0 all of this once again but let's get to some news. interesting story we start the headlines with. in texas, police are still searching for a motive behind the murders of texas district attorney mike mcclelland and his wife on saturday. he was shot multiple times inside his home with what officials believe was an assault rifle. the local mayor says it does not appear to be a random act and now elected officials are receiving added security. the murder come two months after the brazen shooting death of an assistant prosecutor in the same county. lawmakers say no early indications the shootings are connected but according to the dallas morning news suspect is likely to be on a prison gang that the d.a.'s office had prosecuted in the area. >> there is a series of officials that have been gunned down. >> yeah. >> and after his predecessor was gunned down he went out and held a press conference and said we are going to continue this and now he has been gunned down as well and his wife. >> we will follow that. also on the front page of "the new york times." this is an incredible story. stunning new data from the cdc showing an increase of hyperactivity among school-aged children. the report states an estimated 6.4 million children between the ages of 4 and 17, 11% of all children have been diagnosed with adhd. that's a 53% increase orver the past decade but this information has many doctors concerned about misdiagnosed cases and overmedicating kids. two-thirds of those diagnosed with adhd are taking prescription medication and these are controlled substances and they are really strong drugs and some studies show once kids are on that it opens up the opportunity of other substance abuse later and psychotic behavior. it's scary stuff. >> i got two older boys and i started seeing in the early 1990s, doctors started, pediatricians started trying to pass out ritalin like candy and then you had some people in schools. any time any child had any problems, you know, kids 6, 7, 8, you know what? they are adhd and they need to take ritalin and it has continued and i will tell you the long-term impact has been -- we always -- i mean, they look at your child and we have this happen because we moved around a good bit as i was going to law school and other places. couple of minutes later, they say they probably should be on ritalin. joey is sitting there reading the guttenberg bible and the original german. it's unbelievable how quickly they try to dispense that stuff and, of course, the infamous quote it's safer than aspinner and for adderall. i've seen it in college. friends who have college kids. we have a nation of kids who are addicted to prescription drugs and they are dying. i don't want to give the specifics on certain college campuses. i will just tell you one college campus i know of, tlhere is a fraternity that had a pledge class. five kids have died of prescription drug overdoses five in the past four years. this happens -- this is the great untold story. "the new york times" had a wonderful sunday story a couple of weeks ago. the untold story. can you go to major college campuses across america and kids are dying of drug overdoses either adderall or oxycontin and they bounce back and forth. >> i know it's happening in high school because i hear my daughters talking about it and i'm sort of in this world with one of my kids. but these kids take this stuff for add and adhd on test day and start getting used to medicating for events, for academic event. it's become a part of their life. >> what happens is they take the adderall to get up and stay up for a day, day and a half, two days. >> study. >> and then come down, they will take the oxycontin and what adderall does, it goes off a cliff and whatever you're on. this happens all over america and stunned more people aren't talking about it. they just stop breathing in their sleep. it's happening all the time in college campuses. >> because they abuse these drugs and they get the good grades. they get the payoff from them. it's amazing. >> it starts with doctors prescribing it and the bottom line of this "the new york times" story and, thank you, "the new york times," for doing this again, for talking about it again, it started back in the late '80s when they started pushing ritalin on every kid. every kid. i never saw anything like it and i remember at the time going, wait, what are they trying to do? raise a generation of drug addicts? 20 years later, this is where we are. and it's happening. >> 53% increase in ten years, think about that. >> i grew up to be really blunt, i grew up playing music and i had friends that were involved in drugs and one of my close friends who ended up dying of a drug overdose said he had done everything, had done everything. i remember breaking down crying. he said, you know what? i can handle it at all. he said but these pills, thorouthey are the devil and they will kill me in the end and they did. and they did. why more people -- and, again, it's happening at college campuses today. >> i'm very nervous about it. i have in my own world but these numbers should give everyone pause and doctors need to think twice about prescribing it. >> it's just instantaneous. >> it's instant reaction. >> in