Transcripts For CSPAN Washington This Week 20140202

Look what has happened to those lines. When they finally found out what it really means when the government runs our health care, look at this. Of the just the estimate cost of the slop over 10 years. This is what has been happening it. Weed until it goes into effect. I thought this would be useful to you. If anybody wants the slide presentation, im happy to send it. Give me your card afterwards there is apparently a book signing later on. I have copies of our book, why obamacare is wrong for america. So many things we predicted are happening. They estimate, the average cost of a policy in the Obamacare Exchange will be 14,000 a year for a family of four. Make,erage subsidy if you 150 of poverty, you make a its a huge subsidy, 10,000 a year to 12,000 a year. This is new spending. It goes up. The red is how much taxpayer funds for that insurance. The blue is how much the individual pays. Four out ofjority, five of the policies being sold, is subsidized coverage. No surprise. It is terrible coverage to boot. For thousand dollar deductibles on top of 3000 or 4000 in premiums . Every time you go to the doctor, you have to pay 45 or 65 for a specialist . This is the vest the government can do best the government can do. Even with subsidies. Look what happens with the young men. This is how much we expect them to pay. The red line is young man. Men. 60 more. That is on average. Some young men in some places more. Lay 200 to 300 they are not buying it. Is that a surprise . No. It is a prize to you you are surprised. I wrote these for national review. 10 projections for 2014. Everything we have said so far has come to pass. Evenpeople will not pay, though 2 Million People have signed up. A lot of them will not pay. Some of them cant. Others are just going to say, here is my premium . 1100 a month . Ive to pay that for the rest of my life . I have to pay that for the rest of my life . Im not going to keep paying that. Thers are stopping paying it, say they cant afford especially with a 4000 deductible. A new story in the wall street journal. Mckinsey and company says only 11 in the survey of people who have signed up for obama Care Insurance were previously uninsured. It just makes me. Furious. They have turned the system up down. Thrown people out. In order to be able to provide Health Insurance for a few Million People that we could have provided coverage for much more sensibly and directly. And less expensively. We will get even further from the goal of universal coverage. That is what members of Congress Told me. I had to watch it to the bitter end. Finallye people saying, we are getting the goal of universal coverage. We will be further from that. When you have tens of millions of people in Small Businesses, about to lose their coverage, and people that have coverage had coverage and will lose it, will have more uninsured. Sured juste uni wont enroll. There will be more sick and older people. Tens of millions will lose their Small Business coverage. Most of the newly uninsured will be on medicaid. We can talk a little bit about that. The court cases will continue. There are serious challenges to this law, and i think we are going to win some of these and they will throw monkeywrench into this. Wellverybody keeps saying, the republicans have to get together around one bill. Let me tell you. The republicans do not and should not have a better idea of 0 pages ofite 280 new legislation. And still leaves 30 million 30 Million People uninsured. We dont have a better idea. If we have a bill, the democrats would go into it and find something that was difficult and apaar it apart. Terror it say that ispend wrong. We need to get together around a vision. Lets let the people understand where we would take the system. People that believe in freedom, competition, we want more choices. Write that down. Send me an email. We want more choices of affordable coverage any free in a free, competitive market. Plus straightforward guarantees that you can pick your own land andospital your own plan hospital. I work with my policy colleagues, i basically dont sleep and neither do they. We have been fighting this thing everyday nonstop, seven days a week, for the last four years to help the American People understand what is in it. We read it. Thats why we could write this book. We knew what was coming. We are not surprised. We also know we have to have better ideas. We have those ideas. Affordableved choices. We have the policy underneath. We have to go about this in a smarter way. To help the American People understand we really care about solving this problem. Tens of millions of people are losing their insurance. We have had a virtual earthquake in our Health Sector over the past four years as companies, following the law, have no choice but to make major changes. We have to help people and talk to the young mother. She can pick her own plan and doctors. Ideas about how to change the sector in order to help you. Affordable catastrophic coverage is all he needs. If he is a motorcycle accident. Lets get him achieve policy. We can a cheap policy. We can do that. Smallbusiness owner who wants to provide insurance, but cannot afford it. Not if she has to comply with mandate and rules and regulations that make it so expensive. She wants to provide that coverage. She needs flex ability. Somebody with a chronic or serious illness, we are a compassionate entry. We want to help you. We can do it without bankrupting saddling future generations with chileans of dollars of debts with trillions of dollars of debt. Follow me at twitter. And on facebook. Send me a note. I have some copies of the book. My staff makes me sell them. 10. I will be at the book signing. I have more material, including the one pager four talking points on what we should do instead. Thank you all very much. We are going to win this. Thank you. [applause] thank you so much. You taught us a lot today. We appreciate it. I would like to introduce our next speaker, a gentleman from beaverdam, virginia. I met him when driving through the area. He is doing something that i would love to see people doing here in south carolina. And actually all over this country. He has a great idea and i would like to introduce bob who is with the Patrick Henry tea party inverdam, and virginia beaverdam, virginia. For thek you sacrifices you made to help save our country. We are at a critical mass. Wasnt too long ago that we need to make the tea parties bigger and stronger and better. That is what i am here about today. I have a concept i think you could all endorse and get behind. I had to get down here. I am more comfortable kneeling amongst the people. There is a rumor that this is an angry mob. Is that true . I need that clicker. I got obamacare, dont worry. [laughter] im getting go off kilter here a little bit. Your first question should be, how many do we have . , i lost count myself. We have hundreds of locations and signs. If they didnt work, we would not be doing them. Here is your first sign. The Clint Eastwood sign. I hope you can see it. I will you do the reading. I need some speed readers to help me get through this faster. Re. Mounted a chair on the that was one of the most popular science. Signs. Here is another. I wanted to point out a couple of things on the sign. Notice the flag. We misspelled government. Couldnt finish it on one line. We topped it off by making it cockeyed. Phone call from a woman thesaid, what a shame for tea party because you dont know how to spell government. [laughter] these were made by hand with stencils in paint and the paint. We realize supply would never meet thedemand . The next ones are commercial signs to read you will see an improvement. Got that off of fox news. This is true. I dont make this up. 50 of christians and also hunters do not vote. I know thats not you. The most important thing on se signs are the message which has to be wellcrafted. And the connector. Europe yorkie party name or telephone number or both. We have been called racist. Atheist. Terrorist. None of it is true. This addresses the religion part. You can deny all the issues. Rules of engagement. Spell t. Gun, it does ill be darned. The goal is to become memorable. If you make somebody smile or think, it becomes memorable and they will contact you. To bill oreilly and the keep it simple stupid printable. Principle,. I dont know if you can see that. Is the absent of absence of arbitrary government interference. Thats so simple. It doesnt take rocket science. Drivers, there are two causes we promote. Obamacare. To to midall politicians terms, one in office and one in prison or community service. That 80 or 90 of signatures came from your signs. That is amazing. Tell me the signs dont work. Look out for this one. I want you to notice that they are all in cahoots because they are sitting on their butts. It is rather cartoonish. There is no end to what you can put on the bottom. Your planning commission, your board of supervisors coming or legislators. Leadership and the irs. I will have these to sell at a price. Ice you know what is coming here. If you are a veteran, raise your hand. Thank you. [applause] the next three signs are silent. I hope you can read them. Some gave all. Think you u. S. Vets. [applause] this is the last one. This one is not finished. Left to die, but to suffer. Left to suffer. Signs that tell a story four signs that tell a story. Thet my phone number on re. We call them liberty lawyers. A girl who is now a Vice President of the young republicans. That is wonderful sign. A woman said, i believe your signs are racist. Said, read that sign and tell me who authored it. It shut her down completely. Because you have been misinformed doesnt mean you cant be properly educated today. That is my phone number again. Calls. 