Transcripts For MSNBCW All In With Chris Hayes 20141219

Chicago, illinois. Alice groves daughter was found dead inside his abandoned warehouse in july of 2013. The Police Report indicates the body of tiara groves was found naked and die composing with evidence suggesting shed been bound and gagged. She was just 20 years old. The Cook County Medical Examiners Office could not determine a specific cause, so it declared the death of tiara groves a homicide by unspecified means. A copy of the death certificate obtained by all in through chicago magazine also noted recent heroin and alcohol use which it said contributed to but was not an underlying cause of her death. One homicide in a city where every year, there are hundreds. Chicago is a city that is segregated both among the living and the dead. And you cant look at the crime rate here without seeing the legacy of segregation and its enduring power. You dont see crime, you dont hear about crime in Downtown Chicago on the north sides of the city. And when it happens, its so high profile, it gets dealt with immediately. South and west sides, people live with crime, spry lens on a daily basis. If youre not in those neighborhoods and you not because you dont live in those neighborhoods because the city is so segregated, you dont know about it. It doesnt matter. It doesnt happen. Chicago didnt become one of americas most segregated cities by accident. It was designed that way. Chicago is basically segregated because teem in power for most of the 20th century decided chicago would be segregated. You had basically the era of red lining where you had the maps produced by the federal government. Housing loans were, you know, given on the basis of these maps. The red lining chicago neighborhoods in the 20th century segregated people of color from white neighborhoods. The effects of these kinds of policies were devastating to africanamerican communities and can be seen even today in the relationship between those communities and the people charged with keeping them safe. Theres a long history of mistrust between africanamericans and the Police Department. It dates back to the 60s when there was a lot of police brutality. It dates back to the time when mark clark, fred hampton were shot to death brutally by the Police Department. The head of the black panthers in illinois was killed today by police in chicago. And most recently, the john burge torture cases. The case of Chicago Police commander fired from his job for beating and torturing suspects into confessing with a crude electrical shock box. Theres a feeling that the police arent out there for us. Of course, the consequence of citizens not believing in their own police force can lead to a maddening cycle of mistrust and crime. Lets stay safe. Lets make the Community Stay safe. And policing a city overwhelmed by guns and gangs has proved to be an extraordinarily difficult job. I sat down with the man trying to tackle the citys crime problem, chicago mayor rahm e emanuel. The truth is in some of the neighborhoods youre talking about, the people in the neighborhood know who committed the crime. You have to live by a moral code, not a code of silence. That frustration with that code of silence isnt new. You can blame the Chicago Police all you want. Look in the mirror and say, what are you doing for it . For 43 of the last 60 years, chicago was run by two mayor daleys, father and son. The younger is credited with bringing a resurgence of commerce and stability to the city, a legacy of highend restaurants and highrise offices. On his watch, the citys population shrank. During his last decade in office, poverty decreased. Crime declined, but chicago was never able to realize the kind of dramatic increases seen in other big cities like new york and los angeles. Daley decided not to seek a seventh term and was replaced by a man who not only had ties to the city but to the white house. Chicagoans have a new mayorelect tonight, rahm emanuel. The former white house chief of staff. Former congressman. Rahm emanuel campaigned on bringing crime down and moved quickly to bring on a new superintendent of police, Garry Mccarthy who helped turn things around in newark, new jersey. Meanwhile, the city many were calling the murder capital of the country with its new highprofile mayor had attracted the attention of the National Media and the conservative media in particular. In chicago, new questions today about the Political Leadership of that citys mayor. The numbers do not favor rahm emanuel. I mean, the number of homicides in chicago, the same time this year to last year, up 39 . It doesnt seem like mayor emanuel has a grasp of the situation. Rahm emanuel is supposed to be this star in the democratic party. Obamas goto guy. Its just gotten worse under his leadership. A year and a half into his tenure, leading a city with a crime problem over 50 years in the making, rahm emanuel was now responsible for chicago and all the troubles that