the piece you guys are talking about from the professor at harvard medical school says a tremendous push if a kids's behavior is thought to be, quote/unquote, abnormal not sitting quiet at their desk, a question of diagnosis as well. >> that is a question of diagnosis. i wonder how steven jobs, i'm serious. i won how steven jobs sat in his chair in second grade? i wonder what impact, how the world would have been different if a lot of these great thinkers throughout the past, you know, several hundred years had had doctors instead of giving hem ritalin? they are a little fidgety. >> i did a couple of several-part series on this for cbs on the increase in diagnosis of all of these labels you can give kids, the increase in the past two decades because they are actually looking at these children and giving them a diagnosis and some experts would argue that these children will go on a bad road if they are not treated and will end up in jail, the children with the severe bipolar disorder or severe adhd and need the treatment. i think that is the world the parent has to navigate. >> i guarantee you people watching today who have kids and e-mail us in, if you will. we don't usually do this. i guarantee you my two older children are 25 and 22, i will guarantee you that parents are children in their 20s have the same experience that i had all over america where they take their children in and doctors -- and some educators -- are trying to push ritalin on the kids and it started when they were 5, 6, 7, 8. this is what we get 20, 25 years later. >> yeah. >> and so i understand there are some children that. >> need treatment. >> need treatment. but i also understand that the medical profession has been netting the past 25 years, 30 years prescribing this to any children that are a little antsy in their seats. >> show some things out of control, certainly. let's turn to politics. we will go to gun control. it appears any piece of gun control legislation that could make it out of the senate will be significantly watered down from the proposal. gun rights activists focusing on universal background checks as the next part of the democrats bill they hope to dismiss. u.s. senator cast a vote. >> we do need the strength in the background check system but universal background checks, i think, is a bridge too far for most of us. >> why is that? why shouldn't we have to go through tsa checkpoints, law abiding citizens have to do that. what is with -- what is wrong going through an expanded background checks? >> the paper work alone would be significant. i think in this universal background check system there would be issues with. so i think universal background checks, we can scale back and still make significant progress by strengthening our background check system without going too far. >> there are now five republican senators threatening to filibuster any legislation that imposes additional gun restrictions. democrats would need 60 votes to overcome the likely filibuster. senator chuck schumer is still optimistic. there can be compromise when it comes to universal background checks. >> i'm working very hard with both democrats and republicans, pro nra and anti-nra people to come up with a background check bill that will be acceptable to 60 senators and be very strong and get the job done. it's very hard. we're working hard and i'm very hopeful that we can get this passed. >> dana milbank writes in "the washington post". obama on guns too little too late. on almost every topic from budget negotiations to national security, washington seems only to act these days in response to crisis if it acts at all. obama errored in trying to use newtown to build support for his positions on taxes and energy and immigration and he compounded the error by sending j joe biden to conduct a study. once the president took his foot off the accelerator no other action not even michael bloomberg's ad campaign to maintain the momentum. mark kelly has been, obviously, outspoken advocate on gun control legislation and he has been going around and buying guns and showing how long it takes to fill out a background check. i think it was like five minutes and 36 seconds, just if you care. if you can wait five minutes and 36 seconds for your gun. >> so i'm hearing behind the scenes there is still a deal that is being worked on universal background checks but yesterday it sound like it might be dead. >> they are still trying to figure out some sort of compromise. again, the legislative strategy is clear they have to get something through the senate. each if they do the house is a real challenge. you still hear from a lot of republicans they would like to do something. not just the public opinion polls and not michael bloomberg's money and not even the tragic events in connecticut. a lot of see it something they are willing to deal with if they can find a compromise. i think basically they need -- still need a republican party. colburn may not be the one they get. i think john mccain may be. >> it's a 90% issue when it comes to the background checks for criminals for people with mental issues, harold. the big holdup now is individual-to-individual. father to son, father to daughter, friend to friend. that