00 phone the Founding Fathers plus one. Henry,nklin, Patrick Thomas jefferson, james adams. There is your plus one. It increases return on investment. Raises donations. People made contact. 59 in 2013. These are people who volunteer and will do things for you. I hardly ask for money. Take a breath here. Ad to commitm commitment from you to do this. I will give you a dvd of 65 signs. A pdf on crafting and creating. A picture portfolio when you can go door to door. The first two people who order the signs to bring you and help install them. One. Is the last the only medium that delivers the truth directly to the uninformed and misinformed. Thank you for your time, and god bless america. [applause] newsmakers,eekends debbie is our guest. She is the chair of the agriculture committee. She talks about the farm bill working its way through congress, as well some of the other issues that are likely to be addressed by lawmakers. He is a here is a preview. We will be in a situation be unable to pay our bills. We have to make sure the bills we have committed to our paid. Family isin our responsible. We need to do that as a country. We have to make sure we are paying our bills. No negotiating with republicans. You cant negotiate on paying your bills. Is our responsibility to pay the bills. Could you tolerate some offsets . We dont negotiate about paying our bills. You can watch more of the interview tomorrow when newsmakers airs at 10 a. M. On cspan. In montpelier, we have been able to establish that samuel mcallen was on the property. Leeowing gettysburg, brought his army and retreated to the south. He came into Orange County. He went to Winter Quarters here in Orange County with montpelier beam them up and being the westernmost extent. Based on statistics from out of six five casualties occurred in cap. From poor nutrition. 300 to 300 men 350 men living in close proximity. If one person gets sick, the sickness spread quickly. Life and death at the 1864 Confederate Army headquarters. Part of American History tv on cspan three. Next, a debate hosted by Stanford University on gun policy. The oneonone debate is between stanford law professor and attorney john donohue, who spoke on the side of gun laws, and a civil rights lawyer who spoke on the side of gun rights. This is about 1. 5 hours. Am i on . Welcome everybody. Nice to see you here. My name is charles. I am the dean of continuing shorties studies. It is my pleasure to moderate s around, guns and moderate this program called guns in america one year after sandy hook. It is little more than a year lanza shott adam his way into the school in sandy hook, netiquette. Connecticut. Some of us are aware that just ao days ago, in new mexico, 12yearold boy, a middle withler injured his school a shotgun in a gym bag and injured a 13yearold girl. Are recovering. In the year since sandy hook, gun bills have been introduced into legislatures in nearly every state. A little over 100 have actually been impacted. Enacted. Nearly 70 amplified gun rights. Only 39 laws actually increased in control and safety gun control and safety. The u. S. Has the highest number of guns per capita, 88 per hundred. 2013 saw the same number of deaths by gunshots as in the previous years, around 30,000. Here we are year after sandy hook still talking. Petitioningg and lobbying. In trying to craft legislation and policy that will protect our safety and freedom. Tonight, we will pursue this conversation in a date format. Debate format. Speaking in favor of speaking in favor of an increased gun safety and gun control legislation is john donohue, the edith m carl smith professor of law at stanford law school. Speaking in favor of gun owners rights and the Second Amendment is don kilmer, an attorney in private practice in san jose. They will each make an opening presentation of about 10 minutes. John will go first. These will be followed by six prepared questions that will be debated, these were selected from those those proposed and from which we selected six questions. Each will be given four minutes to respond to questions and we will alternate. We will finish with 20 minutes of questioning from you in the audience. You probably all noticed that in your programs you have the index card, and you probably suspect what that is for. Write a question and pass it to the aisle, and those cards will be picked up by our volunteers and graduate students and they will be circulating through the audience and brought up to branislav yakovic who will read through them and give me a select number that we should get through in 20 minutes. We will finish by 9 00. I hope you stay for each act of this presentation. Before we begin i would like to recognize branislav. He is the spirit and Energy Behind tonights program. And without his assistance we would not be here. Thank you very much. [applause] without further ado, i will begin with john donohue and his opening presentation. Thank you very much. I have the pleasure to be here and i am glad i was the safety person and not the violence and death supporter. Let me start by saying, conservative republicans used to think that there was no private right to guns. This is griswold appointed by president nixon, who said the constitution was a barrier to reasonable gun laws and exceeds the principled dvocacy chief Justice Warren burger, an extremely conservative judge of his time, wrote just last month, a columnist, a longtime columnist stated what must be a core principle, that reasonable regulations are essential for all Constitutional Rights including the right to bear arms. This is an absolute essential truth and he was quickly fired for saying that. The debate over gun policy in america is so dominated by extreme voices that even a Second Amendment fundamentalist who always keeps a gun by his side is ostracized by the gun community. We are locked in a struggle with powerful forces in this country, that will do anything to destroy the Second Amendment. Says the former editor of guns and ammo. The time for rational points is gone, and this is largely reflected by the opposition there is no room for rational discourse on these subjects. Lets hear more from the former guns and ammo editor, who describes the special nature we have a heckler manufacturing a series of weapons, that highquality body armor has ended machine guns and effective. This was described as an Assault Rifle damaging tissue as it penetrates the body armor, causing more damage. In 2012, the editor of recoil magazine wrote that this weapon was designed for Law Enforcement and was unavailable to civilians and for good reason. He was pressured to step down and despite profuse apologies for having made that horrible misstatement. What enemy of the Second Amendment says, we believe in no tolerance no guns in american schools, with the rare exception of Law Enforcement or security personnel. Is that barack obama after newtown . That was actually Wayne Lapierre after the columbine shootings. If someone makes those statements now, they are described as constitutional terrorists. We think it is mandatory to have background checks for every sale at gun shows. Is that president barack obama . That was an nra advertisement taken out after the columbine massacre. But the nra today stands against universal background checks. Overwhelming numbers after the newtown shooting and regrettably we did not get that. If you say today with the nra was saying in 1999, that this is a dangerous threat to the constitution the bad news is that there is no easy solution to the problem of gun violence. It is similar to the problem of illegal drugs, the social costs are high but there are people who value them highly. If you start with guns in circulation it is very hard to come up with controls that will work effectively if you were starting from scratch. And even if you know what quirks, it is hard to get an emblem hard to implement this. There are some good ones, i like to be optimistic. The gun merchants are not as bad as the debacle companies tobacco companies. In terms of life lost. Most of the guns buffer protection never cause any harm or benefit, they will just sit there. Most accidental firing simply bounce off of the wall. If you are following last week in frankfort, kentucky, just before the state of the state address, the governor was cleaning her gun and fired a bullet that ricocheted, thankfully not hitting any representatives in the room. She laughed about it, she thought, i was totally clear. Here are the numbers. We lose 851 people through firearm accidents, close to 20,000 from firearm suicide, close to 11,000 by homicide. 