it does seem like time after time you have this private security company which did this background check on this guy. they didn't even know -- they weren't able to find out the stuff that we were able to find out in a matter of an hour or two about this guy. >> yeah. i think there are two things to say. one is that not all people with mental illness kill people. >> right. >> rarely. >> a huge majority do not. part of our problem with dealing with mental illness is the stigma that's still attached to it. there is nothing particular about the brain as opposed to other organs of the body that should make it less susceptible to being treated and looked at and monitored. i've been in therapy for a very long time. i think it's made my life immensely better. my mom has suffered from bi-polar disease her whole life. i've seen this very much up close. and i believe it's an urgent issue for us to actually as a society talk about it. and talk about it not in the context of a moment where someone is just killed all those people, because that again if we're not careful restigmatizes it. i think mental health has to be placed absolutely equivalent with physical health. >> which it totally is not in this country. >> and it's an absolute tragedy that we're not doing it. >> one of the things that i think might be interesting is this time around with it raising to such a high level is perhaps it becomes part of the campaigns. we do have mid terms coming up here. and as you know -- >> it has not been an issue. >> it has not been a part of campaigns at all. mental health issues have not been atop the list of candidates talking. i think what you'll see now is that sort of being moved into that space and where democrats and republicans running for congress in this mid-term election in this off-year election i think the public's going to force them to start talking about mental health issues. >> if it didn't happen in the wake of the virginia tech shootings, in the wake of so many of these other mass shootings, and the kind of killings we see every day, i'm not sure that this incident is really going to spark change. >> here's the difference. democrats, if democrats have -- i think they can link and historically democrats have backed off the gun issue. but if democrats have the balls to link this issue and actually take on the gun issue, link this mental health issue with the restriction issues i think they have a winning campaign strategy for some of these red districts. [ overlapping speakers ] >> but it's got to be. >> it should be a bipartisan issue. >> but it's not. >> it can be and should be. we shouldn't -- there is no reason why republicans and democrats should not be treating mental illness and mental health as a key part of our agenda. >> especially with so many of our troops returning from these long wars in iraq and afghanistan with some form of ptsd, needing mental counseling. i want to bring dr. drew pinsky from "dr. doctor drew on call" he joins us from los angeles. dr. drew, you say this guy was hearing voices, had runs in with the law time after time, was reporting mental health issues. you don't want to stigmatize it and say somebody like that shouldn't be able to be employed. because you want our troops returning from iraq and afghanistan you don't want them stigmatized for having ptsd. at the same time, you don't want somebody who has severe mental issues, access to a security clearance, access to sensitive weaponry. >> this is -- listen. every point everyone's raising at the table is categorically valid and important to talk about. however there's sort of another layer to this, anderson. you're kind of tilting towards that. if you look at every one of the mass shootings that we've been reporting on the last couple years, connecticut or aurora, colorado or this shooting, every single one has been someone with access to mental health services. a lot of access. so the idea of this being an access problem is completely false. i'm telling you, as someone who's worked in a psychiatric hospital for 25 years, we as physicians cannot use our judgment to put down force and law to help people stay away from weaponry. if we had some sort of system, a simple law in place that would allow say two physicians or three physicians to evaluate somebody and fill out some paperwork and say you know what, this guy does not meet criteria to have a weapon and that's that. we know. i guarantee you, anderson, when you hear the aurora, colorado story played out i guarantee you'll hear about a physician, a psychiatrist who desperately tried to keep this man from hurting himself or other people but she couldn't do it because we don't have the power to do so. >> you say this isn't a question of access to mental health counselling, but i think back to the virginia tech incident. and if my memory serves me correct, that person's parents that, shooter's parents, desperately attempted to get help for that kid. >> that's the point. >> but because of the law, unless that person wants to get help, the parents have no power. we hear this from parents all the time. >> well, no, they do have power if they follow physician's directive which is get a conservatorship over this kid. he's acutely ill psychiatrically. i've recommended that hundreds of times to patients families. >> don't you have to prove somebody is a danger to themselves or to others? >> listen. look at amanda bynes is now in a hospital for an extended period of time because her parents had as you guys said at the table, the balls to go up and get a conservatorship over her. she is in care. britney spears is alive today because her parents got one. it takes a lot of courage to do so because you do threaten the relationship with that adult child. but when they do so, we know what they need to do. we need to be able to force people to follow direction to save lives. the problem here is that individual liberties are taking precedent over the protection of the community. and it's got to change. it's got to change. >> this is where it actually becomes into the gun debate, right? because the issue about the freedom to have guns is the drive for that is the same issue that says, you do not want a system that lets people declare other people incompetent and take over. so that's why i say i don't think it's a bipartisan issue you're going to get this pushback that says, you don't want a system in which it's really easy for people to say -- to declare others mentally zblil dr. drew, do you buy that ptsd was involved in that? i talked to commander liphold yesterday who said he's sick of hearing people using that and that so many people have ptsd, the vast majority they're not becoming violent. they don't end up like this. >> anderson, you know i love you but i'll call you out on this one. i was yelling at my television yesterday because you kept bringing that up. i thought boy, the 9/11 issue did not make him better that's for sure but that doesn't cause this. this is psychotic illness. all the way back to 2004 when he became paranoid about the construction workers across the street and shot out their tires. that should have been identified then. this poor man died of his mental illness, too, let's not forget. >> yeah. >> i just worry. and there's always a danger of abuse. when people who are mentally troubled, who may not be capable of we may not be able to predict easily that they'll be of ham to others or themselves, are suddenly coerced into mandatory care. i mean, that is a problem. i'll never forget watching my mother being taken away forcibly from us and put in a hospital and waving goodbye to her in a mental ward. those things are traumatizing things to happen to people. >> so you worry about the family or the state having too much power? >> actually right. my mother acquiesced and so on. in some cases it may be a muddled area and people can abuse those powers, too. and that's my concern. and if they have access to things, what i find also some friend of mine with ptsd and other people i've met with ptsd,they know they have it but they really don't want to seek treatment. they think they can hack it out. >> but also there have been penalties for their careers in the past if they do seek treatment. in the military as much as the military says they want to address this, we have seen in past years folks who do come forward with it, their careers suffer. and talk about that stigma earlier. there is still within the military think that's still that stigma. >> that's why some of the most effective policies and programs out there are other vets who dealt with ptsd talking to other vets. >> this guy was hearing voices. dr. drew's the doctor, i'm not. but it certainly sounds like classic paranoid schizophrenia. he's worried about people following him, worried about people using a microwave to track him. this is deep mental illness. and part of what i was saying is what he called for the police and he says, people in the hotel next to me, the hotel room next to me are coming after me. >> right. in microwaves. >> exactly. what happens after that, right? >> they alerted the navy. we don't know where it went from there. that's one of the things obviously we need to learn. we've got to take a quick break. dr. drew, thanks for being with us. let us know what you think. tweet us on @andersoncooper. coming up, bill crystal joins us in our fifth chair in a moment. ♪