had come to nest it. When the city counted the bodies in 2012, the reality was staggering. Over 500 homicides. A number that Police Superintendent mccarthy called tragic. The new year came and things got even worse. January 2013 ended with a highprofile death of a 15yearold honor student named hadeah pendleton. Family and friends are mourning the death of 15yearold hadeah pendleton killed tuesday in a quiet south side neighborhood less than a mile from president obamas chicago home. Last week she was in washington for the inauguration as part of her High School Drill team. It shouldnt have been her. It shouldnt have been anyone but especially not her. You looked at her, how she talked about her future. She took her final exams. She had dreams. She is what is best in our city. It was a headlinegrabbing wakeup call. No mother, no father, should ever have to experience this. First Lady Michelle obama was there to comfort a Community Still in shock. And a mother in the grips of grief. Nowhere in this country is the problem of gun violence more dramatic than in the president s hometown. Then things started to turn around. We had a good first quarter, good second quarter. Everybody said its the Third Quarter during the summer thats going to measure how were doing. In june, we were down in shootings and murders. July the same thing. August the same thing. So far murders are down 26 from last year to the lowest number since 1965. Shootings down 24 . Were not declaring victory. Were not declaring success. Were declaring progress. That progress continued, culminating in a Yearend Press Conference announcing a different jawdropping reality. Chicago is on track to have the lowest Violent Crime rate since 1972, and the lowest overall crime rate since 1972, and the lowest murder rate since 1967. Even in those neighborhoods with the most shootings and murders, Police Statistics indicate that Violent Crime rate has fallen. A new problem for city officials is that affected residents dont believe the numbers. Theres still people getting killed and people still getting shot every day. Do i think its safer . I just think i think its the same. I come out in the daytime and im back in home at night. Were not going to rest until people feel the reality of these numbers. Days later, the Chicago Police department reclassified the Homicide Investigation of tiara groves as a noncriminal death investigation. That means that the 20yearold found with evidence that shed been bound and gagged in a warehouse, whose death certificate reads homicide to this day, was not counted in 213s homicide numbers. And the groves family is still waiting for answers. It just its a nightmare. That shes just gone. Just like that, shes gone. And i tell anybody to cherish their loved ones while they can because its like shes just just totally disappeared out of our life. Shes gone. Shes just gone. When we come back, part two of our special investigative look into chicagos Crime Statistics. Did the Chicago Police Department Cook the books . All in america continues next. Still ahead, the second part of our all in america report of the city grappling, the legacy of segregation and crime. Chicago, illinois, where distrust among police in the communities they serve is entrenched, and where a highprofile effort to cut crime to its lowest level in decades meets with allegations the numbers are not what they seem. Do you have full faith these statistics are not being the superintendent of the Police Department leadership, very focused on intelligence, datadriven focus through different methods and you cant do what you need to do if the numbers are being messed with. Did the Chicago Police department juke its crime stats to assure residents crime was decreasing . Did the Chicago Police department juke its crime stats to assure residents crime was decreasing . I traveled to chicago this summer to find out speaking with everyone from the citys Inspector General, to mayor rahm emanuel, himself. Time now for the second part of our special investigative look into chicagos Crime Statistics. Tiara groves family says the police never told them they were reclassifying her death. Is there any point where the police come back to you, detective come back and say actually weve determined that we dont have sufficient evidence to determine theres a homicide, were reclassifying this as a death investigation. Did they ever say that to you . No. No one. No one says this is not a homicide, were so sorry, but we dont have enough, we just cant do it . They dont come to you . Nobody come tell me nothing. Nothing at all. Its just like she was a piece of trash just throwed away. The family first found out tiara groves death was no longer list the as a homicide because of a twopart investigation by bernstein and Noah Isaacson looking into chicagos crime stats. They documented, ten people including tiara groves were beaten, burned, shot to death or suffocated in 2013 and not included in the official