100,000 killed and half a million gun crimes of violence each year. In terms of the total number of deaths, if you aggregate them from 1965, about 750,000 were homicides, accidents that were more than the combined deaths, more than all of the combined wars of the 20th century. It is not Tobacco Company numbers, but still, obviously too high. Trying to deal with a lack of information is always a problem and of course the nra has used its influence to try to suppress information collected by the center for Disease Control so we dont know as much as we would like to know. And the nra is constantly putting out inaccurate information to give one the sense of several reports on gun ownership around the world. Clearly refute the assumption that the abundance of guns in the United States leads to homicides. When it comes to firearm homicides, the u. S. Does not even make the top 25. It sounds like guns really help. Among affluent nations we are a total outlier with homicidal violence. There is little doubt that the massive level of guns and u. S. Gun culture contribute to that violence. The regression shows that as a country becomes richer, the tendency is for homicide rates to fall and the one country that stands above the regression line is the United States with three times the rate of homicides that you would expect for a country of this wealth. We are trying to move the red dot down to reduce the numbers but are we likely to succeed if we acted differently from the competitor nations, and cut back on the restrictions from guns, and gun culture, by trying to mimic them. Our 2008 numbers would be substantially beyond what we showed here if we had not tried to compensate for these enormously high violence levels by locking up millions of individuals. Controlling guns cannot control the entire gap, but it is like anything else. Reasonable regulation can improve the situation. The claim is made that when states postal regulatory laws, crime goes down. A 2004 report shows that there is no support for that view. It in fact cuts the other way. Let me give you some quick numbers here. When these laws are passed, that allows citizens to carry concealed handguns, on average and in every category, crime rises. This is not enough to make claims but it shows that the this does not support the general claim. The more sophisticated analysis tries to control other factors that play a role, across the various crime categories. You see a very consistent pattern that if anything the crime numbers are going up. They represent no evidence of crime drops. The National Crime Victimization Survey has shown that the Violent Crime attack with a Violent Crime several thousand times for year,. 8 of the Violent Crime episodes. It is clear that guns are used at times for selfdefense but the overwhelming amount of time, people do not have the opportunity to use the guns even if they lawfully possess one. But we do know that 232,000 times a year, guns are stolen from lawabiding citizens. And that means every time a gun is used in selfdefense, five times guns wind up in the hands of the criminal element. That is probably a bad tradeoff. We will say more in the next phase. [applause] first, a little bit of a disclaimer. If i was invited here to drafted to represent the National Rifle association, i would have to take Conscientious Objector status. I am not here to represent the nra and they do not edit my point of view, i often disagree with the National Rifle association with gun policy. Im here as a substitute speaker for mr. Don case. He is a mentor of mine, who wrote the article that kicked off the modern debate on gun control. It is called handgun prohibition. You can find that article in the michigan law review. The fact is, if i can leave you with one impression tonight i hope that it will be that the Second Amendment, and the entire bill of rights are Public Policy. Freedom and liberty and the ancillary responsibilities have been debated during the drafting and ratification of our amendment. That does not mean that there is not room for regulations of firearms. From professor donahues perspective, we must overcome the constitutional barriers for fundamental rights. It may be easier when it comes to regulating guns to meet the governments burden, maybe even a compelling government interest. Because we are talking about the instruments that are used to inflict deadly force in selfdefense. But the fact is that regulation of proper regulation of the right to keep and bear arms is probably constitutionally appropriate. Several of the justices of our Supreme Court, and professor adam winkler of ucla has noticed that all of our rights come with some risk. How much easier would criminal investigations be if testimony was admissible and not in violation of the fifth amendment . And those of you who are tuned into the euphemism, this is a polite term for torture. Many crimes will be solved if the government did not have to obtain a warrant on probable cause to search your homes or person or places of business. How much easier with the prosecution of criminals be if the accused was not afforded the right to have an attorney present or represent him in the trial. Our bill of rights and Constitutional Rights and fundamental rights to carry risk. The Second Amendment is no different. But the balancing test was done in 1791 and 1868 on the 14th amendment, incorporating the 17th amendment. 2nd amendment. The purpose of the Second Amendment is selfdefense, in our angloamerican tradition of selfdefense. The words of the Second Amendment itself, a well regulated militia needed for a free state, the right of people to keep and bear arms should not be infringed. This gives us the second purpose of the Second Amendment, the defense of the community and the defense of the state and the nation. The third purpose of the Second Amendment is defense against tyranny arising in our own country. Now, the first of these is selfdefense, and the angloamerican common law, which we affirmed in heller versus district of columbias decision. The defense of your community and the defense of your nation is set forth in the amendment but it is also codified in the United States law. How many of you are here between the ages of 17 and 45 . If you are not a member of the National Guard you are a member of the unorganized militia. You have a duty to be compelled to show up to defend the nation in the event of an internal emergency. Chief kosinski of the ninth circuit in the 2003 case, although he was not chief justice at the time, wrote very eloquently the third purpose of the Second Amendment. That is, writing in the minority at the time, because in 2003 the Second Amendment had not been recognized by the Supreme Court as a fundamental right. Hes speaking to the majority when he says the majority falls prey to the dellusion that ordinary people are too careless and stupid to own guns. They would be better off leaving all weapons in the hands of professionals or someone on the government payroll. The simple truth is that it tyranny fares best when government need not fear the wrath of ordinary people. Disarmament was the tool of choice for subjugating slaves and free blacks in the south. They searched black homes for weapons and confiscated those found, punishing their owners without judicial process. The north, by contrast, blacks armed themselves against racial mob violence. As chief tawnee you can read about that in dred scott versus sanford. A few hundred jewish soldiers held off the warmaucht so so 6 million jews would not be put into cattle cars. This has not been forgotten by history. The prospect of tyranny may not grab headlines like gun crimes do, and many did not see the third reich coming until it was too late. The Second Amendment is a doomsday provision, designed for exceptionally rare circumstances where all other rights are upheld. Where all other rights have failed. And the government will not stand for reelection and silences those who protest. When you have a choice not to address crime dont forget to include the genocides that have been committed by governments against unarmed people. I would also like to put to rest another myth that i dont think has been debunked enough. That the controversy of the meeting of the Second Amendment that confronts us this is not a left or right or concern of liberal dichotomy. About a decade ago, they passed a countywide initiative, in San Francisco, measure h. Designed to ban the possession of handguns in the city and county of San Francisco. Prop h won at the polls. 89,000 people voted against it. This was roughly 58 to 42 . The ordinance was eventually struck down in the court. But the interesting fact is that 42 of the residence of the city and county of San Francisco voted no. You could not find that these are conservative right wing gun nuts. A little further back in history, 1982, gun control advocates were successful in putting proposition 15 on the ballot, a statewide initiative to imppose a moratorium on handguns in california. For the first time in california history, mayor tom bradley was the first africanamerican on a gubernatorial ticket. But the handgun moratorium brought out a lot of unexpected voters. Proposition 15 was defeated in a landslide victory, 63 . Tom bradley lost by a very thin margin. What does this tell us . It tells us there is a large percentage of people who probably characterize themselves as democrats or as liberals who want to hang onto their firearms and do so for good reason. When you try to think about policy, remember that the Second Amendment is not an anachronism. The u. S. Is not without its sin in regard to native americans and the legacy of africanamerican slavery in the country. By the grace of the debate this debate will accentuate, we can go beyond today taking into account the wisdom of those who came before us who ratified these because at that time they made the judgment that they were best suited to free people. [applause] it was our plan to allow don to go first. We are turning to the prepared please come in, those of you who have come in late. Prepared six questions and i realize, he has just been speaking. Lets let john go first. Your question that you raised in your opening remarks i will pose this question to you. And then, don will have his chance to answer and we have a very fancy time that everyone can see, very sportsmanlike. Here is the question. The standard model justifications for the Second Amendment, which you mention in your