Transcripts For MSNBCW MTP Daily 20180221

Thurgood marshall in the elite athletes junior olympics and one of my sons was a Youth Council member for the District Of Columbia in ward five and one day he was this was this is after school. Now we need agree we need to protect our kids in schools but we need to protect them on the safe passage ways home as well. And the Extracurricular Activities and the parks and recreation and everything that they try to go for their peace. And so my son ziar kelly went to college right after school. To announce that he was declaring for his college to run track and to further his education and become mayor of district District Of Columbia. On his way home he got a text from hi son who was going to make it and found out there was press he decided not to. Because locally we were burnt by the press. Zion is texting diar, watch out there is someone in our passage way coming home. And in a splitsecond, zier was walking home, maybe from this distance to where that the curtains are. He was that close to home when a thug came out to try to rob zion and he tried to rob zir. He tried to rob him 20 minutes earlier and he cant get the students, those fast track kids im going to come back and get them. And he went and caught my sob any son and got into an altercation over a cell phone and shot my son in his head and he is now here with us. That day i could have lost two sons but the tragedy that my family has to live with after losing ziar is i have another son that attends Thurgood Marshall, hes been taken to all types of Family Counseling and therapy and the school has been affected, the community has been affected. And with want to stand up for our students in the community. Give us some solutions as to what we can do. So myself along with helping hands in d. C. Came together and got with our attorneys and everyone else and said were going to do research and find out what legislation can be found that could better serve to protect our students and the safety zones in their school zones. And it has been a fight because everybody shows up for photo ops, all of the politicians show up to say were going to get it done. Were going to protect our kids. But just a couple of weeks later, School Shooting just like we all hear about all of the experiences. At billu senior high school. Kid gets shot at school. Dunbar, kid gets shot at school. On the schools on the safe passage way home, the parks and recreation, extracurricular, our students have to be protected. Our students have to be protected. One local legislator asked me how do you define students . How would a criminal define students . You define them after i commit a crime against them. The students are crying. Theyre calling for a national standout day. April 20th in celebration of columbine. Because the same incidents keep happening. Not just in our schools and our communities as well. To upstanding citizens and those doing the right thing. And we as parents, yes, we try to fight to pass legislation just like you, locally and nationally this campaign has grown. And it is affecting all of us. All of our kids. It is gun violence. Gun violence. So i thank you, that is my story. And were going to keep fighting and were going to keep trying to pass legislation and were going to keep fighting for our students, at Thurgood Marshall and here in the District Of Columbia and across america as well. Thank you very much. Thats incredible. Very sad. Thank you very much. Does anybody have any an idea for a solution to the School Shooting and the School Shootings that weve gone through over the years and weve seen too much of it, and were going to stop it. And a lot of different ideas i could name ten of them right now. Does anybody have an idea as to how to stop it . What is your recommendation to stop it . Yes. I dont know if im going to Say Something you havent already heard. I could tell you that in addition to all of the sorrow that were feeling in our community right now, there is also a lot of anger. Anger that the police can visit a person dozens of times and not take action, anger that the fbi could get at least two credible tips and not take action. And one possible solution, which we discussed with secretary devos over lunch was if a tragedy strikes, can we wait for the First Responders to get to the campus four or five or six or seven minutes later . And one possible solution, which may not be very popular may be to have people in the school, teachers, administrators who have volunteered to have a firearm safely locked in the classroom who is who are given training throughout the year. There are plenty of teachers already licensed to carry firearms. Have them raise their hands to volunteer for the training and when Something Like this starts, the First Responders are already on campus. And if it is not the teachers, you could have people that work on the campus. A cust odeab could be an Undercover Police man or somebody who works in the library or the lunchroom could be an Undercover Police man. He serves lunch every day but also has a firearm at the ready. A guidance counselor. If you cant stop it from happening and with hundreds of millions of guns out there, i dont know if it will ever be fully stopped. But the challenge becomes once it starts, to end it as quickly as possible. And just unfortunately you cant wait five or six or seven minutes. And what my daughter said earlier, that there are 32 states that have laws that require the schools to prepare for this and yet more than half of the and Broward County is one of them and our school was prepared. And thank god it was only 17 lives. But when more than half of the counties wont spend the money out of the budget for the training, even though the law said they should, it will be that many more the next time. So between having the schools train for lockdown and possibly