homicide numbers in the words of the reporters illogical or at best unclear reporting. We drove around and i asked them what prompted them to look into the citys crime rates for. Wed been going to Community Policing meetings which they hold regularly around in the various communities around the city, and there are more and more residents starting to fill up these meetings and starting to say i was a victim of a crime, or i witnessed a crime or i know this crime happened and this crime happened and were very afraid and the police would just take out a piece of paper mostly and read off the stats. Well, you know, burglaries are down 17 . Robberies are down 20 . You know, trust the stats. And people werent seeing these stats. Theyre looking into it now. In what chicago magazine found according to their nearly 40 Police Sources is a department where some appear to be engaged in a widespread practice of misclassifying other crimes, too. And in some cases, according to the reporting, making them go away all together. The majority of them we were directed to from sources. People who said, hey, you want to take a look at this one, and it began from there. Over the last 20 years, more and more cities have adopted a datadriven method of policing and crime recordkeeping called compstat which stands for computer or comparative statistics was first adopted citywide in new york in 1994. It maps crime trends and criminal complaints and holds local commanders accountable at weekly meetings. Advocates credited the statsdriven reviews process for new york citys historic drop in crime. The compstat program, the broken windows theory, and drug enforcement. I believe that those are the three main reasons why crime is down as dramatically as it is. Chicagos Police Superintendent Garry Mccarthy is a veteran of compstat. He oversaw the program when he worked in the nypd and he continued to use compstat when he ran the Police Department in newark. Then in 2011, he brought his approach to chicago. If youve been paying attention, what weve been doing in the Police Department is weve been putting resources into the hands of district commanders and holding them accountable. And the method by which we hold them accountable is something called compstat. But chicago magazine reported that brand of accountability has unintended consequences. Lets remember that compstat existed here in chicago before superintendent mccarthy. He brought his brand of compstat here. When hes calling out publicly the district commanders and ripping on them in a public forum, theyre going to go back and the message is going to be to our guys, we cant have this next month. So it becomes a sort of culture within the department where crime can only go one way. Thats down. And how does that pressure, i mean, one of the things i think thats, you know, we saw this obviously if you watch the wire but if youve ever reported on a big city Police Department and the compstat era is its not like people can be around, oh, lets fudge this. Right . The pressure comes from the top. And theres so many different opportunities throughout a department and throughout the police force to just nudge something over into a category, and if every individual person is accountable for their numbers, every individual person has the incentive to do that nudging whenever they can, right . Its so easy, and theres not only theres a trickledown effect. The at the top of the chain of command, has to report to the mayor. And the pressure comes in various ways at every little rung of that ladder. And that pressure, according to chicago magazines report was allegedly affecting the crime stats. Thats what we were hearing was happening inside a department, the panel had been asemi assembled. Some homicides are clear cut. Those are very difficult to fudge at all. The ones we saw, there was sort of a pattern with many of these cases. These were not clearcut homicides. These were cases where the victims body may have been decomposed, where the medical examiner may have determined that, yes, the person was killed, but by unspecified means. And so they exploited some these uncertainties to some degree to sort of keep them off the books. A couple days after chicago magazine reported that homicides were being reclassified in parts because of the pressures from compstat, the Chicago Police department pushed back. I want to get your reaction, sir, to a recent chicago magazine report which essentially accuses the Chicago Police department of reclassifying homicides in a way to skew the numbers to make it look as though Violent Crime is dropping. Whats your reaction to that story . Its nonsense. Its absolute nonsense. We wrote a 26. 