opening remarks. Here is the question. There are three standard models of justification for the Second Amendment. Number one, selfdefense for the individual. Number two, defense of the home and state, and number three, a check on tyranny. Which of these justifications do you not accept . Thank you. I am very sympathetic with the idea that people want to use adequate tools for selfdefense and i do think that the Supreme Court has said that you do have the constitutional right to have a gun for selfdefense, but i do think that does not mean that you have the right to highcapacity magazines and unlimited firepower. You do have to be aware that the Second Amendment was ratified when firepower was trivial compared to what is available today. In every respect, the amendment has to be thought of in terms of its modern dangers. That it imposes. Again, i am sympathetic to the idea of citizens wanting to protect themselves, but a revolver seems to be more than enough to satisfy that basic need. When it comes down to the check on tyranny, you will hear the gun crowd frequently say, we have tyrannical people like obama around, and the idea that guns in the hands of the citizens would be an obstacle for the u. S. Military if they decided to follow obama in turning on the American Public i think this is truly a fanciful idea. Its fancicul to think that the u. S. Military would turn on the American Public, but if they were to do so, guns in the hands of citizens will not be a realistic check. Recall that George Washington thought that those who would take up arms against the federal government was treason and he rapidly put down the whiskey rebellion. Thank you, john. Don, you can speak to the question or his answer. The right to selfdefense is not just something that was ratified or necessarily affirmed by the United States Supreme Court in the 2008 decision. It is something that comes to us at the founding of our nation. With the commentary that was quite heavily cited in the heller decision. The history and the legacy and the right of selfdefense in what was eventually referred to as the castle wall, the right of every man to defend his own castle, is deeply embedded in angloamerican tradition and law. The check on tyranny, i think if we go back, i am somewhat in agreement with my opposing party here, it would be tough for the untrained civilians who know how to use their firearms for purposes of hunting and going to the range and if they engage in selfdefense training to go up against the United States military. Hopefully we would never have to do that. But that is not the point. The point is if that acts as a deterrent. The military continues to have quite a tough time against afghan rebels and the taliban in the current theater of war in that section and that part of the country. We had a similar problem in iraq and baghdad. Modern armies, when faced with insurgent people, who are protecting their own homes and way of life, there is an effect here to make sure that these people remain free and that they can repel what they perceive as invaders. But more importantly, i think judge kuczynskis comment towards the end of the quote, i may not have included that, is the mistake of giving up your arms is mistake you only get to make once. Thank you. A reminder to all of you in the audience, as the wheels are turning, take your cards and send them to the aisle. This is a question and i have to stand up again. Don, to answer this. We will not be able to go back and forth. This is a question to john donohue. If implementing australian or europeanstyle gun restrictions in the United States would save 15,000 lives per year, would you support this . 10,000 lives, 5,000 lives . America had the opportunity to remain a european colony in 1776 and we rejected it. We rejected the european mindset of being governed by our superiors. We went on to write a constitution that endures. Political philosophy often is different for different parts of the world. The ideas are not necessarily applicable everywhere, and furthermore, and i will violate godwins rule here, be careful about tendering europe as a model for gun control policy. The best documentation we have for the abuse of gun control is from germany, the hellhole that was created when the ss took over the government and world war ii interrupted. And world war ii errupted. The best documentation for how gun control contributed to the mass extermination of undesirables in germany, there is a great book by stephen halpert, called gun control i highly recommend it. The person i am standing in for today, wrote articles, and a seminal one for don kates on gun control and genocide. Much has been written about australias draconian gun control laws that went into effect in the 1990s. He likes to use this for the reduction of Violent Crime after the confiscation of many kinds of firearms. However, there is one inconsistency in this point of view. Crime rates also dropped and have been following in the United States during the same time. Gun rights people like to talk about gun sales and the concealed carry law, and the majority of the states. Others like to cite the intergenerational effect of abortion to account for at least part of the reduction in crime rates. There is just one problem, and that is australia liberalized abortion laws during the same time america did, in the late 1960s. If abortions cold enough people from the population of future criminals to result in a Crime Reduction in the 1990s and 2000 and america, why doesnt that argument holds for australia . Of any, im not aware other constitutional right that is subject to statistical analysis. Imagine us asking how many more murders we would solve if we violated the fifth amendment and sixth amendment rights of criminal suspects. The fact is, the calculus that addresses the tradeoff between Public Safety and fundamental rights was made when they put when a particular constitutional right was adopted. The gun control debate characterizes a callous unwillingness to adopt more gun control. It might be evidence that we have reached the natural limit of regulation of a free people who have the right to keep and bear arms and that we wont tolerate any further restrictions. Thank you. John . Comments on that . I think the australian experience is worth considering. Essentially took very extreme measures to reduce the number of guns, prohibited the use of guns for selfdefense. You can see their murder rate trended down from 1. 7 to 1. 1 ours is up around five. Importantly, while there were sure 13 Mass Shootings during 1976 od from 1979 to 1996, in the 16 years since their massive gun buyback, there have been no Mass Shootings in australia. In the u. S. During this period, there were 21 in the 15 years before. Australias reduction is so dramatic that reflects more than simply a reduction in guns. It probably reflects a change in the culture that comes with guns. I think that change has been a beneficial one. Those withre makes severe Mental Illness more likely to act out through Mass Shootings. That important to remember an estimated 26. 2 of americans aged 18 and older, about one in four adults, suffer from a diagnosable mental disorder in a given year. This is roughly 60 million americans. Even though mental disorders are widespread in the population, the main burden does come from a more concentrated number the numbers with serious Mental Illness, 13 million per year. I do disagree strongly with my ,ormer colleague Alex Kaczynski an immigrant from a former communist country, which i think has worked his idea of the value a gun might have. The phrase is sometimes used against our current president , tyrant. Thank you, john. You cant sit down. The next question is for you. If the government cannot deal with the number firearms either by bought by a lawabiding person, what is the limit on a cartridge if iran could hold . How is Public Safety affected one way or the other if a bad guy has to guns that hold 10 rounds each or one gun that holds 20 . These are very legitimate questions. What are the types of controls that will make a difference . Limit the that if you number of rounds that a particular gun can carry, one way in which a criminal can can subvert that is to carry multiple guns, but we did learn in the adam lanza scenario that clips, in with 30around which meant he could fire 30 bullets before he had to reload, and it was when he had to reload that 11 children were able to run out of the school room in newtown. Those lives were saved. In tucson a number of years ago when Gabby Giffords was shot in the head and a number of others were killed, Jared Loeffler who was the shooter was also using a 33round clip, which meant he was able to fire 33 times before he unloaded. Wayneimar Pierre Lapierre is noted for same, the only thing that stops a bad guy with the gun is a good guy with a gun, in tucson, it was a 64 a 60yearold retired army colonel, unarmed, who stopped Jerod Laughlin are jared from who stopped him reloading. We have seen in two recent cases that where making the criminal reload was a beneficial thing. Without question, lives were. Aved lives couldny more have been saved. Ban limitedweapon rounds to 10 rounds. Someone like loughner would have had to reload twice. Many more lives would have been saved. It is true that you cannot stop everything, but the one thing we e learned across the board look at car accident rates the extraordinary accomplishment, the reduction in number of lives lost through Motor Vehicle accidents. It was because of a very do where it a very deliberate effort to restrict all of the ways that cars are deadly that we were