Transcripts For CSPAN Washington Journal 20150425

Were charged with neglect. They are considering suing the states. We want to know, how much freedom should begin far kids . Are they put in unnecessary danger. Here is how we are splitting up the phone minds this morning. If you support free range parenting, you can call us at 202 7488000. If you oppose this idea, you can call us at 202 7488001. As always, you can weigh in with your thoughts on social media. Find us on twitter, cspanwj. On facebook, facebook. Com cspan. Or send as an email journal cspan. Org. Here is the Washington Post story from earlier this month that gives the details of the case involving the maryland children. The story says that the children were taken into custody by county police and turnover to Child Protection services. The childs mother says that they were released to the couple at 10 30 p. M. On sunday. The parent said the children had been described as for your brains children and were expected at home at 6 00 on sunday. When they hadnt arrived, they began looking for them. At 8 00, the mother says that they spent about half an hour at the cps offices without being allowed to see them. We are going to be joined by a columnist from the Washington Post, to learn a little more about the case. Thank you for being with us. Can you explain to us what free range parenting is . Guest it is kind of silly, it sounds like chickens, or something. It is a catchall shrimp that i think people like saying. It is the idea or philosophy that children should be allowed to roam. Most people would call this what childhood was called 20 or 30 years ago. A lot of this has changed. The way we parent children and the way we give them freedoms has changed quite a bit in the last two decades. A lot of that is because of fear. Host Child Protective Services had charged the maryland couple with unsubstantiated neglect. What does that mean . Guest that is a good question. I dont know. I dont think they know either. The real definition is that there was some possible neglect but not evidence to substantiate it. It sounds a little vague to me, and everybody else. Host where do you fall on this spectrum . It sounds like you are a supporter of free range parenting. Guest i was a Police Reporter for 20 years. You think i would be the first person who would hold my children tight. I do and i want to, i also understand that through seeing all of the crime, and knowing that statistics say our children are safer than they have ever been. Homicide rates for children are down, compared to these golden years that we talk about decades ago. The real reason people are afraid to let their kids even walk the dog around the block or go to the playground is because we have this looming fear of a stranger snatching arcade off of the street. One of the first tweets i got when i wrote about them was better in a police car then in a ditch. The truth is that a stranger who snatches your kid off the street makes up only one 100th of 100 . The people we really have to fear are the people we know. Priests, tutors, teachers. Not all of them, obviously, but when we do see these cases, they are sophisticated people who know how to get into kids lives. The people who snatch kids off the street god for for a it happens, but it happens so rarely. Host why is this a policy issue . Guest that is the whole cultural shift that we are talking about. There is definitely chatter criticizing that they let them go one mile. Im afraid to drive in the crosswalk where they were walking, so they were very extreme. They believe that their children are mature enough to handle that. It has become a policy issue because again, we go back to fear when people see to kids alone on the street and people call the police, the police are compelled to do their job and react, and then they get Child Protective Services involved, and they are compelled to act. These two kids walking on the street is what triggers it and then it becomes a policy issue rather than being a coulter where we can say, what are those kids doing, let me talk to them and see what they are doing. Host and one of your columns you wrote, we have morphed from a community that helps to raise children to a police state. Is that the direction we are headed . Guest that is the direction we are headed in these cases. This case was not alone. There was a woman who was called the nations worst mom when she let her nineyearold in new york take the subway to go to school. She is kind of the founder and voice behind the free range parenting movement. There was a really tough story where mothers were arrested, and it was usually mothers who got in trouble for letting a nineyearold, i think it was in florida, play in a neighborhood park. In south carolina, it was an eightyearold who was alone at the park, and the mother was arrested. We have turned this into a culture. There was a mother who wrote about being arrested for leaving current child in the car for literally three minutes. We are turning this into a government decision that lacks common sense. We want protection for children lets say this happens all the time now left in a casino parking lot while mom gamble for eight hours. Yes, bring in the police, that is neglect. This is not neglect. We have lost our sense of common sense governing. Host do you have any sins of what the regulations or laws are around when children can be left alone . Guest in various jurisdiction by jurisdiction. For example, in montgomery county, children can be alone indoors if they are nine and older. They can watch another child when they are 13 and older. This is where he got sticky legally with these kids. They were outside, not left alone in a house or a car. There are some jurisdictions that do not have these restrictions. They usually hover around those ages and formats. Host is changing the culture require a change in laws across the country as well . Guest that would probably happen. The culture has driven them the laws. The culture is what is pulling common sense from the enforcement of those laws. That is why we have to change the culture. Host thank you so much for joining us this morning. Guest thank you for talking about this. It is pretty important. Thanks. Host we are taking your calls. What do you think about free range parenting . Again, the numbers are 202 7488000 if you support the idea of letting children roam free. If you oppose the idea, you can call 202 7488001. The Free Range Kids Movement is planning a protest of the situation and maryland in a few weeks. Their website says that they will be staging a protest called let our kids go to the park and walk home alone day. It says, we are encouraging kids to walk home alone if you feel they are ready to. They will join in the park at 9 00, let them go by themselves, and with any luck, the kids might not know each other. When the adults say goodbye it is up to the kids to figure out what to do, we used to have a name for this activity playing. Nick is up who says he supports free range parenting. Caller i support it as long as the federal government stays out of it. If local communities want to set parameters and regulations, that is ok. We are on the way to tyranny led by progressives. One of their commitments is that the government must being that people were too stupid. They bastardized the language. They dont have terms i can allude to. One was microaggression and some university about chickfila. This is really serious. She brought up fear. Fear is the seat of tyranny. I dont mind i have for it because i know the federal government wants to get into it. Host what was your childhood like, nick . Were you a free range kids . Caller yes. My parents died when i was 10 years old. Those are them. I was raised by people who didnt care. I used to go playing construction sites. That was my outdoor play gym. We would have tremendous dirt fights in ditches. We had sandlot baseball. A bunch of boys, 10 years old get out there and play baseball. We really learned. We learned on our own, we didnt have to have helicopter bomb standing over us and everything else. Even though we didnt have parents, it was a rich life. I learned to become selfreliant. The people i was raised with kind of treated me like a servant, by learned a strong work ethic. I went to the army and did fine. Thank you. Host that was nick in tennessee. Next up is michael from riverside, california. You say that you oppose the idea of free range parenting, why is that . Caller what fascinates me is i know that do you hear me . Host how much independence should they have . Caller im not mold or moldable, neither are you. Neither is an old man or an old woman. We can all take care of ourselves. Little children cannot. Host turn off your tv. Go ahead with your thoughts. Caller my tv is way down. All intended do is have a conversation with you, trying to put a word out. Listen. Everybody wonders why everything is going on in society as it is. I am letting you know. These little ones do not know their right hand from their left. You have sick individuals out there who do horrible things to them. That female, i bet she doesnt even care. She would fight for the right to kill a child in the womb. We have 10,000 laws to protect women who are very well to take care of themselves, but children who do not know the right hand from their left, nobody cares. God will surely get peoples attention and you will know that these women do belong to him and to christ. Host that was michael from riverside, california. Our next caller is eric from antioch, california in support of free range parity. Caller i disagree with the previous caller, Samuel L Jackson from pulp fiction. When i was a kid, we were out all day long. We never had problems. Statistics point out that. 001 of strangers accost children. I work as a clerk and a store and two Young Children come in by themselves every day. Everybody looks at them. Host how old are your children . Caller one is about to graduate from college and another is starting college. 18 and 21. Host how old were they when you let them play by themselves outside . Caller they did not have the life that i did. Im talking about me. When they went out one, there were open spaces when we went out. Kids have to have something to do. When there was open land, we wrapped the bike and went out. My daughter was involved in afterschool activities, they would go with a friend or have a parent drive them. There was not free time to just explore. Host area calling in support of free range parenting. Next up is ruth from new haven connecticut who opposes free range parenting. We are getting a very wide range of views here. Caller i oppose free range parenting. As a child in new york city, there was a Police Officer on every other corner, Police Officers in the parks. Now, you send a child to the park, they might not come home. I worry about my granddaughter who is 21 coming home. People are evil now. There is no way in the world i would even want my 18yearold granddaughter walk three blocks to the subway, or even to a park. People are different. You have to train children now. People are terrible. Host its interesting, what im hearing you saying is that you think there should be more Government Intervention in the sense that there should be more police on the street corners it to ensure that our children are safe. Caller of course. People are so against the government. The minute art children are missing, who do we call . The Police Department. We need these entities. People do what they want to do. People are killing their children now. Why do you think we should let them go to a park alone . Children are kidnapped from the park. Host next is colleen in support of free range parenting. Caller i definitely support free range children. I moved from Southern California to rule florida rural florida so my kids could be free range p children. I dont know if anyone is aware but Hillary Clintons book kind of started this and policies where the government interferes and parental rights. There are 450,000 children in foster care. We did not have a sundin influence where 450,000 childrens parents are horrible enough that they had to take the children away. There are policies now. They took these children. There was no crime, there was nothing. Someones opinion some of these people who are afraid to stick their nose out of the door, thats fine. Stay in your house, barricade your door. In new york, people have five locks on the door. We leave our doors open. Host i think i can hear the birds chirping in the background. How much independence would you give your grandkids d . Caller as their age and maturity comes, they get privileges in the neighborhood. I have grandchildren from five to 12. The 12 year old can go in the neighborhood. The nineyearold can go to some friends house. Frankly, Everybody Knows the kids in the neighborhood. They are perfectly safe. No, were not going to stay in our house. It is not the governments business. It is not anybodys business what you do with your children. Host colleen, we hear you and the birds singing at your home this morning. A few comments from twitter. Said rights, do you want to raise your kids to live in fear . Jim writes are there any cases of free range children being abducted or kidnap . Apparently not. One of the articles that spurred this idea was this one from 2008 and title, why i let my nineyearold ride the subway alone. In the article she states, is new york as safe as it was in 1963 . It is not like we are living in downtown baghdad. She did not give the child a cell phone, because she didnt want him to lose it, but let her figure out how to take the subway and if they couldnt do that, i trusted him to ask a stranger. Long story short my son got home, ecstatic with independence. Long story longer, people wanted to turn me and for child abuse. Here now is donald calling in opposition of free range parenting. What do you think . Caller i dont think its a good idea. Im listening to these callers speaking about what they believe in. The majority of these people live in neighborhoods where they are protected. Most of the children running around here you have gang members shooting all over the place, pedophiles. You should ask these callers, what type of neighborhood do you live in . Maybe its good, but everybody cant live in that kind of neighborhood. Back in the day when i was coming up im 61 years old my mom let me go on the bus and go wherever wanted to go. We live in a society where we do not even know our neighbors. How are we going to let our children roam up and on the street . Host so the problem is with the fact that we do not know anybody anymore . Guest and the neighborhoods we live in. Im sick of hearing people talk about the government liberals. Its republicans, i dont care who it is. Im sick of these people bringing up hillary clinton, what does she have to do with letting people roam up and down the street. Is something to happen to something were to happen to one of the children, who were they call . The government. Host next up is dorothy from ohio, calling in support of free range parenting. Why do you support this idea . Caller i feel is the kids are raised properly with the right morals and respect, and you have the right trust and may have the right maturity, you should respect them to have a little bit of range, depending on age group, like the other lady said. Host all right. Next up is anette calling from princeton, new jersey. You also support this idea. Caller i am a big supporter of the idea. Im also a teacher. I could say so much on this. I know i just have a little time. Im finding that people have such a great fear of what can happen to the children as far as walking down the street, going to a store, but do they realize that when they keep them in the house the give them free range on a cell phone. I see what children are allowed to be exposed to on a phone cell phone. Starting with children six years old. Instead of running, playing, getting to know other children, and getting coping skills. They are on cell phones arguing looking at pornographic host so the issue of free range is not just free range in your neighborhood, but free range on social media and the world wide web. Caller they give them a cell phone and they do not even have enough parenting skills at this point to follow their children and see what they are doing. When i see what children are showing me on a cell phone at eight years old, or what their friends are texting them, they need to be outside climbing a tree. They need to be running up and down the street or on a bicycle. These parents dont understand. You are substituting something that was innocent, running and playing in arguing because youre so afraid, and you are giving them a tool that allows them to be men, send pictures to other boys in the school. Host we got your point. A few other headlines before we turned back to the calls. Washington post reports that Police Officials made an arrest of gray, the man who died of spinal injuries after being arrested saying, he was not treated properly, but they are still investigating the severe spinal injury that seems to have led to his arrest. The Police Commissioner says that he was not placed in a seatbelt, a violation of department policy. Grey, 25 died sunday, one week after being arrested. Questions about what happened to him have spurred days of protests and thrust baltimore into the center of a debate over a spate of deaths from mon Law Enforcement officers. A headline on the failed comcasttime warner merger. Despite the diverse region the distribution of 5. 