12 page response to that magazine article. That written response calls the magazines report asinine, inaccurate and misleading among other things. It criticizes the use of unnamed Police Sources and presents the departments rebuttal on each of the specific cases detailed in the report. In the case of tiara groves, the chicago pd response points to word from witnesses, that victim groves was experiencing medical distress earlier in the day. Goes on to stress that it remains an active investigation. We continue to believe the case is suspicious but do not have enough information to prove her death was a murder and to classify it as such. However, the Chicago Police department did confirm to all in that the tiara groves case was reclassified from a homicide to a noncriminal death investigation. Chicago magazine stands by its reporting. They werent the only ones looking into chicagos crime stats. An audit which focused on a sample of 383 assaultrelated cases. We found on the basis of the specific things we looked at, we didnt see any basis to think the books were being cooked. The Inspector General did found errors in the Police Departments 2012 data. Some crimes were reported by incident rather than by the number of a shooting happens. Nonfatal shooting happens on a corner in a saturday in june. Eight people are shot. Spray of gunfire. Thats going into the system as one crime . Correct. But thats not one crime from the perspective of the fbi or from perspective i think of if youre one of those victims or three of those victims, youre not thinking thats one crime. Look, from a person on the street perspective, absolutely you could think of it as eight crimes. Theres eight victims. Im not sure that there is a particular value to be placed on which way you report it. What was important to us was once that information flowed into a victimbased reporting rubric that it be done accurately. So that when people are looking at the victimbased reporting numbers, theyre getting who actually occurred. Eight people had been shot. Its eight separate incidents. The audit found that about a quarter of chicagos aggravated assault and battery cases in 2012 failed to get counted in Chicago Police statistics reported to the fbi. That incidentbased accounting method predates mayor rahm emanuel since it was flagged as incorrect by the Inspector General, the chicago pd has begun a review process to fix it. And looking beyond that reporting error, mayor says hes proud his administrations record of reducing crime. Overall crime is declined as has homicides to report lows since 71. How did that happen . I mean, the drop is dramatic. The way i look at the way were doing this, i have a strategy that came out of working with president clinton at the 94 crime bill. I was a point person in the white house. Simply put, its about putting more police on the street, doing Community Policing, and getting kids, guns, and drugs off the street. There was this big investigative piece by chicago magazine, two parts, questioning the stats basically, saying we talked to we got cops anonymously saying they called it the washing machine, they identified some cases of individual homicides that appeared that they should have been classified as such. Do you have full faith that these statistics, theyre not being juked . Yes, absolutely. The superintendent, the Police Department leadership, very focused on intelligence, datadriven focus. Through different methods. And you cant do what you need to do if the numbers are being messed with. Number one. Number two, even the Inspector General has complimented the Chicago Police department for the way they have the integrity. Doesnt mean you cant focus on if there are challenges all the time, but on the basic thrust and the integrity of the numbers, absolutely. We have seen in other cities, this has happened, in which pressure is brought to bear, compstat is introduced and theres a cascade of pressure that develops in which you have Police Officers let me tell you this. First of all, im firm about the integrity of any date to, whether its financial, crime, or educational, or any area because youre making decisions. That information, the integrity and the appreciation of that. If that was the case, then somebody else would have been playing with the 2012 numbers. What 2012 was as it relates to overall crime, what 2013 numbers were. So i dont buy that. Many in the City Government want some clarification on those numbers. More than a third of the city council has signed on to one of two different resolutions calling for hearings into the citys crime stats. This alderman represents a relatively affluent neighborhood in chicagos 32rd ward. He told me he just doesnt believe the stats. I think what happened was they started playing with the numbers and the way they were keeping the stats. So you think the statistics are not true . I dont think theyre true. I dont think the way that they portrayed them from the Police Department is true, and i dont think the way the mayor has handled the issue of tried to put this veneer on it is right either. Ive heard from officers that have said, you know, some are retired, that said, hey, we were supposed to meet certain numbers and thats what we were told to do and thats what we