able to achieve that goal. It really is a sad phenomenon, i think, when the nra, which is much more interested in promoting activities that will thanurage the sales of guns protecting the lives of american citizens, steps that could be taken to promote the safety are prevented. Thank you. Don, your question. The issue of magazine capacity and whether it should be 10 or 20 or 30 seems to me somewhat of a red herring. Let me foreshadow an answer to what i think might be a future question. I honestly dont disagree with professor donahue that there should be background checks on everybody who purchases a firearm. We should have a means of making sure that people who have violent disease or Mental Illness are not getting firearms. To the extent that the nra disagrees with that i dont know that they do if they disagree with that, they are wrong. Is idea of background checks not the same thing as registering gun owners and registering guns. It is possible to do background checks and make sure someone is not a prohibited person, not a convicted felon, not in a mental necessarily without registering the gun owner or the gun. Onceyou have done that, you ensure that the public is trustworthy for buying guns, they could also put 11 bullets in their gun instead of 10. They dont become untrustworthy because they could put 12 bullets in their gun instead of 10. If you want to regulate gun parts, magazines and ammunition waying devices, in the same you regulate guns themselves, by all means, do so. Subject the purchase of magazines to the purchase to the same regulation of the firearm itself. Once you make the determination of this gun owner is trustworthy, because they are lawabiding, willing to engage in common and ordinary safety rules for guns, than what sense does it make to limit the ammunition feeding devices they are going to use . The natural limit is probably made by the manufacturer themselves. The ar15 was sold with the magazine capacity between 2030. Another rifle available to citizens, which used to be an army rifle, was limited to 20. That is probably the maximum number you need. The problem with imposing an arbitrary limit like seven or eight or 10 is if you are faced with 11 bad guys, now you have to reload. Yes, bad guys are going to do bad things. We would like to limit their firepower, but the way we do that is limit their access to guns in the first place. Thank you. This is back to you, don. Johns question do you think there is a constitutional right to own a fully automatic weapon . I remember seeing that question. Remembering i had four minutes fourspond to it, not minutes worth of material. I think there is a constitutional right to have common and ordinary weapons for selfdefense. That is what the Supreme Court told us in heller. Automatic weapons are not currently illegal to own in this country. Part of my law practice is , motiong businesses picture studio armories, and individuals in maintaining the licenses and permits necessary to possess fully automatic weapons. It is a very stringent requirement. It requires approval not only by the federal government but by the State Government and by the local Law Enforcement agency, as well. The interesting query on automatic weapons would be this if machine guns are necessary to protect the life of our president and other vip government officials, why wouldnt they be necessary to protect your life . The secret service uses this as part of their production detail. Since the question was asked, is there a constitutional right rather than, is there a selfdefense utility in automatic weapons, my answer is no. It would be based on the fact that they are not common and ordinary at this particular time if the question is, what i personally use an automatic weapon . , the answer is no. I can tell you submachine guns are fun to shoot. A thank god we dont have disagreement on whether there is a constitutional right to have an automatic weapon, but i think it makes the point that lines have to be drawn. The Supreme Court says you have a constitutional right to have a ,un or firearm for selfdefense but i think the nra, for example, is setting that bar way too high, that anything a criminal could get their hands on is something that they should be entitled to. Frankly, it depressed me end when i to no saw that anders brevik, the mass murderer who killed Something Like 69 children in norway a couple of years ago, was prai sing the american gun laws. He said, i feel camaraderie with my europeanamerican comrades who have very good gun laws, unlike the horrible oppressive gun laws of europe. He said he was grateful that he was able to get the 30around 30round capacity clips to use in his shooting spree from the United States because he couldnt get those weapons in europe. I think it sort of underscores a key point that restriction has to be at the core of this right. I think don makes a very unfortunate error in thinking that simply because someone can pass a background check, they are ok. We just alluded to the fact that 13 Million People have a serious Mental Illness. Right now, the criminal background check system has one thaton people indicating they, because of their Mental Illness, are not entitled to have guns. That means 12 Million People can currently buy guns and would be able to even if you had a universal background check. They are not the system. What happens once youve got your gun and you develop a Mental Illness . I states are much more mean, countries are much more aggressive in renewing your license repeatedly to make sure that you still meet the requirements. Country,n this unfortunately lacks in that regard, and i think we pay a very high price for that. Years thelso that for nra would say, well, you just need a gun to be able to defend rself, and 90 of the time 98 of the time, all you need to do is brandished a weapon and you will be fine. If that is true, there really is no need. 98 of the time, according to the nra numbers, for anything more than a simple handgun. Thank you, john. We have finished two questions. We are onto our third. They are some good ones. This one from don to john. To achieve a reduction in the number of casualties at mass public shootings, why wouldnt the best policy be to have a trained person and place on scene to engage the shooter in place on scene to engage the shooter . Who thess im not sure trained person he has in mind is. Had aow, certainly if you Police Officer or a trained Security Officer in a particular place at a time when a mass shooting breaks out, that would be a beneficial thing, but of course, dont exaggerate the ability of that necessarily stop Mass Shootings. Think of the sandy hook case. If there had been a Security Guard standing at the door in the sandy hook case, it is quite possible they would have been overwhelmed by the firepower that adam lanza unleashed in that school. Remember, in the recent Navy Shipyard shooting case where aaron alexis killed 12 individuals, there was an armed Security Guard, former maryland state trooper, who was told, stop him from getting out of the exisding, and when aaron al came down, he immediately killed that officer and took that officers gun and use that officers gun to shoot others ran out of the shotgun ammunition he brought with him. Having guns around is helpful if hands ofin the welltrained individuals, but having guns around for other individuals can only make things worse. If you were just following the events a few days ago in florida, a 71yearold former Police Officer got into a fight with someone in a Movie Theater over texting, and when the texter who was sending a note to his babysitter of his threeyearold daughter complained, they started exchanging angry words. Through some pot some popcorn at the 71yearold former Police Officer, who then shot and killed him. The former Police Officer said that he was defending himself against the assault of the popcorn. This, unfortunately, is very ainspiried attitude, that your response to various assaults and perceived threats powerful and is a deadly one. Again, just last week in wisconsin, a 20yearold who was coming home to visit his family he didnt think his 13yearold sister was in her room, and he heard some noise in there. He got his fathers gun, shot through the door, and luckily only hit her in her bicep. This shootfirst attitude does not always work out well. Again, i think it is consistent with an attitude that leads to the greater levels of homicide in the u. S. We should be trying to move in a different direction. There are less lethal measures of selfdefense. I think we should encourage the use of those rather than most lethal, and certainly ramping up the firepower is, i think, always a terrible idea. Thank you. Don . I wasnt meaning to suggest that people should shoot first and ask questions later. I guess the point i wanted to make with my question was that there are two sources of welltrained people to stop Mass Shootings. One would be, obviously, a uniformed officer whether it is private security or a Police Officer. The other is people who have licenses to carry firearms. For instance, in california, you are required to go through 16 hours of training to be able to carry a firearm in the state. A discretionary issue state. You have to demonstrate good cause and good moral character before a sheriff can issue a carry license in the state. The fact is, good people with guns often do stop Mass Shootings. The arapahoe shooting in colorado several weeks ago was stopped by an armed Security Guard at the school when the teenager walked in and started shooting. There was a death and there was a fatality, but once he was confronted