9 million and the expenditure of 25 million on lobbying last year, no more than a handful of lawmakers signed the deal contrasting more than 100 signed letters of support in 2000 10 when comcast was pushing its merger with nbc universal. There are also some unanticipated consequences to the fallout of this deal. Los Angeles Times front page says, still a shutout. With the merger dead, dodger fans are facing a drought. It says, an estimated 70 of los angeles households do not get the sports channel that carries dodgers games. That was expected to be corrected if comcast acquisition of time warner succeeded. With the merger officially pronounced dead friday, the prospects of a deal to carry the games on other cable providers less likely. A report on the drone strike that killed two hostages, that there had been a bid to ransom one of the hostages and it failed. The story says, the captures of weinstein received ransom, magnifying questions about the incident. The failed 2012 attempt to ransom weinstein who was kidnapped and 2011 was reported by a pakistani intermediary. The deaths have lent new urgency to review the Drone Program and the u. S. Handling of hostage situations. President obama spoke friday about the accidental killing of two americans in the drone strike. He was began the office of National Intelligence. [video clip] president obama we will review what happened. I know those of you who are here share our determination to continue doing everything we can to prevent the loss of innocent lives. I was asked by somebody, how do you absorb news like that that we received the other day . I told the truth. It is hard. But the one thing i wanted everybody to know, because i know you, work with you, because i know the quality of this team, is we all believed when we lose an american we all are frequently lose an american life. We all grieve when any innocent life is taken. We do not take this work lightly. I know that each and every one of you understand the magnitude of what we do and the stakes involved. These are not abstractions. We are not cavalier about what we do. We understand the solemn responsibilities that are given to us. Host that was. Although speaking at the office of National Intelligence friday about the accidental killing of two americans and a u. S. Drone strike. We are taking your phone calls on the topic of free range parenting. How much independence our children should receive and when should the government intervene. Our next caller is charlie who opposes freerange parenting. Caller i agree completely with your callers from san antonio. Im about two years older than he is. We grew up at the same time period. When we were kids, i used to take the bus. My mother let me. But we had people in the neighborhood who were outside all the time. They knew who you were, who the other children were. We did not have air conditioning. We had three channels on television not 203. People were not afraid of getting involved. If you did something wrong and one of your neighbors saw you, i guarantee your mother or father heard about it. Today, people do not want to get involved. Everyone is inside when the weather is nice. They have air conditioning, cable tv. No one is out there watching the kids. Host if you saw two children, six and 10, the age of the children and the maryland case walking alone by themselves for an extended period of time would you call the police . Caller i am not sure if i would call the police, but i would say hey, what is going on. I would try to get involved in some way. I am not sure i would call the police, my first reaction. I would figure there is something wrong. That is the way i feel. Host charlie from pennsylvania, we hear you this morning. Next up is beth from connecticut, calling in support of freerange parenting. Caller good morning. I do not even like the name freerange parenting host what would you call it . Caller go outside and play. I think that maturity level plays into it. You have to put a little rounder is on your kids. When i was coming up, you cannot go across the alley. You cannot go so far. You have to give your kids some kind of responsibility. That is playing in the neighborhood. We can do what we can do for our children, but it is not all on our children. It is the other people. When i grew up i was one of those children who walked five miles to School Every Day from one side of town to the other. No one ever approached me. I know it is a different time, but i am concerned that people got to let kids be kids. That is how i feel about it. Host best in hartford, connecticut, calling in support of freerange parenting. Next is steve from new jersey. Youre not sure about this idea, right . Caller yes. Host why not . Caller my parents were not only not very involved, but they almost forced me into situations that were not such a great idea for kids. They would encourage me to walk in the middle of a frozen ice pond. They would let me swim in a lake that they knew was filled with snakes. And whatever else is in lakes. When i would play outside, they wait say things like try not to get kidnapped or they used to do some things to test me, i think host you think they did this on purpose . Caller exactly. In my neighborhood, they used to have a spray guy that will around. That would come around. He would spray the whole neighborhood. I would get told by one of my parents to follow behind the guy on our bikes. You could not even see anything. We were inhaling all the pesticides. I remember this is kind of related to something that was in the news recently my father used to take me to the philadelphia zoo and angle me over the alligator pit. It was like a test. Host do you have children . Caller i do not have kids. Actually not. If i had a child, i would probably raise him in a protective bubble. Host how do you think this has impacted you as an adult . The freedom your parents gave you. Caller to encourage a child to go out and play with a bb gun. We had bb guns and will play with them. I cannot tell you how many times i was shot in one of my eyes are in my neck or in my neck. Or when it was snowing outside we would get back on the bumper of a car hopefully the person did not see us and we would write it down the block because we could slide on the ic icy street. They were so not involved, my mother did not even know i went to college, because my parents separated. Host all right, steve from new jersey, in opposition of freerange parenting. One common on twitter mentioned that this problem arose been arose from helicopter parenting, those that have or and monitor every step of ak. I ever says it is a shame people have to defend allowing children to be case, go to the park on their own, play outside. Theyre all laws they are our laws that govern when kids are allowed outside on their own. Has this database of the legal age restrictions for latchkey kids by state. No child under the age of 12 be left alone at home, but considering their age and injury level is important. If a child is extremely impulsive, it may be best to wait until they are older than 12. There are few states with specific relations about the age of a child left a home left at home alone. But as the number of latchkey kids grow, there is a growing movement in states to set guidelines. Here are a few of the guidelines by state. Several have none, such as alabama, florida, hawaii, idaho. Another states, the age as young as six in kansas and as old as 14 in illinois. We are taking your calls on this idea of freerange parenting. Do you support or oppose it . We are from david in michigan in support of freerange parenting. Caller i support it. When i was a kid, i could go anywhere i wanted to. 9yearold, had a paper route saved 19. Walks through town, got a mostly people were watching out for kids. But they always had a cure for that. The guys set us on the fence post, the got the attention of everyone who is going to do that. Host next is jimmy from winstonsalem North Carolina opposing the range parenting. Caller first of all, whose business is it how we raise our children as long as we are doing it properly . The government should not have that much control. Granted there are people who abuse their children and there should be laws for that. But why would the government tell someone you cannot let your children go out and walked down the block and play . That is nonsense. Host it sounds like you support letting kids roam freely . Caller is that a problem . Host it sounds like you support this idea of letting kids roam more freely. Caller absolutely. If the children are raised properly, and there are people who do not raise their children properly, but if they are raised really i do not know statistics but probably the major majority of children are raised properly. They are told what to do if someone approaches. We are always going to have these sick folks in the world. They used to be there when i was growing up. I am six years old. We all live in a different age and different time. I am 68 years old. We all live in a different age and different time. The problem is we have all this computer and television. Let them go outside and play. Work this energy off after school. Host jimmy from winstonsalem, North Carolina. Next is jane from indiana calling in opposition of freerange parenting. Caller im opposed to it for the simple reason i am almost 80 years old. When i was 10, we had a man i lived across from a park with a swimming pool, baseball diamond, everything. We had a man attacked a girl who left before i did when i went home. Now it is worth than that. I think kids should be protected in certain ways. Host next is natalie from houston, texas. Go ahead. Caller good morning. Host good morning, youre on the air. What do you think about freerange parenting . Caller i am opposed to it. The other day they had to rescue a little. That had had to rescue a little cade who a little kid locked in a refrigerator or something. What is wrong was setting up a nice play area in your backyard where you can look out the kitchen window and see your kids playing and getting exercise . Where were these same people when a nigerian babysitter in houston went to the store and the house caught on fire. She left burning something on the stove. But she just went to the store. Where were the people in support of that . Host natalie from houston, texas was on the line. Tonight is the annual white house correspondents enter. Remarks expect it by the resident. The headliner will be Cecily Strong from saturday night live. Our live coverage starts at 6 00 p. M. Here is Cecily Strong giving us a preview. [video clip] did your dad give you any advice . He tried a joke today. My husband and i were like no. Im always threatening, you want me to say that . I am not going to. Any jokes you want to share with us . My dads . Are whichever. No, no. Anything offlimits . Anyone offlimits . There are no limits really. In my head, even if something is a little biting, i would rather everything is funny. That is the most important. Meaner jokes, i think you can hear in a crowd, when a joke is not working because it is mean. Sometimes you can sneak jabs, but they are funny, so it is ok. Topics, you have hillary clinton, all these 2016 republicans we may mention clinton, republican contenders, i do not know. Host that was Cecily Strong, the headliner at the white house correspondents did it tonight. We will cover it on cspan as well. We have time for tumor callers on our topic on freerange parenting. First is trisha from new york, calling in opposition. You are on the air. Caller i am having a hard time with all of these proponents of free range parenting being so extreme in their thinking. What they say is that those of you who oppose it are advocating for your kids to be locked up in the house all day. That is not it. You guys notice, the ones who oppose, all of them said that everything should be done with limits and boundaries. The freerange parent extremists, adding six and 9yearold walk one and two miles away from home, that is not a good idea. I was searching for a house and google mapped it. On the computer, google showed me that house in real time with the street. Pedophiles can now google any place in the street. They keep seeing kids by themselves who is to say they cannot go and find these kids . The last thing i want to say is is is a sad story happened a couple years ago. A freerange parent allowed her son to walk a few blocks away from home to let him spread his wings. Unfortunately, by the end of the day, that child ended up in pieces in a mans freezer. In long island new york, lots of affluent places, they tried to grab kids all the time. As much you want to believe that this is a wonderful world. There are a lot of people preying on the idea that kids are Walking Around by themselves. Maybe i am jaded, but set limits. You cannot let a sixyearold walk two miles. I am not even happy was the caller who let her 9yearold take the subway. Host our last caller is patricia from texas, opposing freerange parenting. Caller i am patricia. I started an organization, hope for children foundation, we are national and global. We put all of our training online. While there are certainly a lot of positive aspects of children having freedom and work and learning how to get making decisions, it adds to a lot of developing selfesteem and security with the child. At the same time, the world we live in is too dangerous to have free range children. A need to be in a more protective and environment. If parents are working and they just need their children to be away from the house because they cannot supervise them, there are boys and girls clubs. They are safe and offer the same type of security and they are more did pmore protected. If parents would look at these the takes of children kidnapped annually or even monthly. Children murdered or abuse. They would not want to the twice about leaving their child at a park. I grew up one of seven children. My father was in world war ii he was a hero. My mother is a very good parent. They would never have let us alone at a park, even when i grow up. While things were certainly safer then, my father was very much aware of the dangers host that is patricia in texas. We will have