did, to make sure things kept flowing. To me, that says a lot about whats going on and thats just in the last few years. Now, if thats not true, then i want the superintendent to come before the public and say it. Superintendent Garry Mccarthy is recovering from a heart attack and on medical leave but i got to speak to one of his top deputies, robert tracy for chicago pd. Weve been speaking with elected officials. Well speak to anybody in the public, we speak to the press and welcome to take a look at what were doing and we will explain it piece by piece and ensure that the perception is there and to ensure that they know the Chicago Police department and the city of chicago is putting accurate numbers out there. And we know it is. We know we are. And we would welcome that and any kind of review by the city council if theyre going to do that, wed be happy to explain to them. I asked chief tracy to explain why tiara groves death was reclassified from a homicide to a noncriminal death investigation. Just so i understand you right, theres some new information that came through to investigators that prompted this reclassification . Yeah. We review all homicide, murder cases and we do a review. We look at the evidence. We look at sometimes new information. I cant go into the detail understood. But there could be new information that comes in from the m. E. s office and thats specific. Im not going to talk specifics to the case. We can have findings that come back out, new evidence, witnesses. As we tie the case together, we can even take death investigations and make them a murder or go the other way, we can reclassify in a different direction. And as i said, this is still a death investigation. So it can, at one time, maybe be classified as a murder again. In a serious of conversations with all in cpd repeatedly insisted not only that their Crime Statistics are above board but they are running possibly the most transparent Police Department in the nation. To this day, tiara groves case cant be found in the citys crime data portal. She disappeared from her chicago home in july of last year and her case disappeared from the citys database five months later. And after decades of segregation, high crime, poverty, and mistrust, the Chicago Police department and the citys new mayor still have a lot to prove to those like alice groves who live on the wrong side of the citys color line. One thing we want them to do, put it back as a homicide and get back on their job. Reclassify that and get back on their job. When all in america continues, my exclusive report on an effort to curtail gun crime in america and the surprising people behind it. One of the most contentious battles in the country is the fight to sell safer, smarter guns in america, pits proponents of a gamechanging technology that can save countless lives against a gun rights establishment determined to prevent a single smart gun from ever being sold. My dad used to leave loaded resolvers underneath the mattress and so when my mom could see us playing with the loaded revolver, it was world war iii when my dad got home. Not a week goes by without a headline about an accidental shooting in an american home. Police tell us the 14yearold was handling the gun recklessly when he admits he shot his younger brother. One boy pulled the trigger fatally shooting his older brother. The boys were trying to figure out how to work the gun when the older brother pulled the trigger accidentally. The 2yearold found the gun underneath of a bed then accidentally shot himself. The tragic story out of. The little boy somehow got his dads gun. But what if there was a gun that a child couldnt shoot . A gun with a technology to ensure it could only be fired by its owner . Well, that gun exists. Its real. I held it. I fired it. [ gunshots ] good shot. Wow. How does it feel . Amazing. Yeah. It feels like a massive step forward, like the iphone of firearms. A smartgun. Theres just one problem. You cant buy it anywhere in america. Thats not because its illegal, and its not because its manufacturer isnt trying to sell it. The question is, can you sell it . The demand is there. I receive emails constantly from people wondering where they can buy the handguns. Belinda padilla runs armatix, trying to sell the first smartgun in the United States. She met me at a gun range to show me how it works. Red means youre not the authorized user or have not activated the watch. When you grip that, its telling you right now you cant fire this gun. The armitix smartgun only functions if the owner a wearing a special watch. My code is entered. Says its good. I hit enter. I pick up the handgun. Its green. Green means im the authorized owner and ready to fire. If the watch and gun are separated by more than ten inches after, say, a suspect wrestles it away from a police officer, the gun stops working. Putting the ammunition in. I can fire. And i take the wristwatch away, it is more than ten inches. The grip tells