with a good guy with a gun he took his own life and the shooting stopped. And so what would have been a mass shooting which is usually defined as four or more deaths in the same place was limited to one and one injury if you dont count the bad guy. The there are other one of the other areas of agreement that i have with professor donohue, there is probably no area of Public Policy where we are more likely to get what is called confirmational bias than in the gun control debate. Depending upon your point of view you will find the facts that support your position, whether it is anecdotal or statistical. There is plenty of anecdotal evidence to suggest that sometimes, yes, just brandishing a firearm, sometimes using the firearm can stop a crime. So the point of the question was that some that a good guy with a gun will stop a bad guy with a gun at a mass shooting. The other point i wanted to make was that the tucson shooting where Congress Woman Gabriel Giffords was wounded there were two men who helped tackle the shooter in that incidence. One was a gentleman who had a concealed carry permit and had his gun on his person. He did not draw or shoot the gun but was able to assist in the apprehension of the stopping of the shooter. Thank you. Thank you. All right. The last prepared question. Could i just make one Quick Response on that . Please, john. Away to pull this up on to the screen . I see. I shouldnt have gone to this. Im sorry. I had it here and now i have lost it. Im sorry. Let me take one second and find that. Here it is. Okay. So this is the case that we were just talking about and this is one episode where one of the prominent researchers who has claimed that many good things come from guns is a guy named john lott who wrote the book called more guns less crime says one can only hope that the saturday attack in tucson encourages more citizens to carry concealed handguns. Fortunately one shopper in the walgreens was joseph zamudio. He ran toward them. He helped tackle the killer before more harm occurred. So that is what john lott said what happened. What really happened, laugher in lafner stopped shooting and was reaching for a new magazine when he was tackled by two unarmed individuals. Zamudio mistakenly grabbed the wrong man. When the crowd shouted he had the wrong man. He said i almost shot the man holding the gun, i could have very easily done the wrong thing and hurt a lot more people because the gun had been taken away from lafner by the time that zamuzio got there. His gun played no positive role and if he had gotten there quickly and had the mindset that the n. R. A. Tries to encourage, get out your gun and be the hero of the day, he might have shot the real hero of the day, the retired army colonel and patricia maish. The last prepared question is from john to don. And it reads here. Has any credible study ever suggested that one would reduce the risk of death of a gunowner and a gunowners family by purchasing a gun . This is one of those questions that if we were in court i would probably object to the form of the question. [laughter] because i dont know of any power on eartha will reduce the overall risk of death for anybody. We all die. Im not sure that the author means to imply that the mere act of purchasing a firearm carries a risk of death. Reduce the overall risk of death of the gun owner and the family by owning or possessing a gun. But again, mere ownership or possession is not inherently dangerous. Unlike radio active isotopes, firearms require human interaxe to be dangerous. Why human beings commit irrational acts is more properly addressed to psychologists, cessionologyists and psychiatrists. The most appropriate answer generated in a free country it guarantees an individual the right to keep and bear arms is that the individual is free to make up their own mind. For someone who refuses to learn how a gun works or refuses to learn proper handling or refuses to safely store a firearm the risks may be too high. When im consult as part of my gun law practice by a new gun owner i inquire do you own a gun safe . If the answer is no, the client is advised that in my legal opinion owning a gun safe is a precondition for owning a gun. If you cant afford both, buy the safe first. They can be purchased in various forms and cost anywhere from 100 to 2,000 for a good one. It projected a subtle add how homonym. The defensive use of firearms versus the risk of criminal or negligent misuse of firearms. The institutes of medicine and National Research council produced a report in 2013 titled priorities for research to reduce the threat of firearm related violence. There are some flaws in the report which has a tendency to log roll suicides and accidents with firearms into the definition of firearm related violence. The report is not charitable in any way to the idea of gun ownership but acknowledges that the defensive use of guns by crime victims is a common occurrence although the exact number remains disputed. Almost all of the National Surveys estimate indicate the defensive use by victims are at least as common as offensive use by criminals with estimates of annual uses ranging from 500,000 to three million. And the context of 300,000 Violent Crimes involving firearms in 2008, on the other hand, some scholars point to a radically lower estimate of 108,000 annual defensive uses. The vir 86 in the numbers is the controversy. The estimate of three million is probably too high. The estimate of 108,000 is probably too low. But elsewhere the same report, the National Research Councils Report citeds 105 incidents as of 2010 involvele firearms where someone died and included accidental discharges or homicides or suicides or any time when anybody was injured. The injury figures were in fact 73,000. The lowest possible figure for the defensive use of firearms even from somebody on the gun control side is 105,000 or 108,000 with 105,000 injuries or deaths. So, we come down it a coin flip. So in a worst case scenario, this is hardly overwhelming evidence that lawabiding citizens cant be trusted to make their own risk assessments. The more probably correct approach to the defensive use of guns and the actual number was published in the journal of criminal law and criminology in an article called a call for truce. He puts the number closer to 1. 2 million defensive uses a year. Thank you. Thanks. I dont want to bore you with a long numbers debate, but i will say that im reading a book now on which i think i make the claim that the single most unreliable number ever to appear in any Public Policy debate is the claim that defensive gun uses are anywhere along the lines that don was just mentioning. This isnt dons fault because there are people who actually make these claims but they collapse if they are looked at with any refinement. Indeed, the basic methodology which was a flood methodology to flawed to begin with, embarked upon 20 years ago when crime was at a much higher rate than it is today. Whatever was true 20 years ago, is not true today when crime is so much lower. But essentially what they did was they just called up a lot of people on the phone which turns out not to be a great way to sample people today because how many people answer their phones these days . The answer for these surveys is now less than 10 will answer and respond. So you are getting a very selected sample to begin with. They said did you use a gun to stop a crime . 1 of people said that they did. And then the researchers said 1 of 250 million adults is 2. 5 million. Ergo there are 2. 5 million defensive gun uses. It turns out if you kick this tire at all it collapses. First of all, people are very likely to answer in a way that makes them feel good about themselves or justify their choices. There is no verification of whether what they said is true. I assume that the Police Officer, former Police Officer who killed the man in the florida Movie Theater last week had he instead just brandished the gun and screamed at the guy would have said i used my gun to thwart a crime last week as this guy was going to throw more popcorn at me. Not to mention that those numbers also capture defense of property and therefore are probably illegal half the time because using deadly force is supposed to be limited to cases where you are saving lives the others. The numbers are completely off. We do have some hard numbers, though, and they about 8 10 of 1 of the time that someone is attacked they do tend to use a gun to defend themselves. So it is a very, very small percentage. But in a big country and with a lot of crime, it probably is in the neighborhood of 45,000, but, you know, no where near a million. And again, remember, we also know 232,000 guns are stolen every year. That is moving a gun from the lawabiding citizen to the criminals and when you get five times moving from theft as you get some what benign or positive use out of a gun it raises serious questions. Also one thing, the main n. R. A. Tactic, which is obviously designed to promote sales of guns and since that is their business, is to scare people to think somebody is coming into your home and is going to kill you. And turns out, there are about 85 Home Invasion killings each year. So not a trivial number but 1 10 the number of people who die from gun accidents. If nothing else was going on, keep in mind if you think the gun is going to save you and we said 8 10 of 1 of the time when you are attacked people use guns to protect themselves, 8 10 of 1 percent and there are only 85 deaths even if you could somehow stop all of those 85 deaths, if by doing so you are ramping up the gun accidents, that doesnt