to leave it there. That is the last caller on our segment on freerange parenting. Next up, we examine americas changing roles changing views on gun rights. A new Pew Research Center study found that protecting gun rights is more important than controlling ownership. We talked to john lott president of the Crime Prevention Research Center about it progun right rule. Later we talk to ted alcorn to hear the opposing viewpoint. She was considered modern for her time. Called mrs. President by her detractors. Was outspoken about her views on slavery and womens rights. As one of the most prolific writers of first ladies, she provides a unique window into Colonial Life and her own life. I will go out in Abigail Adams in our first ladies series. From Martha Washington to michelle obama. Sundays at 8 00 p. M. Eastern on American History tv on cspan. Cspans new book is available. First ladies president ial historians on the lies of 49 iconic woman. An illuminating and inspiring rate. Available as hardcover or ebook through your favorite bookstore or online bookseller. Here are a few of the book festivals we will cover this spring on booktv. This weekend, we are in maryland for the Annapolis Book festival, hearing from authors such as Alberto Gonzales and New York Times reporter james rison. We will revisit maryland for live coverage of the gaithersburg bppkl book festival with tom davis and martin frost and david axelrod. We close with book expo america in new york city, where the Publishing Industry showcases upcoming books. We are live for the Chicago Tribune printers wrote late last including our threehour life program. That is the spring on cspan twos cspan2 book tv. Washington journal continues. Host we will now discuss americas shifting viewpoints over gun rights and gun control. We are joined by john lott, president of the Crime Prevention Research Center and author of the book more guns less crime. Thank you for being here. I wanted to start by bringing up this recent poll from the Pew Research Center. It shows that for the first time, more americans say that protecting gun rights is important than controlling gun ownership. You can see in the graph that 52 of americans say that protecting gun rights it important compared to 46 who say controlling gun ownership is important. This is a dramatic change from the 1990s. What you think is driving the shift . Guest i think there are several things. First of all, what is related to is if people think a gun makes them safer or not. In 2000, 30 5 of americans thought owning a gun made them safer in a gallup poll. Now it is 63 . It is a huge change and a parallels closely with the change you see in pew over time in terms of whether people oppose gun control or not. You are starting to get more News Coverage about people using guns defensively. During the 1990s or around 2000, you could not find a story about defensive gun use on national news. People would hear thousand of stories about bad things that happen. Now you have outlets like fox which will have some dramatic done news story. A week ago, a mass, public shooting was stopped in chicago by someone with a concealed handgun permit. The second time in a year since they have allowed concealed handguns in chicago which you would have had a horrible situation that was protected because someone had a gun. It happens because people are starting to get News Coverage. The second is people are catching up with research. If you look at the research that has been done on concealed carry, where the economist or criminologist, about 70 of Research Finds it reduces Violent Crime rates. There it thing is that all the predictions that gun control advocates made. One the assault weapons ban ended, people like Michael Bloomberg predicted they would be huge, massive increases in Violent Crime. Violent crime has gone down. When concealed carry laws get passed in different states, we have constantly heard productions about there would be blood in the streets and holders would behave irresponsibly. But we have found that permit holders are extremely lawabiding. They are even more lawabiding than Police Officers. I think those types of predictions have lost credibility with people. Theres only so many times can call disaster will be occurring if you trust individuals to have guns and then not have that be the case. Host you mention the connection between gun ownership and safety, or the amount of crimes a community may experience. What is the most compelling evidence showing that owning a gun or having expanding gun ownership is linked to lower crime . Guest i will give you a simple example. Every place in the world that has tried to ban guns have seen an increase in murder rate in Violent Crime. In chicago, washington, d. C. The huge increase on the and after after the ban on handguns. Even island nations, which would be the ideal experiment an washington d. C. , it was not a fair experiment because people can get guns from maryland or virginia that is not explain why increase. It makes plain why did not fall as much as it was predicted. But you look around the world, whether it be nations like ireland or jamaica or the u. K. , which have had bands, he has seen 5, 6, 94 increases in murder rates immediately after bands have occurred to you one place in the world has been banned guns, you would see a drop in murder rates. You have not seen that happen. Lots of predictions have been made. That gradually affects their credibility of those who make claims otherwise. Host we want you to join in on the conversation. Do you support expanding gun rights . More control of gun ownership . We are dividing the phone lines by region. If you live in the eastern and central time zone, call us at 202 7488000. Mountain and pacific time zones, call us at 202 7488001. If you are a gun owner, we have a special line at 202 7488002. Feel free to start dialing now. And you can find us on social media, our twitter handle is cspanwj. Send us in email at journal cspan. Org. We are speaking with john lott, president of the Crime Prevention Research Center. Talk about your organization. Guest we are relatively new. I have been an academic all my life. University of chicago, the Wharton Business School at yell, stanford. At yale, stanford. There is a role for getting academics who know the data get involved in this debate. We have a pretty Academic Board of some advisors board of advisors. When things come up, we try to deal with things, explain to people what the tradeoffs are and accurately measure the cost and benefits of people owning guns. Host what is the it percentage of americans who own guns now . Guest it depends on the poll youre looking at, but some show the mid40 range and then have an outlier like the General Social Science Survey polled which shows about 32 who own guns. My belief is that it is closer to about 45 . The problem is a lot of people do not say they own guns, even if they do. In some of these polls, you will find that married women claim that the gun is owned in a home at half the rate of men. Maybe married men and women are not talking to each other much. But it could also be that women may be more reticent to tell someone who calls up that they own a gun. Host that the issue is the polling question itself . Guest about peoples willingness to trust a poster on an issue that they view is ask sensitive. Host how is americas view of gun rights related to the actual rate of crime . Guest often when crime rate increase, people want to go to handguns for protection. After Mass Shootings, you will see it increases in gun sales. Since 2007, we have seen a massive increase in permits for concealed handguns. It is over 12 million. We have had almost a tripling of concealed handgun permits. Among women, it has increased faster. It was about 20 to 25 of women having permits back then. Now it is 30 to 35 . If you look at the polls part of that is issues of safety. My Research Indicates there are two groups of people who benefit the most from owning guns. Women and the elderly. People relatively weaker physically. The presence of a gun represents a bigger change for a woman to defend herself. People who will most likely be victims of Violent Crime, poor blacks who live in high crime urban areas. My Research Finds the police is extremely important i think the single most important factor. If you look at surveys of police, they realize that they arrive at the crime after at the crime scene after the crime has been committed. What should people do when they have to confront criminals by themselves. The issue of safety is extremely important. It is driving a lot of the change going on. Host Violent Crime levels are near record lows, yet Many Americans believe that crime rates are on the rise. The article states that blame it on News Coverage political rhetoric. This is not without consequence. Those who say crime is rising are the most opposed to gun control. 45 want to see gun laws made more strict compared to 53 whose economies is unchanged or dropping. Why is that . Guest i think youre right about media coverage, it drives a lot of peoples perceptions. If you constantly hear about bad stories on the news and never here on the benefits of guns, people get the information a lot from the news, they will think guns are more dangerous than a benefit. I agree that people have this is connect. You look at some of the other claims. With bloomberg people pushed in terms of increased Mass Shootings in schools and things like that. That has been falling. Deaths from School Shootings are one half the rate they are now from the early 1990s. That does not mean that individuals do not perceive themselves as being safer. Murder rates are low, but it has happened at the same time that we have seen this explosion in concealed handgun permits. Host return to our callers. Christie from tennessee. You are on the air with john lott, president of the Crime Prevention Research Center. Caller thank you for taking my call. I looked closely at your survey and noticed you only got responses from 35 people and limited your search to economists have used the term gun control, which implies a bias against laws that keep guns out of dangerous hands. How can you argue that this small biased group is recognized are presented in of Scientific Consensus . Guest the numbers i was referring to earlier was just looking at research that has been published in journals. If you look at that, you find 70 of criminologist and economist finder there is a benefit from concealed carry laws. What the caller is referring to is we did a survey of all the economists who have published in peerreviewed articles on firearms in general. Not just dont control. Over the last 15 years. What we found is about 83 of them think that concealed hand guns prevent crime. On net, you see reductions on by the crime from people owning guns. That guns are more frequently used to protect people than to commit crimes. There are 50 economists who have written in peerreviewed journals and that time. We got a 70 Response Rate from that small group. Some other surveys have gotten 30 Response Rates. My own believe is that the best way to look at this is a look at the peerreviewed articles and count them up. Whether you look at those or survey those who have written it, you get similar results. Host next caller is alexander from miami florida. You own a gun, according to the information i have. Caller i do. An Assault Rifle. I had been reluctant to buy one, but one because my friends told me it would be a good investment. I had no idea how good. I had a Home Invasion in 1996. If i had confronted the assailant with a handgun, i would be dead right now. With an Assault Rifle, we got into a scuffle, and the fact it was an Assault Rifle permitted me to retake control of the gun and ended up having to kill him. Host all right alexander. Guest i am sorry you had to deal with that type of attack and their home. That is probably a lot of peoples worst fear. The question is what is the safest course of action for people to take when confronted with a criminal. If you look at a survey that has surveyed over 100,000 people over 30 years you find that having a gun is by far the safest course of action. By far for women. Women who behave passively are host what do we know about the demographics of gun ownership . Guest it is more heavily male, republican, and relatively white. That has been changing. If you look at the percentage of women with concealed carry permits, that has increased dramatically. Blacks have started to increase. I think that is great. They are basically been basically the most Vulnerable People in our society benefit. But the problem is we have taxes and fees to get a gun. In maryland, costs 300 to own and license a gun. In illinois, to get a concealed handgun, it is about 600. Host not including the cost of the gun. Guest right. Who do you stop from getting a gun for protection . It is not suburban, white male stopped from doing that. It is the people most likely to be victims of Violent Crime. Poor blacks live in high crime urban areas. In colorado, they passed a controversial guncontrol bill in 2013. Republicans in the state legislature put up an amendment that would exempt people below the poverty line from having to pay fees to go through the transfer process there, and with two exemptions with two exceptions, all the democrats voted against people he will be poverty line having to pay those taxes. What is going on with the gun control, it prevents poor people, specifically minorities, to get guns for protection. As you see that, you see more increases in blacks and others owning guns. Host al from connecticut calling. Youre on the air. Caller first, i wanted to say hello, you are a professor of mine about 22 years ago. Nice to see you. I had a question on reason elect oral changes. Both of the state and at congress. You have had Many Democrats lose their seats to republicans. They republicans who wayne tend to be on the gun right side of the issue. But to get things done on the country, you need both parties to agree. Has there been a paradoxical challenge to the gun rights caused by having more of the moderate democrats lose their seats across the country whether at the state or federal level . Guest that is a good question. I think there are differences between federal and state. When you talk the vast majority of states, when you look at guncontrol bills coming up, you see a similar voting record between republicans and a lot of democrats there. That is not true in states like california and new jersey and new york and maryland, which are heavily democrats. You pretty much see uniformity among democrats. But in the vast majority of other states, there is not a gap at the local level between republicans and democrats on done issues. When you look at liberalizing concealed carry laws or stand your ground or other laws, you saw a lot of unanimity among the parties. At the federal level, things are very polarized. The point you raise is example five by the last election. Is exemplified by the last election. Many of the democrats were defeated in the last election. You will not see across the aisle support you would have seen even a few years ago in congress. Host how do you think this issue will play in the 2016 president ial campaign . This article in the hill, mention that clintons white house bid is energizing supporters, if it can get rid of this ad. It says that concern has been a staunch advocate of guncontrol proposals such as expanding background checks and banning assault weapons. She opposes ideas that are out of step with public opinion. She says she cannot let a minority of people hold a viewpoint that terrorizes the majority of people. Guest i have no doubt that gun control will be a major issue. Bloomberg is spending millions of dollars on it. President obama is putting resources into it. This will be an issue. You mentioned expanded background