me i cannot fire. I pull the trigger. I get nothing. I return it here within ten inches, pull the trigger. Created by legendary gun designer, the armatix smartgun is supposed to retail for about 1,800. About three times the cost of some popular traditional handguns. It may just be the beginning of what could be a technological revolution in firearm safety. The ones that are clambering most for this are the Law Enforcement officers. Whose colleagues are being shot by bad guys using police handguns. You want to really make sure that that thing is not in the hands of someone else. Thats right. Not only the domestic Law Enforcements, its also our military. When i was the d. O. D. Inspector general, one big concern, we had cachets of weapons. Youre just pouring weapons into a place. It takes one raid on an unsecured facility and youve got 1,000 u. S. Issued weapons. Thats right. Walking around iraq or wherever it is. That actually happened in the last year in syria, the bad guys actually raided a warehouse and got the weapons that were designed for the good guys. Joseph schmitz was the Inspector General at the department of defense under donald rumsfeld. I was literally for almost four years the top cop in the pentagon. One point, somebody told me i was the largest Public Sector consumer of glock handguns. He then went to work for the founder of blackwater. I went directly from the pentagon to be the chief operating officer and general counsel of the prints group which is probably most famous for owning blackwater usa and president ial airways named after eric prince the founder and ceo. Schmitz helped armatix clear the legal battles to get the gun sold in maryland. It wasnt easy. There were members of the maryland handgun roster board who simply didnt understand the technology and who, frankly, thought it was part of some Big Government conspiracy to take away the rights of american handgun owners. The armitax cleared some of the toughest legal hurdles in the country. Theres still one big problem. No one anywhere will sell it to you. Smartguns are dumb guns. The technology is far from reliable, and anybody thats going to put their life on the line with a piece of Unreliable Technology is making a big mistake. Larry pratt is the ceo of gun owners of america, and his organization along with the National Rifle association have been pushing hard to stop smart guns from reaching the market. They were successful with the first store that tried to sell the armatix smart gun. The Oaktree Gun Club outside los angeles. We were delighted. Gun owners of america, by the backlash. Things looked promising for the smartgun for first. Oaktrees extremely progun owner told the Washington Post he would sell the gun saying it would revolutionize the gun industry. Soon, their Facebook Page filled with messages like this, are you still in business . It was a dumb decision to pawn that crap off on american gun owners. Oaktree club turned around. It was a testament to the power of the gun rights establishment which argued that once a smart gun reaches the market, the government is going to make smart guns mandatory. And prevent people from buying traditional firearms. The nra warns that smartguns have the potential to mesh with the antigunners agenda, opening the door to a ban on all guns that do not possess the required technology. Larry pratt of gun owners of america told me much the same thing. It seems like if we could come to some technological solution so you dont have kids killing kids in their homes, that would be something that everyone, you, i, anyone with their feelings about the Second Amendment could embrace and come to celebrate. What youre talking about is an argument for mandatory control. This idea that government is going to mandate smartguns sounds like paranoia, but it turns out theres a kernel of truth to it. 2002, new jersey passed a law requiring that once a smartgun goes on the market anywhere in the country, gun sellers in new jersey must move within three years to only sell smartguns, taking traditional guns off the shelves. New jersey is a massive example of government overreach. That new jersey law has turned opposition to smartguns into a cause celeb for the progun crowd. After eric holder nearly referenced the armatix system as a way to make guns safer, marco rubio and sarah palin took to the floor of the nra convention, painted a dire picture of government control. We have an attorney general who believes that we should be forcing gun owners to wear bracelets in order to operate their firearms. Attorney general eric holder, recently he reveals this idea to have government to have government have gun owners wear bracelets, special bracelets that would identify you as a gun owner. Well, hey, holder, you dont want to go there, buddy. Its just ignorance. Its just ignorance because it really there isnt a there isnt any agenda here by any sort of big brother government. Armatix was undeterred and found someone else