look like a good deal. One other thing, again, i think the gun culture is very important. Im glad don said something that is extremely important. He is very much against the n. R. A. Position here which would not want any sort of safe store requirement imposed as a matter of law, and i think that is really essential if we are going stop some of these problems because as the nancy lanza scenario showed, she made those guns available to her son, and we all paid the price. So it would be one thing if gun owners would limit the deaths to themselves, but the big problem is there is what we refer to in the economics world as large negative externalities when you buy your guns, and something has to be done to address that so that gun owners take seriously the requirement that they keep their guns from migrating to the criminal segment. Let me just end on one note. Israel, which is a country that does take security very seriously in this regard, makes it a criminal offense for your gun to be lost or stolen. Think about that one. If your gun is lost or stolen, you can go to jail and people do go to jail in israel for that offense. In the United States, 232,000 guns are stolen every year. Countless more are lost. Much more effort needs to be made on the part of the socalled lawabiding citizen to stop guns moving into the hands of the criminal element. Thank you, john. Okay. So we have reached the end of the organized debate, the prepared questions. We have selected a few questions for each for john and don from the audience. These are terrific questions. Not surprising from a stanford audience. Thank you very much. And i will do my best imitation of michael here, when people call in with a comment rather than a question, he responds to the comment and says, thank you very much, but doesnt pose it as a question to his guest. Here are three which im going regard as comments even though they are phrased grammatically as questions. I want to read them to you because they are useful to enter into our thinking tonight. This is actually apropos what you just said. Why is it not the case that if you decide to purchase a gun, you are not also held financially or legally responsible for the potentially tragic results of your purchase . Why are some gun deaths tragic accidents . Why is no one held responsible for the choice to purchase a Deadly Weapon and bring if into their house . This is an interesting one, but i will just read it as a comment rather than pose it as a question. Please explain how the right to selfdefense has been transformed into an obligation of selfdefense, and the onus for Public Safety shifted away from Public Policy to the individual victims who could have saved themselves if only they were armed. How is that anything other than blaming the victim . And finally, why isnt much more funding and advocacy directed towards the enforcement of existing laws . Background checks against ownership by convicted felons and mentally ill by both sides of the debate . What good is endless debate when the implementation is sorely lacking and resulting in Mass Shootings . Good comment. Now i have two questions for don and two for john. Im going to start with this one to don. And this is,i suspect,in part response to your in vocation of the threat of tyranny. Here it goes. To what extent do you believe gun ownership by civilians contributed to greater aggression exhibited by members of a more fearful Law Enforcement community . Do guns in fact help create an oppressive police state that gun owners seek to keep in check . If i understand the question correctly, it is that police that the question is Police Officers afraid of civilians with firepower somehow respond more aggressively in situations. I will assume that is what the question is. The answer to that is, i dont know because Police Officers are required to have probable cause in order to interact with a citizen in either effecting arrest or conducting a crime investigation. Whereas the individual obviously has a legal duty to make sure that there is a threat of death or Great Bodily Injury before they employ their weapon. There are different and competing policies at stake for the private gun owner versus the Police Officer. Also, i dont know how the question actually relates to the idea of tyranny. We are talking about a policy of tyranny where the government is oppressing or engaged against identifiable groups ever people or minorities in which case the government is then using the Police Officers or the military that they have at their disposal to actually commit crimes or genocide against masses or groups of people. Whereas individual officers engaging in Law Enforcement activity, they may or may not be fearful of an Armed Civilian population. But one of the consequences that we see at least in california, and we can debate whether it is a good idea or not, is that the state of california does maintain a registration or database of handguns. Police officers usually know he they roll up to a scene whether or not there are at least handguns in the house. In january of this year, long arms are required to be registered to the state of california. I dont think this is necessarily a good policy or a good turn of events, but the state of california is marching headlong into making sure or trying to make sure that every firearm in the state is registered. Now i will leave for another time whether or not that is a good policy or a bad policy. I think the point is, as i stated earlier, we do want to make sure that lawabiding people are the only people with access to firearms. Background checks are a good idea. Registering guns and gun owners is not. Thank you. Thank you. All right, john, this is a question for you. Switzerland allows all citizens to own at least one automatic gun per household. Why does this nation have fewer gun deaths than america according to the chart that you have shown . Yes, again, this is something where the n. R. A. Has tried to i think confuse the public about what actually happens in switzerland. Switzerland actually has what our Second Amendment was designed to have, which is a well regulated militia, and therefore they require citizens to have training, and they give them an assault weapon for which they are given a sealed container with bullets in it and they are those bullets the bullet containers are inspected every year, and if they have opened them, they will be summarily arrested. They are not allowed to use those guns. And the only time they are allowed to open those ammunition containers is if they have to fight to get to the Assembly Place if the nation is under attack. So if that were the system that you wanted to entertain in the United States, i think we would see a move towards far lower gun deaths than we have. The swiss example is a very different one. It is a highly regulated system. It would be deemed tyrannical to most proponents of the n. R. A. Type positions. Guns are not the only thing that influences crime. Affluent nations tend to suppress crime more effectively than poorer nations. Better Police Forces and so on and so forth. And we in the United States tend to be a somewhat out of control population. One manifestation of that is our excessive amounts of guns and other is our excessive use of drugs and another is our excessive use of incarceration. Switzerland is a much more moderate country and has less of all of those unfortunate attributes. Thank you. Question for don. Im glad we are having all these comparative questions, international and their understanding. This is about mexico. Right now in mexico, local citizen militias are patrolling with assault weapons to deal with drug cartels. Is this a good model for American Cities . [laughter] i think the missing component of that question is whether or not the wild card in that case is whether or not the citizens of mexico actually trust their police departments. I personally believe that we can trust our police departments, and so no, i dont think that vigilante squads in the United States are necessarily a good idea. But i dont live in mexico, and im not subject to the horrific violence of the drug cartels in mexico. This brings me around to a point i wanted to make, another point of agreement that i have with professor donohue. He wrote a short article in 2007 advocating drastic policy changes with regard to the war on drugs. I happen to agree with him on that. We saw reductions in crime after prohibition, after they cut after the United States governments experiment with prohibition in the 1920s and 1930s. We saw a reduction after we repealed prohibition. I think that is probably a good place to start and some place that i would rather see Public Policy direction go rather than tinkering with a fundamental right. We should repeal the war on drugs and should stop incarcerating people and stop giving drug cartels an incentive to market these drugs and then use illegal firepower to maintain their market shares. I think that that would go a long way towards helping to reduce the gun violence that does exist in some of our major cities. Im not aware of any particular criminalogical report that segregated or done a breakdown on gun violence with respect to whether or not it was a Drug Enforcement Violent Crime or whether or not it was simply a run of the mill homicide. But i think that a study like that would be most helpful in trying to decide if the drug war is a large component of the gun deaths and gun homicides in the country. But im afraid im not an expert in mexican internal politics or domestic politics in mexico. Thank you. All right, the final question is to john. Im not familiar with this person, gary clank. Maybe you could fill me and the audience in this your answer. The Research Shows that for every use of one gun to commit a crime, there are three or four cases of guns being used in selfdefense of a crime. Or in selfdefense. I will leave it at that. How do you take this study . I know garys work quite well. He is the author of that claimed 2. 