checks. I think that is a real issue that is going to be raised. You look at support for background checks, generally, you get 80 to 90 . You look at expanded accor on checks, support is much lower. We were talking earlier about the cost of transferring guns. One of the main reasons why guncontrol advocates push this role is to make it costly for people to get guns. It is 60 to get a chance of a gun and Washington State. In d, it is over 200. Who are you stopping to get guns as a result of that . The current background check system is a mess. When president obama says that 200 2 Million People have been prevented from buying guns because of background checks, it is incorrect. He says there has been that means there are 2 million initial denials. Senator ted kennedy was stopped five times for being on the nofly list. I assume that is not five times we stopped a terrorist from flying. But that is how they are carrying counting it. It is one thing to say we stopped someone with a similar name from a felon and it is nothing to stop a felon. Over 99 of initial denials are false positives. Youre getting lawabiding citizens stopped. While it may be an inconvenience for most people, for a small but Significant Group of people who need a gun quickly form for self defense, you are preventing them from doing it. Host you believe there are people who are not allowed to own guns . How do you make sure that people are adequately prohibited . Guest everybody wants to stop certain people from getting guns. There is no doubt. The question is is what we are doing working . Who are we stopping as a result of this. There has been a lot of Research Done on background checks. Researchers have not found evidence that these checks have been reducing Violent Crimes. The overwhelming conclusion among economists and criminologists is that it is not preventing criminals from getting guns. I wish it was. If youre going to have it, at least fix the problems. The point of background checks should not be to prevent about 2 Million People, virtually all of them law abiding to get guns for protection. You force them to player to pay thousands of dollars in legal fees. It is not like you can reason under kennedy who can call the head of Homeland Security and get it fixed. They have to go through a costly Legal Process to get the gun. Who are you preventing from getting guns . Poor, lawabiding citizens who you are making a particular difficult for those individuals. Why are all these laws making it so we are disarming poor blacks in this country . Guest ed is from West Virginia, a gun owner. Caller good morning. It is a Security Model where you have a distributed threat, crime and such, it seems a distributed response at the point of the event would be a better way to run things. The question i have is, the alternative is to have police deal with some crime happening at a persons house. There is a delay. What is the error rate of wrongful Police Shootings this is wrongful selfdefense shootings . Guest you brought up a lot of different points in that. You look at surveys of police, the largest overwhelmingly, they agree with the basic point. About 80 of Police Officers think if you want to stop carnage and mass publics readings allow individuals to carry concealed permit handguns in those places. The reason is simple. Police are important, but they virtually always arrive on the crime scene after the crime has been committed. The question is how quickly you can get someone with a done there to the scene. We mentioned chicago. I can give you dozens of cases where Mass Shootings have been stopped by individual we have it on our website at crimere search. Org but what you have to ask yourself, since at least 1950, with just two exceptions every single one of the mass public shootings in the eyes its had taken place where guns are banned in the u. S. Has taken place where guns are banned. It is like coincidence. Last year, you have the Santa Barbara killer. If you read his 100 41 page manifesto, you find that he exquisitely talks about where to go and attack based on whether people can defend themselves with guns. In canada, the mass shooting in New Brunswick in june, he had comics on his facebook of gun free zones. With somebody telling a mass killer you cannot have a gun here, you cannot shoot me because it is against the law and the killer having a bubble over his head saying the guy is a more on. These killers are consciously thinking about whether they can kill a lot of people before they can get stopped. Host we have time for just a few callers. Next up is read from washington. Caller thank you for taking the call and thanks for cspan. A couple quick points. One is that i think, philosophically, it is hard to understand why people would think there is a First Amendment without the second memo on the left side. I carry a gun in Washington State and had an experience about six months ago where i was target shooting. Someone a purse in a car and tried to approach me. And then came back and a sneaky way through the woods to approach me. The point is i knew i would be robbed and possibly killed. But because i not only had guns on the scene but had a gun in my best and i made it known nothing happened. I am very much a Second Amendment person. I responsible. I am a target shooter by sport. But i would incorporate something it is not on the market, but hypothetically a camera with a microphone you could stick on your gun, so they would record what is going on. I support the Second Amendment and the nra. Host reid from washington. Our last call is james from new york. You are on the air. Caller hows everyone doing this morning . Guest fine, thanks. Caller it is funny. One i own guns, it was all about hunting and target practicing. The whole discussion this morning has been about defending yourself, being killed or killing someone else. America, compared to other countries, has a high propensity in wanting to kill each other. It is fascinating to me. My question is, Police Officers are trained to shoot at center mass. Why are they not trained to maim or wound . Is it because a dead person is worth less money in a lawsuit than a wounded person that survives . Is that why they unload their gun on center mass . Host your final thoughts, john lott. Guest again, a lot of points. The reason why Police Officers shoot at center mass is that it is hard to hit people when they are moving. You want to increase the probability that you will do something. You only fire when you really mean to hit somebody. To hit a limb that is moving is particularly difficult. Plus you do not want bullets flying around. If you hit somebody, hopefully the late bullet will not hit someone else. But his question about comparing across countries, the u. S. Does not have the highest homicide rate across developed countries. Beyond that, what you find is that countries that tend to have the highest gun ownership rights tend to have relatively lower homicide rates. You can go to crimere search. Org, i have the data for developed countries. Every country that has banned guns in the world has seen an increase in murder rates. The people from every town were not willing to go on with me right now to discuss these things. I think the audience would gain more from a giveandtake between where someone could make a claim and the other person could rebut that. I am disappointed because they continually refused to appear at the same time. Host we will hear from them next. John lott, president of the Crime Prevention Research Center, thank you for your time. As he mentioned, we will continue this discussion about americas shifting views on guns with ted alcorn from the Organization Everytown for gun safety. Later will speak with Colleen Eubanks of the national cha support Enforcement Association. In 2003, New York Times reporter Judith Miller wrote several stories on the lead up to the invasion of iraq. In an effort to reveal her source, she was found in contempt of court. On q a, she talks about her time in jail and her new book, the story a reporters journey. I was in jail because i refused to reveal the identity of a source who i thought did not want his identity revealed. In our business, as you know protect ring sources is the life line of independent journalism. I really felt that unless the people that i routinely spoke to who had access to classified information, unless they could trust me to protect them, my sources what dry up and then eventually i would write what the government wanted you to write. I felt this was a question of principle that i did not have much choice. Sunday night at 8 00 eastern and pacific on cspans q a. Washington journal continues. Host we are discussing americas shifting views on gun safety and gun rights. We continue our discussion with ted alcorn from the Organization Everytown for gun safety. He is the Research Director there. Thank you for being here. Guest thanks for having me. Host i will start with you the same way i set it with our previous guest, john lott who is in favor of expanding gun rights. That is with this Pew Research Center poll which shows that for the first time more americans say that protecting gun rights is more important than controlling gun ownership. You can see the chart says that the number of americans who support controlling gun ownership has fallen to 46 from 57 in the early 1990s, while the percentage of americans who believe it is important to protect the right of americans to own guns has increased from 40 to a majority today. Can you talk a little about what may be driving these views . Guest we have done a lot of pulling things ourselves we have done a lot of these polls are self and found the same thing. But the way this whole is construed misses the point. There is nothing mutually incompatible with gun rights and keeping guns out of the hands of dangerous criminals. The way this question is worded sets it up as a false dichotomy. You asked americans if they think we can preserve second american Second Amendment rights while keeping guns out of the hands of felons and he mentally ill, many agree that that is a possible and important thing for us to do. Host the poll also shows that americans who believe crime rates are rising are most likely to believe that expanding gun rights is important. Can you talk about the relationship between crime rates and gun ownership . Guest it is an unfortunate reality that gun violence, especially in america, though it has fallen since the 1990s, is still extremely high compared to other comparable nations across the world. Compared to a culturally similar country like the United Kingdom there are 40 times more gun homicides in the United States when controlling for the population. For the last 10 years though gun violence has been reduced sense the 1990s, there has been very little decline since then. Americans are rightly concerned about the rates of gun violence in this country. An increasing body of Research Suggests that strong laws, and forced effectively can keep guns out of the hands of dangerous people. When we look at the passage of laws across the country to prevent felons, domestic abusers , from buying guns and keep guns out of the situations, you see a lot of progress. Host can you describe what some of the strong laws are that your speaking of . What are the measures you feel should be put in place . Guest the Scientific Consensus says that the cornerstone when it comes to firearms is a strong background check system. It is a system that every lawabiding gun owners uses when they obtain a firearm to to run a quick, 92nd background check during the sale to make sure they are not one of those people barred from buying firearms as a result of their criminal history. This is an essential part of the gun safety issue. It has locked 2 million there is so there is also strong evidence that he being guns out of the hands of domestic abusers is important. It is for portion of amount of women who are harmed in the United States are killed with firearms by intimate partners. State laws that prevent these people from having these firearms associated with the reduction of gun violence. Those are couple of the Top Priorities or everytown. Host we will take your phone calls on this. We are switching the phone lines. Still divided by region. Call us at 202 7488000 if youre in the eastern or central time zones. Mountain and pacific time zones can call us at 202 7488001. If youre a gun owner, you can dial in at 202 7488002. You can find us on social media. We are on twitter at cspanwj facebook. Com cspan or send us an email at journal cspan. Org. Tracy is calling from fairfax, virginia. You are on the air. Caller my first, is i think it is quite telling that the people that are opposed to gun rights refuse to appear on screen with dr. Lott or with other economists or criminologists Whose Research has shown that expanding gun rights is strongly correlated with falling crime rates and with reductions in Violent Crime. I guess the question i would have is why is that . Why are those on that side of the issue so afraid of honest debate on screen, or at least on radio. Across the board, they refused to have any direct interaction with knowledgeable people. Host ted alcorn, your response. Guest one of the realities of today is we live in a moment when done right in the u. S. Have an unprecedented level of protection. The Supreme Court decision, the stream District Of Columbia vs. Heller, Justice Scalia endorsed the individual right to own a firearm and rightly pointed out there is nothing incompatible with expanded gun rights and the reasonable laws we have to keep guns out of the hands of dangerous people. Everytown is committed to an evidencebased approach. We speak with criminologists, legislators across the country. We welcome debate. We are thrilled that there is an increased amount of research and conversation in this area, about what laws are effect to to keep guns out of the hands of felons and domestic abusers. When there is a credible scientist, someone who wants to have a real, constructive conversation, we will be there. But folks who seek to minimize the issue of nonviolence, or to draw attention away from the real issues to themselves or that is not a conversation i think it is productive to be a part of. Host can you tells about everytown for gun safety . Guest everytown for gun safety is a movement of mayors, moms, and millions of americans committed to reducing gun violence in this country. We have worked in washington but also across the country, in states where information about gun violence, making this problem that are understood, and to disseminating solutions that Law Enforcement and mayors can be a part of to reduce gun violence in this country. To increase responsible gun practices by gun owners. Whether those host our next caller is rachel from texas. Rachel, you are on the air. Caller when george bush was governor of texas he got credit because he rubbed on crime. One of the ways he did it was they had like a gun round up. If you brought in a gun, you got paid for it. No one nra, no one ever commented on that. I noticed lately that when i watch the news, if there is a child that gets hold of a gun and it goes off, and if a child gets killed, i want to know if you have a percentage of how many people have been killed because parents havent gotten the gun away from the children. How many children have been killed . Host before you respond, the story from the hill in response to our callers question. The story says that gun owners would receive tax breaks for voluntarily turning an highpowered Assault Rifles under new legislation proposed monday. It provides up to 2000 in tax credits for gun owners who voluntarily hand over assault weapons to local Police Departments. Ted alcorn, your response to the caller. Guest what i hear you asking is what lawabiding gun owners and citizens can do to be a part of this. I