willing to sell its smartgun. Proudly, progun conservative andy raymond. Your uncle watches msnbc, drives you crazy. Yeah, just to piss me off. Every night. Every night. Raymond runs a small gun shop in maryland. What do you make . Commonly referred to as assault rifles, a lot of ar15s, things like that. He told me smartguns are good for the gun industry. If this gets them into shooting, im all about it, all about it. Thats an awesome thing. Everybody who is progun should be about that. Gets people into the range, shooting, loving guns, thats an awesome freaking thing for us. Instead, theyre talking trash about it. All the time with what we do, people tell us, antigun people tell us, you shouldnt be able to do that, people shouldnt be able to have that. Okay, that should be prohibited. Now progun people who hate that are now saying the same thing about this. And how hypocritical is that . I mean, it really is. Andy raymond knew the backlash would come as it did with oaktree. We asked him what he was going to say to those who came after him. Youre hypocrites. Youre the exact same thing, youre the exact same thing that we hate. People sitting here telling us that we cant have this, we cant have an ar15. Youre doing the exact same thing. You freaking hypocrite. So shut up. The backlash to andy raymonds decision to sell the armatix smartgun came fast and furious in the 24 hours after we spoke to him. Well tell you what happened and play you his incredible video response, next. This is all about freedom. Right. It really is, man. Even the nra, bastion of great freedom and say this should be prohibited, how hypocritical is that . Theyre bowing down to fear, bro, its cowardice. You stand up and fight for what you believe. You do not bow down. After word got out that andy raymond, a maryland gun dealer, wanted to sell the personalized armatix ip1, the first smartgun, he faced an avalanche of hate from gun right people, opposed to the selling of this gun. A Facebook Page filled up with accusations of treason. He got Death Threats. Telling the Washington Post his phone was ringing off the hook. He was so worried someone would try to burn down the store, he slept there most of the night after our interview, he and his dog. He responded to the facebook video and announced he changed his mind and would not sell the smartgun though he stood by his original position. How can the nra or people want to prohibit a gun when were supposed to be progun, supposed to say any gun is good in the right persons hands . How can they say a gun should be prohibited . How hypocritical is that . I still stand by it. I mean, if youre if youre progun, does it matter what kind of gun the person has . If the person is a fence setter when it comes to gun rights, i want people to go to the range, use it at the range, dont want it for home defense, anything like that, but dont want my kids to have access to it ever, this gun would have worked for those people. Not for selfdefense. Not for Law Enforcement. Not in its current configuration or anything like that. I thought we could get antigun people or people who were fence sitters actually into guns. That was my intention. Andy raymond also addressed the people who had been calling him and threatening his life and his business. Dont [ bleep ] come at me with this [ bleep ]. Thats to the people who called up and threatened to [ bleep ] kill me. So, thats being said, we never sold an armatix pistol. We have no inventory. I brought i got brought into this. I said, yes, i agree with the thing on principle. Okay . If someone wants to buy a smartgun, that is fine. That is their right. Okay . When the law legislates it, that is a sin. That is god awful. Ill cut it off there. Once again, we will not sell the armatix pistol. I will not be part of anyone [ bleep ] or anyone when it comes to guns. I belief my principles and whatnot were correct. Unfortunately, maybe i was wrong. I dont know. I thought we had a chance to reach people who were i guess it doesnt matter. I guess it doesnt matter. Right now, the armatix ip1 smartgun cant be bought in the store anywhere in the u. S. Armatix is selling it on its website. Supporters bullied and intimidated not one but two Different Stores from selling it including andy raymond, the 2002 law that mandates once a smartgun goes on sale anywhere in the country, new jersey gun sellers have three years to take all other guns off the shelves but new jersey senator majority leader loretta weinberg, came on this show and made an offer to compromise, offering to repeal the law she helped write more than a decade ago if the nra would come to the table. If the nra, the gun owners of america, those people who have stood in the way not only of the retail sales, they have also gone after gun manufacturers. Yep. Who are beginning to develop other technology other than armatix. That if, in fact, they would get out of the way of preventing the research, development, manufacture, distribution, and sale, i would move to repeal this law in the state of new jersey. What maryland gun dealer andy raymond had to say about that, next. Without drastic measures. 