is the issue they are trying to work out. from what i'm hearing there's a possibility the nra may give the members a pass because they know it's a 90/10 issue. >> they seem very close. i think mark is about right when it comes to finding a republican party to get this done. but i'm encouraged. i take schumer at his word is there a way to find an agreement here. it's unfortunate that we find ourselves this late in the process. we are talking about newtown back in december. we are not almost, but april. >> do you agree with dana milbank? >> i think you can look at it either way. i wouldn't go as far as dana has gone there. however, it does beg the question we are now in april. if this is the holdup now you're saying how they define where the background checks apply if we are talking family member to family member and i hope we can move beyond this and get people with serious deficiencies be it mental or whatever. >> criminals. >> if this goes through -- that closes the gun show loophole and closes online sales and guess what? there are a lot of gun shop owners that wouldn't mind that happening. >> exactly. >> andrea, a lot of gun control people are going to say, you know, if we just get background checks, we have lost this battle, especially after what happened in newtown, no assault weapons ban. what is the conversation the last three months and what we may end up here tell about the future for the gun control for those advocates how much they could get someday perhaps? >> when you think, in all due respect, to dana milbank, think of the state of the union speech and think of the emotional conclusion to that state of the union address and the way the president addressed the nation. i think what happened is chuck schumer and the group on the hill said, wait. let's see what we can accomplish and he did refer to them as he did on health care so that is a fair point. but schumer thinks he can put something together and it will not include as we have seen from harry reid the assault weapons ban. harry reid has moved quite a bit on this. let's face it, he sees the handwriting on the wall, he sees the numbers. the nra opposed him in 2010 which was a big disappointment to him. "the new york times" lays that out today. so harry reid is moving on what he thinks they can do. it is disappointing to the a advoca advocacy, no question about it. perhaps when you see these law enforcement officials, the sheriff and his wife and the incidence in texas and the colorado correction official, when you see these kind of assassinations of law enforcement officials, this seems to be a major crisis out west and maybe that will give some impetus to it but i think the best they will get is background checks and the straw purchases. >> we are getting a lot of e-mails on the cdc report in the surge on adhd treatment in young people across the country. alex, give us a sense. >> one woman wris have you noticed the use of ritalin has gone up as standardized test programs go up? teachers need to act like robots. >> any more? >> one personal one. she wants to be anonymous. her son was diagnosed with adhd in second grade and took adderall and ritalin and now a full-blown meth addict. >> a lot like that. >> we will touch on with a doctor coming on the show to talk about his new book, "the brothers emmanuel." >> i thought you were going to say he is on adderall himself. >> i love the brothers emmanuel. also chris hayes will join us. tina brown will be here as well. in a few minutes the mlb network peter gammons. but, first, here is bill karins with the forecast. >> in minnesota, they are playing a game, the twins versus the tigers, tell you how cold it will be coming up. rain up there in maine and rain existing areas of georgia and south carolina. but the cold is the story. it is a blast of cold air. hopefully, this is the last one. it's not going to head into the deep south but it is right now going through the northern plains today through the great lakes and then tomorrow, through new england. look at these windchills. remember, they are playing outdoor baseball game in chicago and in minneapolis today. in minneapolis the windchill is 8. fargo has a windchill of 2. this is like wintertime cold. and it's not going to warm up much in those areas. even with sunshine. highs will be in the 30s today. windchill in chicago will be down around 30 during the baseball game this afternoon. and in minnesota, windchills will be in the teens! so new york city's home opener the yankees at home against the red sox looks nice at 56 and not too many other problems travel wise. a nice afternoon after that chilly start. chicago to minnesota does warm up on tuesday. after that cold air goes through the east. even areas like washington, d.c., this cold blast isn't exactly fridged. this time highs in the low 50s and warm it up with rain in d.c. ward the end of the week. i think the cold blast looks like it's it especially in the northern plains. survive today and the summer will soon approach as we go through the weeks ahead. maybe not summer. maybe spring. top of the rock gloomy and maybe sunshine this afternoon. you're watching "morning joe," brewed by starbucks. ♪ nothing but the dead back in my little town ♪ ♪