think it is a great question. The practice you describe, a kind of Gun Buyback Program is something that cities do anticipate and frequently. Certainly, if firearms are left around and not being use, and because of the way they are stored there is risk of fast or unintended use risk of theft or unintended use, i begin make sense for money to be offered if they no longer want one. However, that does not impact guns on the criminal impact which is what were talking about when we say 88 americans are killed by guns every day. What percentage of child us are killed by improper storage, we have done some storage on this some research on this. Each separate incident is a tragedy. What was unfortunate was that two thirds of deaths of children involved a firearm that had not been stored, locked, and unloaded. The practice endorsed by the American Pediatrics Association and is something that we Hope Communities would rally around and lawabiding gun owners would rally around. Be smart is a peertopeer mentoring program that would train gun owners on how to share this message and ensure that guns are stored properly across the country. Host our next caller is done from las cruces, new mexico. Caller good morning. I want to began with my personal expense. I have been shot at three times. The first time at a summer camp around a campfire. The next time on a bicycle trip. The third time was in st. Louis missouri when our car was stalled and we were trying to get it out and inadvertently set off the car alarm of another car and a person came out of the house shooting. The second major experience was i worked at a major hospital. Most people dont understand that 60 of all gun deaths are suicide. I would like some people to visit those hospitals because one man i worked with, half of his face was blown off. When people talk about lawabiding gun owners, yes there are lawabiding gun owners, but they dont understand that there are also people out there who have psychological problems who have guns. Guest it is an unfortunate truth and one is surprising. There are more people in the United States that commit suicide with firearms each year than are killed and homicides with firearms. Certainly, there should be more attention given to how to make sure individuals who are in moments of depression or distress in some other way dont have easy access to firearms in those situations. I know california recently passed a measure that would allow friends and family members who note a person in distress are able to petition for a gun restraining order and ensure that temporarily they do not have access to a lethal means of ending their own life. Usually those moments of distress are passing. Research shows that if a firearm is not present, the person is much less likely to end their own life. Host a few comments from twitter. One person questions, why do people need our file rifles rather than a shotgun . Mike says, i understand democratic spheres of guns, but that doesnt give them the right to leave everybody loanable to criminals. Mike is on the line. Caller a couple of quick points. I had my own gun business. Have you ever got a hold of the atf and had them send you a copy of all the laws . If i got hit upside the head with the book, it would not be out. Secondly, statistics pulled this is progun or antigun, and makes the difference numbers can be manipulated. Finally, the picture you show i guess it is your website the back of a gentleman holding a rifle. Money says that the photo is staged. In missouri, we have open carry. I have never and i live in a room or yral area seen somebody with open carry. If you want up fire on, thats fine, that is your business. Do not deny me the right to protect me and my wife. She carries a firearm because she travels. Basically that is it. Thank you for taking my call. Guest that is a great series of points. Obviously, as a gun dealer, you are probably one of the 60,000 gun dealers in the United States and probably one of the best experts on how firearms should be sold and handled. The nice thing is what firearm dealers have been surveyed on this, they understand that criminals have easy access to firearms when they shouldnt, and they also understand the value of the background check system. The majority of gun dealers support a requirement that all gun sales be preceded by a background check. It is common sense. I also agree with your point on how statistics can lie. That is why it is important to really look at the hard facts especially when it comes to background checks. We have the example Washington State, where last year, they put the universal background check measure up to a vote. A vast majority of them supported, and therefore passed background checks for all gun sales. I think that speaks to how the population of americans feel that this issue. Host this column has the headline, has the nra one . Guncontrol advocatess have tried to use the horror that you exist in the wake of not shooting to catalyze the public into action around sensible gun restrictions. Rather than these tragedies because being a cause, gun ownership has bite. Guest these surveys of gun ownership have been taking place for four years. There is an estimated 3 million firearms in this country. Certainly, we have seen an increase in gun sales, which peaked especially in 2012, but surveys are consistent in showing a slight decline in firearm ownership and this time. And has to do with changing demographics, and reduced interest in hunting. We have a small group of americans who are hobbyists, but in many households there are actually fewer households today that have firearms then 30 years go. The other point that i think the New York Times misconstrues here is a false dichotomy between support for the right to lawabiding citizens have guns. The nra has done a great job ensuring that the gun rights of americans are protected. I dont see anything hugely incompatible with that, and the work that towns are doing to keep guns out of the hands of dangerous people. When it comes to where the policies are and where the policies are being argued, that is but we take a bit of issue with nra leadership, the positions they have staked out, which can be extreme. Supporting the rights of terrorists to buy firearms, is something that not every town can get behind, but the nra has fought to retain. I think that these successes that we have had in working with state capitals, from washington to oregon, which is on the cusp of passing a background check requirement, to rhode island which is considering legislation to make it difficult for domestic abusers to get firearms , and opposition we have seen in states like arkansas, to measures that would force firearms onto School Campuses that would those kinds of measures, i think, is something that we see as Real Progress in this area. Host next is dana in california. Caller im and avid antigun person. I can talk cap today about why i am such an antigun person. It is always to me that america hasnt such a guns. We live in a guncentric culture. It is going to take durations of people, several generations before guncontrol everett dominates the culture. I do what i can when i can. Buying up in Thrift Stores and stuff. I find tow guns and i take them and i throw them away. I break them and throw them away. I think that the key to changing the gun culture in america is to convince the Toy Companies to stop producing toy guns for children to play with. Host that was dana from chico california. Any thoughts . Guest what we look at the reasons why we have such a high rate of gun violence in this country, people do sometimes point to the role of the media, or in this case, toys. I think what you look across the whole world, the whole world watches american movies in american television. Yet, other countries dont have the same range of gun violence that we do. It is a reality, given the huge amount of firearms in the United States, that the vast majority are used by lawabiding citizens and not used in acts of violence, but for julie, we have a lot of science to help us understand the people who are at elevated risk of using firearms in that way. It squares likely due having a background check system to make sure those people arent able to buy firearms at the point of sale. Ensuring that guns do not fall into the dangerous hands of a few is something where i think we could see a lot of progress. I ask you to disregard a bit of your apathy on this issue, we will be seeing reductions in gun violence in the future. Host next up is michael, a gun owner from comanche, texas. Caller how are you today . Host good. Go ahead. Caller the man, i think he called in from missouri. The registered gun shop. He pretty much put out there everything away to say. I wanted to add a couple of things. We keep going over this at again and again. Reheat talking about it. It is in the constitution to be able to bear arms. It is for a reason that that was put in there. That never seems to be brought up about why we why the amendment is in the constitution. Is there for a purpose. Everybody needs to think about that. The people who want to call and talk about how bad guns are and everything just think about this, somebody could open the front door of your house in middle of the night, hit you in a head with the hatchet and do the same thing they could have done with a gun. Its not that guns are the problem, its the people. Some people should be allowed to v own guns, and other shouldnt. Host we will leave it there, we will get an one more caller and then hear from todd alcorn. Scott from michigan is on the line, he is also a gun owner. Can you make it quick . Caller yes. Good morning. As a representative for americans for gun safety, can use on media the four basic rules of Firearm Safety and and 10 seconds or less. Guest as a reminder, our priorities that would reduce the violence in america is background checks, ensuring that abusers can get guns through stronger state laws, and ensuring that americans can be educated with the about these safe storage of firearms. Host that is ted alcorn. He is a Research Director for his organization. Thank you so much for your time this morning. Ive next, we will be talking to Colleen Eubanks of the National Child support enforcement system. Later, we will have on usa today reporter, greg korte to talk about president obamas executive actions. This week on newsmakers we will talk to representative sherrod brown, an opponent of the fasttrack trade bill. Newsmakers will air at 10 00 and 6 00 on sunday. [video clip] my advice is that she needs to stand up to workers for workers, and how this agreement may lead china and the back door without a congressional vote. That is a problem. I hope she speaks out on currency because we do play by different rules than some of our competitors. I hope shes be out on how this is a shift of Corporate Power from democratically elected governments to multinational corporations. I urge everybodys to speak out on that, not just hillary. Let me ask you, how big of a deal is trade for you to give hurt your endorsement . I will answer of a silly and say that i am talking to her about trade, talking to her staff. I think im pretty sure that she voted against fasttrack. Im pretty sure she voted against captain, im not sure about that. I know she made a commitment to renegotiate nafta. I am hopeful that she is not far from my position. I cannot know for sure because i have not dateigged deep down on the issue. Host you have been talking to her . I have talked to her briefly. We have not had a conversation directly and great detail on trade. I talked to her only on trade and her 2008 race, her office was right across the hall from me. Secretary of state clinton did praise the transpacific bill that will come right away. Does i get the votes does that make it difficult for her . Washington journal continues. Host i guess now is calling eubanks. She is the executive director of the National Child support enforcement system. Thank you so much for being here. Tell me a little bit about your organization and how it works. Guest the National Childsupport Enforcement Association is our members are predominantly state agencies who managed childsupport throughout the United States. We also have members nationally that work on Family Support issues. We provide education and advocacy on capitol hill for the program. We educate the public as much as we can about the program, and provide training and information to people in the program, meeting directors caseworkers. Host walked us through how the Child Support system actually works. What is the process for determining which parent will pay Child Support, how much, etc. . Guest let me start by saying the program was of limited back in the late 1950s. It is a response the family obviously looks very different back then. It was traditionally a mother who stayed home and a father who went to work. The dynamic of the modern family is clearly different. The program is a vaulting to meet those changes. Basically the way the Program Works first of all anyone is entitled to Child Support services. They just need to their childsupport office. For example, a parent who has a child that is in the custody, it could be a mother or father, could go to the Child Support office and ask for a support order for the other parent to pay. Then parenthood is established. An order is calculated hopefully based on the noncustodial parents. Most states also take into account the custodial parents income. If a child is in a family that is receiving public assistance, they are required to have a Child Support order placed within the childsupport program. We call it the 4d program because it was set up by the 4d section of social security. Sorry. Host you mention that most states take into account someones actual income in determining the amount of Child Support that is required to pay. Not all states take that into account. Guest a lot of times the order will be set on minimum wage. States have some parameters and variety in terms of how they can set the order. It is really hard to go statebystate. In that sense it is very collocated program. Often it comes down to the individual state or county as far as how they dispute the income of both parents. Host this is always the has obviously been a big discussion because of the shooting death of walter scott in south carolina. Part of the reason he was running away from police when he was shot is because he was worried they would come after him for unpaid Child Support. What powers to the childsupport organizations have to make sure that childsupport is paid . Guest incarceration should be the last resort. Our organization does not think that parents should be incarcerated for Child Support. A parent cannot pay if theyre in prison, obviously. Incarceration is the last resort. There is drivers license suspension. The vast majority is paid through wages. Employers p play an important part in childsupport. A majority is paid through wage withholding. Suspending fishing license, jive is license, are other options. The threat will often bring in a parent to work out an arrangement. If a parent comes to work out and arrangement, often the department will work on it payment plan, i just the order according to the iadjust the order according to the circumstances. In south carolina, the a change has been requested so that a bench warrant is not issued. I understand that walter scott was incarcerated before for failure to pay Child Support. That also has to do with the judicial system in the state. The state has a lot of leeway on how they can conduct their program. Host we want to hear your thoughts. You can call this an on our phone lines. We are changing them up again for this segment. If you receive Child Support you can call about your experience at 202 7488000. If you pay Child Support, call us at 202 7488001. All others can call 202 7488002. You can also