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When the law legislates it, that is a sin. That is god awful. The gun shop owner who wanted to provide somewhere that people could buy a smart gun, the armatix ip 1 and later retracted his decision after massive blowback. My followup interview with him, next. Loretta weinberg came on this show and offered to work to repeal a law that says once a smart gun goes on sale, new jersey gun sellers must eventually take other guns off the shelf and sell only smart guns. I asked the maryland gun dealer who faced Death Threats after vowing to sell the armatix what he thought. You are my buddy, but i guy i consider antigun, senator weinberg, you guys are sitting there talking about repealing an antigun law. That is the Common Ground we found with this, okay . We were able to say, this law is actually its against the free market, against the principles of the Second Amendment. We were able to find Common Ground on this. How amazing was that when you had senator weinberg say i will repeal it with this law. Under certain conditions, but that is progress, man. That is what we were trying to do with this whole thing. Trying to reach out across the aisle, so to speak and get fence sitters and antigunners, we can kind of Work Together on this. But the obstacle we have now is the fact we cannot i literally just want to talk to someone from the nra on the show. You can maybe vouch for me that im not going to jump down their throat or make them look bad. It does seem like lets try to follow through on that. We just can get nothing from them. Man it is you have to understand from the progun standpoint this technology is kind of dangerous. Theres a law in new jersey mandating this stuff is she did offer to repeal it but theres a law on the books. That sort of stuff, this technology is dangerous when talking from a progun standpoint, the fight is not against the technology. Its against legislation. Right. You know what im saying . I dont know why i would also think the nra is about free market and stuff like that. I dont know what to say about that. Im not a member, but, yeah, they should have at least come on and talked to senator weinberg and thanked her. Reaching across the aisle again. Thats what were looking for. Thats what we do in all in. Andy raymond, a great guy. If you ever want to go to a range, a great guy to go with. Thanks, brother. Be safe. Last month the new jersey attorney general released a finding that the armatix smart gun does not trigger the state law that would require new jersey gun sellers to only sell the smart gun. We called andy to see if after that decision hed now sell the smart gun. He said he would not telling all in, i dont want to mess with it ever again. Raymond has been in constant battle to repair the image of his business after trying to sell the smart gun earlier this year. After all that went down, hes having second thoughts about even being involved in the gun industry. We wish him well. As for the nra which has used the new jersey law to defend its efforts to block smart gun sales we called once again to see if theyd finally take up our sevenmonthold offer to come on the show to discuss smart guns. Were still waiting to hear back. Throughout this year weve traveled the country from [ female announcer ] youve tried to forget your hepatitis c. But you shouldnt forget this. Hepatitis c is a serious disease. Left untreated, it can lead to liver damage and potentially liver cancer. But you havent been forgotten. Theres never been a better time to rethink your hep c. Go to hepchope. Com to register for more information. Then talk to your doctor about scientific advances that may help you move on from hepatitis c. Throughout this year weve traveled the country from mississippi to new york to illinois, north carolina, to texas, georgia, north carolina, south dakota, kansas, maryland, covering stories from gun rights to clean energy, to immigration, health care, crime rates to education. And you can watch all of our reports, plus exclusive behind the scenes footage and extra content on allinamerica. Msnbc. Com or allinwithchris. Com. Im chris hayes. This is all in america. Thanks for watching. The theme in todays news is that we live in a lurid, insider world of covert action, anonymous attacks, untraceable bad guys, spies and secret international finagling. tis the season. Today we learned that this is the spy whom president obama thanked and praised yesterday in his address to the nation, even though the president did not name him in that speech. Cuba today released one of the most important intelligence agents that the United States has ever had in cuba and who has been in prison for nearly two decades. This man, whose sacrifice has been known to only a few provided america with the infoat