5 million defensive gun uses. Somehow managed to get on to the panel that don had mentioned as coming out endorsing that number. But again, i think that the number has been criticized so powerfully. Remember, one percent of americans are schizophrenic. If you call up and ask, have you taken a trip in an alien spaceship this year, about 1 of people answer that question yes. I would not extrapolate to that that 2. 5 Million People actually took a ride in an alien spaceship this year, but that was the methodology that led to these exaggerated numbers. We do know there are, you know, i think the best estimate is in the neighborhood of 47,000 times guns were used in confronting, you know, again, 8 10 of 1 of the six million Violent Crime episodes in the United States. It does happen, rarely. Even though tons of people have guns, but criminals usually dont let you know that they are about to attack you, and it as very limited set of time it is a very limited set of times when you get to actually use your gun. Again, it is 8 10 of 1 of the time that you are attacked. So since we are big country, the numbers can be large, but nowhere near compares with the large number of gun thefts which again move the guns from the lawabiding citizens to the criminal element. And again, remember the dangers of the misthinkings that are so prevalent and initiated by the n. R. A. Where people like nancy lanza were thinking, i need to have an arsenal to protect me and my family. Here i live in this one of the safest communities in the United States and, indeed, in the world, newtown, connecticut, and thinks i will have my arsenal to make my family safe and yet was totally oblivious to the dangers she was imposing on herself and her son and, of course, the broader community. And this is the point that must be underscored. The problems of stopping gun violence must be taken very seriously by the current owners. The person who keeps that gun by his bedside loaded is risking danger, and it is really only l that cannotds to complain. Luckily, most of the time, guns dont get abused, but again, it is simply a matter of luck if you are just leaving it around and have people like adam lanza with access to that weapon. It is 9 00. Personally y thank you all for coming and thank you for your excellent input. This was an intellectually invigorating evening for all of us, i think. You may notice the cameras. That is cspan. This is going to be broadcast to whoever watches this in the country. I think one thing they will see is we can have a debate, a conversation like this where differences of opinion get raised, where we are intellectually challenged to figure out complexities of a situation like this we all face, using our do it frontal cortex and not our amygdala. We dont have to shout at each other. Not going away angry or afraid or upset. You didnt see anybody spitting at each other on the stage. Find it very encouraging and reassuring for our democracy that we can come together like this, share differences of opinion, and understand that in those differences we have a common goal. We have a common purpose to figure out how to live together peacefully, not only here but in the world. Wonderfulfor a evening treat thank you, john, and thank you, don. [applause] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2013] president obama mentioned gun policy briefly in his state of the Union Address tuesday, a change from the amount of attention the issue received in his address last year. This years speech focused largely on the economy and jobs, as well as other issues relating to energy and health care. Tomorrow, you can watch the president s full address followed by the republican response from congresswoman Cathy Mcmorris rodgers beginning at 10 35 eastern on cspan. Someone, as i said, who grew in the office. He was badly burned by the bay of pigs experience. He had listened to the experts. The cia, joint chiefs of staff. He did the trip to france in may, june of 1961. De gaulle said to him, you should surround yourself with the smartest possible people. Listen to them. Hear what they have to say. At the end of the day, you have to make up your own mind. Kennedy, remembered what harry truman said, the buck stops here. After the bay of pigs, he was absolutely determined to make up his own mind, hear what these experts have to say, write what they were telling him, but at the end of the day, he was going to make the judgment. He was the responsible party. You see that that was abundantly clear when you listen to all those and read the transcripts of all of those tapes during the cuban missile crisis. He was his own man. He was the man who was making up his own mind. He held the joint chiefs at arms length. They wanted to bomb, invade. He didnt want to do it. An inside look at the Kennedy Administration sunday night at 8 00 on cspans q a. With the start of africanAmerican History month today, washington journal looked at the state of u. S. Race relations in 2014. The roundtable discussion was little less than an hour. Your screeng us on is sophia nelson, the author of black woman redefined. Also, the author of place, not race. Both guests are joining us on this first day of february, the start of africanAmerican History month. Thank you for joining us. We always go to this month. It comes and goes. What is the value from your thinkctive, and what you needs to change as far as how we view the month . Caller i think the value guest i think the value is having discussions like this. I dont know that washington journal would have an explicit conversation about, was what is it to be a black person in this country . To have this trigger to talk about this regularly is a good thing. Host where are we as far as knowledge in history, not only for this month, but the months Going Forward . Guest i cant speak to where we were where we are in terms of peoples knowledge. There is never enough knowledge about history in this country of all kinds, encoding africanAmerican History. In that sense, i think it is good. Guest i think these conversations are useful, particularly for the next generation of people that come up. , i hope us sitting here we have a good sense of why this month is important to us, giving context for civil rights, having an africanamerican president , if first lady, a wonderful contribution, but for young people in high school and coming up, there is a sense with their generation, they are a little disconnected. They dont really get the significance. You get black kids who say, why do we still talk about that kind of thing . I think that is why these conversations are useful, for our young people, it helps to keep them connected to history and why it is still relevant. Host what would you say to young people as far as what to Pay Attention to . Guest everything. They need to Pay Attention to everything. For them, it is critical that they just not look at videos of a Justin Bieber is doing or Something Else im sorry, i had to bring it up they need to Pay Attention to who they are, what their journey is, and where they came from. I love this generation. They are multicultural. They look at the world very differently. They have a rainbow of friends. Thisdont see the need for conversation, but it is still a very important conversation. Host what about the generation she spoke about . Guest sophia hits on a very important point. It is critical for children of all races to have a sense of their legacy and what their people contributed, the idea that africanamerican children have this month to reinforce the notion that we come from a strong, intelligent, accomplished people. It is very critical to instilling habits of success. Host our guests are with us until it 45 to talk about historical issues and other issues. If you want to ask them questions, you can do so on the phone lines. Since i think we talked before the start tell people who you are. Guest i am a law professor at georgetown, and author. Ive written a couple of books. I have a new book coming out may called place, not race. About affirmative action in higher education. Host miss nelson . Guest i am working on my second book, which is due out this fall to it i am on deadline. My new book that is coming out in october is called the women code. It is a code of what i think links us together as women universally. It is like our dna, but it is really who we are in terms of our character, our virtues, or principles, and what makes us more like 10 different. My first book black woman redefined came out two years ago and did very well. I think it is becoming an audio book soon. I am writing for a number of publications. I am a speaker. I enjoy my life. I get to get paid to do it i love, which is pretty exciting. Host you brought up affirmative action. As far as talking about issues that are important, especially among what is most important when it comes to issues . Guest johnson economic security. Jobs and economic security. Jobs solelyk about in terms of black folks. Part of the problem of getting policies that will make a difference for africanamericans like a higher minimum wage is that we have a very divided politics. When you lead with the Racial Disparities and say lack people have twice the unemployment that white people, what happens with th