find us on twitter at cspanwj. On facebook, facebook. Com cspan. You can send us an email at journal cspan. Org. The New York Times published this just this week. The article says that the childsupport orders can at the outset exceed a parents ability to pay. When payments fall short the authorities escalate collection efforts and can withhold up to 65 of a paycheck, sees bank deposits, tax refunds, drivers license. Parents who are truly destitute go to jail over and over again for Child Support says a lawyer with the Southern Center for human rights. The article goes on to state that there is no National Account of how many parents are incarcerated for failure to pay Child Support. At the policies like whether a parent faces jail is given to poo courtappointed lawyers. Is this overblown . Do you find that agencies are really using this as a last resort . Guest i believe they are using it as a last resort. I do want to reiterate that we believe it should be rarely use. It is it should predominantly be used for parents who are unwilling to pay but able to pay. In other words there is evidence that they do have some assets or some income and should be paying Child Support. I would also like to point out that the office of Child Support, the federal office came out with a proposed rule back in november of last year. It was very lengthy comprehensive rule. It talked of some of these issues in particular. Highly discouraging the use of a reservat incarceration. Encouraging other programs that would help. And virginia, they set up a program. Virginia used to be a state that would send people to jail for not paying Child Support. What they are doing now is referring to the parents to a Case Management program who works on helping them overcome the barriers that prohibit them from paying support. States are moving towards that sort of thing. First of all, children to be supported by both their parents. We believe that. When parents are engaged in when parents are engaged in their childrens lives, the outcomes are better. It is unfortunate there are states that incarcerate parents for failure to pay Child Support. We believe it should be a rare situation for parents able to pay. Host our first color for the segment is wayne from harrisburg, pennsylvania. You say you pay Child Support. Caller i would like to say the main important thing is a job. If you dont have a job, how are you supposed to pay Child Support . And they can take your license from you. If they suspend your fishing license, i dont understand it. The job is the most important thing. Host are you able to meet your Child Support obligations . Caller yes, i am because i have a job. If you have a decent paying job, you will pay it. But i dont think you should lose your license. Guest losing your license is one of the last resorts or a tool to get the noncustodial parent into talk about how they can make their childsupport payments. A lot of states are developing programs. They work with fatherhood programs, job force training programs. We recognize it is impossible to pay if you dont have a job. Overcoming those barriers to paying support which include getting proper education appropriate training housing although sorts of things to help parents get a job so they can pay support is very important. It is a very important part of the program. Host kathy from new york is on the line. Go ahead. Caller good morning. I would like to approach a solution that possibly could work twofold from the previous caller or interviewee in that it seems to me we all want safety for our children. We all want them to be supported. But i dont understand why we cant institute a no gun buy and a no hunting license buy if you are in arrears for Child Support. If you have enough money to buy a new gun, if you have enough money to go hunting interesting fishing, you should be able to pay that money towards the children you have already created and are responsible for. Thank you. Guest i certainly cannot address the issue. States are different in terms of procedures for buying guns. Certainly, we are in support of not allowing hunting and fishing licenses as a tool to help collect support for parents. Host next up is arthur from east st. Louis illinois. You pay Child Support, is that correct . Caller yes, maam. I pay Child Support. Host what are your thoughts this morning . Caller the last caller indicated the right solution. If you can afford to buy guns, you should pay Child Support. In my case, my kids are emancipated. My kids are over 21. Under illinois law, they are not children. I should not be paying Child Support. They make more money than me per month. Host you are still paying Child Support for children over 21 . Caller absolutely. It is unacceptable. I have never heard of things like this in the state of illinois. When children reach the age of 21, they are held accountable. Guest usually, when h. R. Reaches the age of emancipation a Child Support order is no longer in effect unless you owe Child Support pistol needs to be collected the mesh unless use unless you still owe Child Support that needs to be collected predict if the judgment is passed childsupport, the debt is still there needs to be collected. If the child is emancipated and he was clear on his payments, he needs to go into the Child Support office and work with the caseworker to get that result. Certainly, if the caseworker refuses to open a case, there are ways to escalate those things until they get to the director of the program. Host the Congressional Research Service Together a few statistics recently about around who receives Child Support. Research showed 6. 3 million parents are eligible for Child Support payment. 74 received at least one payment. Only about one in five received the full amount. The Congressional Research Service Found the average amount of Child Support is 6,052 a month. The actual amount received is about half of that. Can you talk about these statistics . Guest i think that probably has something to do first of all, that is a wide range. Many of the parents have much smaller orders than that. That large amount is skewed by a few parents that oh i hire ow e a higher amount or have higher orders. In some cases, those are not set with the parents ability to pay. Part of the rules promulgated up regulations and guidelines for how to set those based on the ability of the parent to pay. There is a lot of controversy and information already about the minimum wage, which is not a living wage. Sometimes setting orders depending on the area, based on the minimum wage, might not be realistic. Host imputed an actual income, can you talk about the difference and how states consider that . Guest you have pay stubs from the parent, what they are making. Imputed income assumes what a parent could make at a minimum. Often, it is based on minimum wage. Most states calculate both parents sources of income when they are setting a Child Support order or imputed depending on the system. Families on public assistance obviously dont have a regular income other than the public assistance they are receiving. But again, it is assumed the program will help them over time find a way to pay that, help support them or referred them to nonprofit organizations or Partner Organizations that can help them to find a job and increase the income. The important thing is each case can be looked at on a casebycase basis. If a parent goes into the agency and shows they have been trying to find work, are in a jobtraining program a lot of times, the program will work with this people to right size the orders. Host the next caller is faye from belton, missouri. What are your thoughts this morning . Caller thank you for cspan. I wanted to talk about these men need to take responsibility and take care of their children because then you would not have a lot of them on food stamps. If they would have childsupport, there would not be a need for being on food stamps. Also with the welfare checks, if the men get a welfare check the men have to reimburse the state back and asked them for Child Support because they are accepting, the woman is excepting childsupport, i mean government aid. I think men need to take care of their children. If they really did, we would not have people being on food stamps and welfare. That is just how i feel. Take care of your kids men, and dont be a deadbeat. Host our next caller is lily from hollywood, florida. You say you pay Child Support. Caller my husband pays tell support. Pays Child Support to the exwife. I agree with my husband being responsible for his children. I have a problem with the fact i did work for the state of michigan. He pays to michigan. They have the most horrible Record Keeping of moneys paid. The balance my husband had on his Child Support in 1998 with him having payroll deduction, and i am not talking minimum either, he pays 200 or 300 biweekly. That balance has not gone down. We just received a notification last week that has had the same balance. Out of the past 17 years, he has had two times he missed payment. You cannot reach anybody. I agree fathers should be held accountable. But i also agree municipalities should be held responsible. There are a lot of men paying their money. They are not getting credit for the money they are paying. They are not getting what they should be getting. They are not getting due process. Guest that sounds like a very unfortunate case. Obviously, i dont know the details of every states system. But one of the results of the partnership with the federal government is there is money available for technological updates and fixes. A lot of states have been implementing those over the past few years or the past 10 or 15 years. I am not sure of the state of michigan in particular, their system. But i appreciate how frustrating that can be. You should be able to somehow contact the director of the michigan Child Support program and get that result. Host is there an issue with funding a childsupport agencies . Guest it depends on the state. Some states really find their programs. Others rely on the match that comes from the federal government to help fund the program. It is a statebystate basis. It is a very complicated program because it is managed the state. In states where it is also countyadministered like california, it is a hugely complex program. Host there was a Supreme Court case in 2011 that looked at this issue, out of the case that occurred in south carolina. The Supreme Court found people should not be jailed if they have a debt they cannot pay, a Child Support debt they cannot pay. Why does that decision not seem to be trickling down . Guest again, that is part of what is in the proposal making for the federal law that Child Support put out last member. Host the regulations have not caught up . Guest some of these regulations are 35 years old. 35 years ago, the world was an entirely different place. Technology was different. This is a very comprehensive set of rules to help make the program more efficient, more Customer Service oriented, and provide more familybased services. The regulations are trying to catch up with where the philosophy of the program is going. Regulations are strict, hard and fast and states are good about following them, so that is part of the bill. Host what is the timeline for states to incorporate them . Guest comments to the rule were submitted in late december or early january. We had a significant number of comments. Overall, we were supportive of the majority of the rulemaking. There were a few places we had issues with. We hear the office of Child Support enforcement had an overwhelming number of comments. Not just from the national association, obviously from parents groups, states, a variety of people. My understanding is they are probably combing through those now and will do the rulemaking based on the results of those comments. So we believe that process will work and help improve the program overall. Host tosha from jackson, mississippi, is calling. You receive Child Support, is that correct . Caller that is correct, and i do thank you for allowing me the opportunity to speak this morning. I just had a brief comment. The experience for me, separated, taking care of both my children fulltime is exhausting, very frustrating. The agency here is absolutely horrible. I feel sorry for all the mothers in mississippi that have to go through the system. People dont care. I have a court order. I have a court order the childrens father is not abided by from day one. We rarely see payment, very inconsistent. I have called multiple times letting them know he was under the table. I have hired private attorneys which i dont have money to pay for. I am a fulltime worker. He has a masters degree and is paying. I have called repeatedly, lets go back into court, lets get this resolved, lets see what is going on. I let them know everything. He is driving a sports car. Im driving a 13yearold car. Host we have to leave it there. Guest again, it is a statebystate basis. I know the mississippi Child Support program has undergone some changes in leadership over the past couple of years. I believe they are in the process of getting things in better order. Again, technological fixes that should be coming should help assist with some of those missed medications. Host armand from lakeland florida, is now calling. What do you think about all of this . Caller good morning. Im calling about a friend of mine. We travel around from place to place. He is a disabled veteran from years ago. Over the years, he has progressively gotten worse. He has lost his license for back Child Support, i guess. He does not know what his situation what he should do to get his license back. I guess he does not work much either. He rarely works, i guess. Just curious what he could do, when his situation, could you give me some ideas . Host the caller brings up a good point. Some of the enforcement penalties like losing a license can they be reinstated if someone becomes uptodate on their debt . Guest they dont even have to become uptodate. They just need to go in and work out a plan. A number of states will give a provisional license. We understand for a lot of jobs, you have to be able to drive. If you are a trucker, a delivery person, you need your license. Most states, most Child Support offices will work with parents to reinstate those licenses or provisionally reinstate them so they can work. In this case, he should go in and work with the Child Support office to work out a deal. I think people get afraid. They are afraid of going into a bureaucratic office. Sometimes that fear makes us reluctant to go and ask for help or figure something out or we have had a frustrating expense of the past and dont want to redo that. Like any other thing in life, they have to ask for help in understanding. The more likely they will end up in a better place. Host childsupport agencies have a lot of flexibility. Guest some state law may prohibit that. Federal law gives flexibility to. Host rachel from tennessee is calling. You pay Child Support . Caller yes. I have been paying Child Support for the last 19 years. I married a man older than me. He took advantage of me. Now i have my child back. I have had him back for the last five years. They are still taking money out of our checks. They are still taking my income tax. His dad has not have a has not had a job the last four years. Im trying to get Child Support because i am a mother of three and there is no help for me. Nobody can tell me how to approach this or nothing. Guest again i cannot talk about specific cases since i dont have that type of information. But this is clearly a case where it should be if you go into the Child Support office in the county you are in, they should be able to work that out with you and get all of the records. This caller brought up a great point i wanted to make, which is that 20 of the noncustodial parents to whom support is owed our fathers our fathers. There is a perception this is predominantly men who are not paying support or who are ordered to pay support. That is not necessarily the case. The program is childcentered. The point is to make sure the child or children is supported in some way whether by the mother or father, preferably by both parents. Host paul is calling. You say you receive Child Support . Caller right. I received one check. It was about 2004. After that, they said he lost contact. I never heard anything else and never received no more money. I took care of my children from way before that time, from when they were seven or eight until now they are grown and on their own. All of a sudden, yesterday, the 21st of april, i received a letter. The letter is from the clerk of the court in florida in st. Petersburg. It says we have been Holding Money on your account since 12to13. Its as money was returned its as money was returned from the last known address we had for the petitioner. Host have you tried to get the money . Caller yeah, i try to do that for five months ago. They said the account must have been closed. We dont see anything was issued , inactive for so long, they pushed me off. Why would you push me off but send a letter stating this . My other daughter kept telling me there is money out there owed to you for Child Support, daddy. They keep sending me a letter. That is when i contacted them. They told me we dont see an active account. Maybe the state t. V. 600 and the rest went to the state maybe the state paid you 600 and the rest went to the state. Host do you have a question . Caller how am i supposed to go about receiving this money . They can find me other times. When i got in trouble, they could finally to take me to jail, the state. Guest i think he is saying theres Child Support owed to him that the state just notified him. Again, i cannot talk about specific cases because i dont know the details. I would suggest in that case, if it were me, i would go to the court and say i got this letter. How do i access my money . Host r last caller for this segment is filled from centerville, massachusetts. You say you pay Child Support . Caller yes, i pay Child Support. When my daughter was born, for seven years, she has been double dipping. I was taking care of her, paying her every week. For seven years, she was collecting welfare and i was not aware of that until seven years later, obviously. They started garnishing my check. I decided not to be on board. In other words, work under the table because i did not want to pay that money back even though i had proof i was taking care of my kids, they still wanted me to pay that seven years of welfare. Also i have been working for the past 10 years on the table. And they started taking 50 of my pay. I went and got another job. They started taking 50 of that check as well. In the interim i had got custody of my two grandkids granddaughters that is seven and nine. They are still taking this money out. How am i supposed to support my grandkids at the same time trying to pay this back welfare stuff . Mind you they still want me to pay the stuff in arrears. Host we will have to leave it there. Last spots from Colleen Eubanks . Guest i think it is important people know the Child Support program is one of the most effective programs in the United States for helping to lift children out of poverty. One in four children in the United States is in the Child Support program. 34 billion a year is distributed to families from the program. It is a very effective federalstate partnership program. For every dollar in federal funds spent on the Child Support program, 5. 12 is distributed back to families so it is very effective. Host Colleen Eubanks, executive director at the National Child support Enforcement Association executive director, thank you for being here. Next, we will be speaking to Gregory Korte with his analysis of president obamas executive actions and how those are increasing in pace. [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2015] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] here are a few of the book festivals we will be covering. We will be annapolis hearing from authors. In the middle of may, we will revisit maryland for live coverage of the gaithersburg festival with former congressman tom davis and martin frost as well as david axelrod. We will close out may at book expo america in new york city where the Publishing Industry showcases upcoming books. The first week of june, we are live for the lit fest, including our threehour indepth program with the prizewinning author. That is this spring on book tv. Today is the 2015 White House Correspondents Association annual dinner. Watch our live coverage of the gala event on cspan starting at 6 00 p. M. With the guest arrivals on the red carpet. President obama will address the more than 2600 attendees in the ballroom. The 2015 White House Correspondents Association annual dinner today starting at 6 00 eastern on cspan. Washington journal continues. Host we are joined by Gregory Korte you, he is the White House Reporter for usa today. He will be speaking about president obamas use of executive actions. Start by walking us through exactly what is an executive action. Guest it is an umbrella term for all kinds of things the president can do without going through congress. It could entail his power to appoint people who work for him, his powers to do the kinds of things that president s do. They are most formally known as executive orders, president ial memoranda. Those are executive actions that get a lot of attention. Does have the force of law those have the force of law, sort of like a direct order from the president to the administration to do this. The way president obama uses the term can include all kinds of lesser actions, what i might call soft power. Things like issuing reports, convening meetings, and doing a lot of things the federal government does. Grants regulations, procedures guidelines. President obama uses executive action in the generic sense to convey he is taking action. He is not waiting for congress to send him a bill he can sign, but he is doing things within his authority while he waits for congress. Host what are the limits on the types of actions the president can take using these types of powers . Guest in theory, everything the president does through executive action has to be specifically a power he is granted by law either through the constitution which delineates the president s powers or by a specific fashion the congress as the president may or shall do this. In theory, those are the guidelines. The executive order is just one formal type of executive action. The law requires the outline when he issues the executive order, these are the constitutional and statutory provisions that allow me to do what i am about to do. Things like convening a meeting at the white house of stakeholders around Climate Change there is no law that allows or forbids it, but it is something the president can do and has traditionally done as convening power to bring people together to bring attention to an issue. Host what are some of the major executive orders the president has issued . Guest if you think about some of the more controversial things that have come up, certainly his executive actions on immigration have been very controversial. Posted not involve any executive orders boasted not involve any executive orders. There were two president ial memoranda, but most of those were lesser regulations that were done by the secretary of Homeland Security. That is one area. He had a number of executive actions with regards to gun safety after the sandy hook incident. Cuba opening to cuba is being done through executive action that loosen restrictions. Anything that implements a major law is done by some form of executive action. What president obama has done is he has used the term executive action as a political term to connote he is a president a strong president taking action. In some cases implementing congressional statutes, but a lot of times just not waiting for congress and doing things on his own. Host we want to hear what you think about the president s use of executive action during his term. You can call us. We are going back to traditional phone lines for this segment. Republicans can call us at 202 7370001. Democrats can call us at 202 7370002. We are on twitter. We are on facebook. You can send us an email. One of the most recent executive actions the president has issued came this week when president obama was in the everglades to talk about Climate Change. Here is a clip of what he said. [video clip] president obama today, i want to announce new actions to protect our lands in the communities that rely on them. We are releasing a report showing every dollar invested in the National Park service generates 10 for the economy. That is a good investment. [applause] i dont run a private equity fund. But i know if you invest a dollar and get 10 back, that is a good investment. In 2014, almost 300 million visitors to our National Parks spent almost 16 billion and supported 277,000 jobs. Protecting our parks is a smart thing to do for our economy. That is why i have set aside more public lands and waters than any other administration in history. [applause] in the everglades, we have already invested 2. 2 billion restoration efforts with the support of outstanding members of congress i have proposed another 240 million this year. We want to restore the natural water flow of the everglades, which we know is one of the best defenses against Climate Change and rising sea levels. I am calling on congress [applause] im calling on congress to fully fund the land and Water Conservation fund which supports this work across the country. Host that was president obama in the everglades speaking about Climate Change. On his latest roster of executive actions, we are joined by Gregory Korte, usa today White House Reporter. You mentioned he is seeking a pen and phone strategy. Guest that is a phrase president obama claimed coined to talk about how he uses executive actions. A pen, he will sign an executive order, a memorandum. It is a more formal use of president ial power. The phone is taking advantage of his convening authority, his ability to bring people together to call up c. E. O. s governors, mayors, other registered people and get them in the room together to control cajole, persuade them to take action. One thing we have seen with president obama over the past year or so that has happened quietly is that many of his major initiatives he has been unable to get through congress, raising the minimum wage for example, he has been able to get states, counties, and municipalities to take action on a local level. Not everybody lives in a city like San Francisco or albuquerque or st. Paul, minnesota, that have taken these actions. But it does help the president to go around congress again and get the private sector or state and local sector to accomplish the kind of policy aims he cannot do nationally because that would require the vote of congress. Host lets turn to the phone lines. The first caller is dave from california on the republican line. Go ahead. Caller the first words of the constitution are these. All legislative powers granted shall be vested in a congress of the United States which shall consist of a senate and house of representatives. All legislative powers vested in congress means only congress has the Constitutional Authority to make or change federal law. And yet how many times has this president made unilateral changes to the Affordable Care act . As a matter of fact, the executive orders issued regarding immigration was a declaration he is simply not going to enforce our immigration law. So how is this president not violating the constitution . Guest article one of the constitution does give congress the legislative power. Article two gives the president the power to faithfully execute those laws. The debate we are having now on all of these different policy areas is about where those lines of demarcation are, how much leeway the president has to enforce the Affordable Care at ct or immigration laws. In the case of the Affordable Care act which did not necessarily involve an executive order or highlevel executive action, the department of health and Human Services decided to delay the corporate mandate that corporations provide Health Insurance for employees. That, a lot of people think is problematic. We are in this legal quagmire with that because no one has standing to bring that lawsuit and determine what the president did refusing to enforce that part of the Affordable Care act is illegal or unconstitutional. You also mentioned the executive order on immigration. There was no executive order on immigration. That was done through a number of other kinds of executive action. There we get into a couple of issues. One is an issue of prosecutorial discretion. The president says i cannot deport everybody. There are 11 million Illegal Immigrants in the United States. We cannot deport them all so we are going to have to pick and choose who our highpriority cases are. The argument is it is not unlike your local Police Department that cannot pull over everybody for speeding, so they stick out school zones and high accident areas and places where Traffic Enforcement would lead to Greater Public safety. The argument the Obama Administration is making is that is what they are doing. There are also a number of other executive actions the president took last number but with regard to immigration that may be more problematic. Those involve granting work permits to certain categories of people who are undocumented immigrants. That might be more legally problematic and something being litigated in the federal courts right now. Host sue is calling on the democratic line. Go ahead. Caller i would just like to say the shenanigans president obama he has been very careless taking things into his own hands. It is because im day one day one republicans handed to him all the permission he needed to do what he is doing by recognizing him as a muslim, as a foreignborn. Actually, people like some guy from gambling background to come and say he demanded to see his birth certificate and things like that. They showed they had nothing to help the citizen of this country. And the president had to do some things that even though he wanted to do it the right way he had to do something. The things he has done, although it is half, i dont want to use the word a a 22. Host that was sue calling from kansas. What kind of charges have been from republicans against some of the moves the president has made . Guest the most highprofile action they have taken recently has been in the attempt to defund the department of Homeland Security and effort to try to get president obama to not follow through on his executive actions on immigration. That was unsuccessful. One of the reasons is because congress was complaining the president is not adequately enforcing the law. He cant adequately enforce the law if you dont find the department of Homeland Security to allow him to execute enforce the law. It became this all or nothing scenario. Those are the kinds of tactics. Its very difficult. One of the advantages the president has with executive actions and why they are so powerful is congress has what political scientists call i cant remember what they call it. The president obama but president obama is a unitary action in congress has a collective problem. You have 535 members of congress all with their own agendas. It is difficult to get a Critical Mass together in the house and senate and send the bill to the president to get him to sign it. It is easier for the president with the stroke of a pen to do something because he does not have to consult with anybody. The does not need permission to take actions where he already has Legal Authority to do it. Host how does president obamas use of effective action compared to previous president s . Guest that is difficult to measure and the jury is still out on that. The white house will say if you look at the number of executive orders he has signed, it is less than any president since harry truman. Host we have a screenshot of some of the numbers of executive orders announced by twoterm president s. Richard nixon had 346. Ronald reagan with 381. Barack obama with 205. Guest that is one measure. Those numbers do not include a form of president action called the president ial memorandum. The president ial memorandum is an executive order by another name. It does not get the same attention. They are not numbered like executive orders, but they are published in the federal register. They have the force of law and they can be quite sweeping. President obama used two president ial memoranda to implement his immigration executive actions. There were no executive orders with that. There are different forms of executive actions. Some are very limited in scope. President obama takes executive actions to give federal employees the day after christmas off, for example. There are others that have wide sweeping powers that affect everybody. It is very difficult to compare apples to apples. But if you combine executive orders and president of memoranda, you find president obama is at least as active if not more than any other modern president. Host larry is calling on the republican line. Caller good morning. President obama stated at the state of the union with the swipe of a pen he would circumvent congress, which is the legislative branch to checkmate the executive branch. He has authorization from 2012, the National Defense authorization act where hes a dictator, which he is, and hes going to declare. He is purging the generals and admirals purchased 200 billion hollow points to use on the american people. He is a dictator and is going to declare martial law so get ready for it. Host that was larry. Thoughts . Guest we have seen this in my mind for the last three president s. For me, it started with president clinton. Other people say it goes back longer than that. I remember at the height of the lewinsky affair i guess it is back before that to the whitewater scandal. The president became a polarizing figure. The was nothing the president could do that would satisfy those in the opposing party. President bush, same thing happened. Any executive order he took was immediately suspect to democrats. Now we are back with the democratic president. I am sure the next president their use of executive power will be similarly controversial. A lot of these people worked themselves into a lather over the idea of executive action. As my story pointed out, many of these are the low level bureaucratic things the federal government has always done, and it is just being packaged differently. One thing president obama has captured on is the idea of executive action as a rhetorical tool. I think that is what has politicized some of these things. It is not what hes doing. It is how he is communicating that and using it as a Political Tool to emphasize he is going around congress. Host there is also an evolution from the way he spoke about these types of powers at the beginning of his presidency, right . Guest absolutely. When he was campaigning for president , you would have thought he believed in limited president ial power and the supremacy of congress. I think it was dave, one of your callers before, who resided the first words of the constitution that commerce has these powers to make laws. This is what happens with all president s. They get elected and become institutionalist. They begin to believe in the powers of the presidency. They begin to see the limitations of our divided government. President obama was a legislative president in his first two years when he had a democratic congress. He believed in the power of congressman congress agreed with him. He did not use the term executive action for the first three years of his presidency. It was not until he lost congress and was unable to get the grand bargain with john boehner over federal spending in 2011 october 2011 he first under the words executive action. Since then, he has gradually become the executive action president. Host kim from West Virginia is calling on the independent line. Are you there . You are on the air. Kim . Are you there . Caller yes. Host what are your thoughts this morning . Caller i wanted to ask him about this. When he came in, he told them dont check the immigration people records. I wondered if there was any law before and he stopped the immigration things. I wondered if that was a law or what. There was not a lot already, and he stopped immigration clearly. Even bad people still live in this country. Guest i did not completely understand that question. I know she was talking about immigration. One thing you will hear republicans, especially in the house, point out, Speaker Boehner weights this out every time he gets the chance is there was a time of president obama talked about executive action with regards to immigration and said i cannot do anything. My hands are tied, the law says there is nothing i can do. At some point, had a change of heart and decided after consulting with lawyers in the administration that he did have options available to take executive action on immigration. That is an example of how president obamas view of executive action seems to have evolved over time, partly in response to what the political realities are. Host cynthia from new kingston jamaica, is calling now. Go ahead. Caller there are two things i would like to know. The president s talk is about infringement on Property Rights of our cable system. We were told old jamaica yesterday got free [indiscernible] to show us what he said. There was a station that is regular. There is a station exclusively for viewing in america, not for outside. I have lived other places in the world where they do not recognize. They just have an antenna. Cuba has a feed that can get to us. The cuba feed is in spanish. There is the next thing i have personally. My people come from different places and come to the United States. They left so many things bad in the country they are coming from. They arrived in the United States. They are democrats or whatever and want to change everything around to suit where they were coming from instead of trying to just live, work, stop having so many children, and get a better place to live. White people are not going to get up and die to suit let people white people. Host we have to leave it there. Thoughts . Guest i got nothing. Host we will move on to paul on the independent line. Caller like i told your screener, i am a registered democrat. I stopped voting democrat when nancy pelosi to control took control. I now vote for independents or normal, intelligent democrats. President obama was president. Andy stern was working on health care. The media ask andy stern about the people wanting obamas agenda. Andy stern told the media they will use the power of persuasion. If that does not work, we will persuade them with power. Every since then, that is what has been done. Obama has signed all these executive actions and they had never cost this country more than they are now. No other president has signed that many that cost all these jobs like obama has done. As far as your comment about Homeland Security . Homeland security was completely funded except for the addition of the building and new employees to do all the paperwork for these illegals. One last thing. This president has been the most divisive president or politician this country has ever seen. You can see it by the way he talks and the way he gets things to certain people gives thanks to certain people and from others takes from others. And i am not talking about rich and poor. Guest this is part of the history we will look at years from now. I am not sure president obama is the most divisive president. He may be president during a divisive time in our history. We are just after the 150th anniversary of president lincolns assassination so you really cannot make an argument that would be persuasive to me that president obama is any less divisive than president lincoln who was one of the greatest residents we have had. I think theres something to be said for this connection between executive action and power of persuasion. I do think president obama does use executive action as a persuasive tool. We have seen executive actions increasing over the past couple of years. In one area where they have increased is on Climate Change. It seems almost every week, we have a package of executive actions rolled out the the white house to take a few more actions, maybe a dozen at a time, on the issue of Climate Change. Many are very lowlevel actions. We had a clip before of the kinds of things president obama announced at the everglades this week. They were things like just releasing a report, the president ial proclamation on the value of National Parks some grant funds to improve federal parts. Those are relatively low level and noncontroversial. Many are noncontroversial because they do not implicate constitutional prerogatives of the president or congress. But they do keep the issue of Climate Change in the news from week to week and that is something i think will continue over the next year and a half or however much time president obama has left in his presidency. Host you raise an interesting point. If these movements are low level, why does the president need to step in to make it happen . Guest he does not as a matter of fact. Many are things the e. P. A. Or whatever federal department may do anyway. But what the white house does is it packages these lowerlevel actions together, calls them executive actions, but the number in front of them and says today we are taking a executive actions. They are usually across the government. The eight executive actions he announced this week on Climate Change involved seven different departments and agencies. Most of the National Park service, but there were others the u. S. Geological survey department of congress the white house, the e. P. A. , department of the interior. Brings them together, packages them, and having the announcement coming from the white house gives them much bigger visibility than if a lesserknown federal agency does them. Sometimes what we see with executive actions is agencies will call the white house and say this is something we want to do. We want visibility. If we put out a press release from the u. S. Geological survey nobody will pay attention. If the president will do it in a speech in the everglades, you have every reporter paying attention. It is on the networks. You will show it on washington journal and now we are talking about what the federal government is doing to address Climate Change in a way we would not because it is the president of the United States talking. Host our next caller is james from louisiana on the independent line. Caller good morning. How you doing . I hear you guys talking. Thank you for the opportunity, by the way. I hear you guys talking. Obama is one of the best president s. Republicans dont understand that. Obamas legacy is being the black president. That is his legacy. It is not to this or that country. His legacy is as the black president. People dont understand that. George bush messed everything up. Host our next caller is ray from syracuse, new york, on the republican line. Go ahead. What are your thoughts this morning . Ray is gone. We are hearing from janine from columbia missouri, on the independent line. What are your thoughts on president obamas use of executive actions . Caller this is the United States of america. We are United States citizens. I dont care if it is democrats or republicans. United states citizens need to quit wagging their tongues on everybody. They are just wagging and wagging. We have all these people coming from Different Countries laughing at us because we are not united the way we need to be. Wait until you get a real dictator and see what you think about that . Host what are your thoughts on executive actions . Caller obamas executive action is he is the United States president. If it is not illegal what he is doing, if he is entitled to do that, why are we complaining . Who stood up to take action like he did . Any man who would stand up as the United States president who would go in the president s office and take action, who would have the initiative to lead a country . Why is everybody else having an opinion . I dont care who it is. You should not be speaking against our president. Host we will leave it there. A related question on twitter. Guest that case is moving through the courts quickly. I will be honest with you. I have not followed the recent developments in that case. The argument being made by a number of states, including texas, is they are damaged and injured by the executive actions on immigration. One of the more persuasive actions arguments the judge found is taxes and have to grant drivers licenses to undocumented immigrants under some executive actions. They would have to recognize the immigration status of these newly normalized undocumented immigrants and grant them drivers licenses at a significant cost to the state of texas. The Obama Administration says it is within their authority. This goes to the argument of prosecutorial discretion. They cannot report everybody, so they will focus deportation resources. It takes an incredible amount of due process to deport somebody. You have to give them a hearing. First of all, you have to round them up and hold them somewhere. Then you have to have hearings. Then you have to give them court rights and then deport them. You cannot do that with 11 Million People simultaneously. The argument is we will use our prosecutorial discretion to focus on those that most need to be deported, people who committed crimes, people who are dangerous. More recent arrivals perhaps. That is the argument. It comes down to a fundamental what does it mean to faithfully execute the laws . And at what point in your interpretation of those laws do you argue significant we changing the law . Significantly changing the law . Those are legal arguments i am not able to fully address. Host we have time for one more caller. That will be cora from San Bernardino california. You have the final question this morning. Caller good morning. I was calling in because mr. Gregory is getting on my nerves because he is talking what he dont know. Im telling you something. Dont cut me off because that is what you have been doing all morning. You guys got to get over this. He is the president of the United States. He was elected twice. The first night he was being sworn in, Newt Gingrich and six more people went down the hotel from where he was getting sworn in and said they would do everything they could to keep him from being a success. That is treason against the United States. I dont think that should have happened. This man had to do something to bring this country back because george bush left it in such bad shape that we all would die. We were under the water. He had to bring us back through. Yall should not be getting on the t. V. Saying the things you are saying about this man. Host that is cora from california. Your final thoughts, Gregory Korte . Guest the previous caller and cora raises a similar point. The previous caller refer to it as tongue wagging about president obamas executive actions. There is a long action of time writing going back to the washington administration. There were people who called George Washington a traitor. We will continue to have these debates no matter who the president is, democratic, republican, black or white, male or female. We will continue these debates. They are part of living in a democracy and Constitutional Republic like we are