having armed personnel and staff willing to do it anonymously. I dont want the kids to know who have the firearms ort shooters to know who have the firear firearms, i dont want people Walking Around with firearms on their side. But had when the a when the alerts go off and they put the kid in the closet and under the desks and then i want the teacher to pull out the safe and the firearm and do what needs to be done while you are waiting for the helicopter and the s. W. A. T. Team to come. I also think that we need more deputies. You have a campus of Stoneham Douglas of 3200 with one deputy. One. And if that deputy leaves for training, we need another deputy there. And the other thing is communication. The schools have to communicate with the police. The police have to communicate with the Child Services, Child Services maybe has to communicate with fbi and for someone to bring to buy a gun at 18 to do even a background in 15 minutes, we should be able to communicate with all of those other people that something is wrong and this child doesnt belong buying a gun like this or mr. President. Youre right about that. Yes go ahead. Mr. Vice president and secretary, thank you for having us. I think what year hearing today is there is no lack of solutions. What weve had to date is a lack of leadership. And im confident that will you bring out that leadership to take the action that needs to be taken because there is not one solution, there is Many Solutions and youre hearing some of those hear today. To resolve this and address this, our schools are soft targets. So we need to harden the targets by making increase our deterrence so potential murderer knows that wont happen. There is going to be people there ready to respond that the minute something happens our technology will pick up an incident has occurred and well be responding immediately and the children and teachers know what to do in that instance. Their communicated with. We need to identify where there is Mental Health issues among the student population. The kids at the school knew this person and knew he was an issue. The fbi knew and we need to close some of the loopholes in the background check system where were not integrating the Mental Health knowledge that exists at the state and local level into the federal background checks. So fix the nix system and that is an easy one. So there is a lot of immediate steps to take right now, a longer Term Solution but i think we need to get started right away and thank you for your help on this. Thank you, too. And i will say, again, background checks will be very strong. We need that. And then after we do that, when we see there is trouble, we have to nab them. You know, years ago we had a mental hospital, Mental Institutions, we had a lot of them. And a lot of them have closed. Theyve closed, some people thought it was a stigma or thought frankly it was the legislators it was too expensive. Today if you catch somebody, they dont know what to do with them. He hasnt committed the crime but he may very well and there is no Mental Institution or place to bring them. And we have that a lot. Even if they caught this person im being nice when i use the word person, they probably wouldnt have known what to do. Theyre not going to put him in jail and yet so there is no middle ground of having that institution where you had trained people that could handle it and do something about it and find out how sick he really is. Because he is a sick guy. And he should have been nabbed a number of times, frankly. Youre concept and your idea about school concealed carry and it only works where you have people very adept at using firearms. Of which you have many. And it would be teachers and coaches and if the coach had a firearm in his locker when he ran at this guy the coach was very brave. Saved a lot of lives i suspect. But if he had a firearm, he wouldnt have had to run and he would have shot and that would have been the end of this and this would only be for people adept at handling a gun. And it would be it is called concealed carry. Where a teacher would have a concealed gun on them, they would go for special training and they would be there and you would no longer have a gunfree zone. Gunfree zone to a manny maniac, because they are cowards, a gunfree zone is lets go in and attack because bullets arent coming back at us. And if you if you do this and people are talking about it and it is a point that well discuss, but concealed carry for teachers and for people of talent of that type of talent, so lets say you had 20 of your teaching force, because that is the number, and you said it, an attack has lasted on average about three minutes. It takes five to eight minutes for responders, for the police to come in. So the attack is over. If you had a teacher with who was adept at firearms, they could very well end the attack very quickly. And the good thing about a suggestion like this, and well look at it very strongly and a lot of people are opposed to it will like it. But you cant have a hundred Security Guards in stoneman douglas. That is a big school. It is a Massive School with a lot of acreage to cover. A lot of floor area. And so that would be certainly a situation discussed by a lot of people. You have a lot of people that would be armed and ready and they are professionals and they may be marines that left the marines or left the army and left the air force and theyre very adept at doing that. You would have a lot of them and theyd be spread throughout the school. So the other thing i really believe that if these cowards knew that that was at the school that the school was well guarded from the standpoint of having pretty much professionals with great training, i think they wouldnt go into the school to start off with. I think it could very well solve your problem. So well be doing the background checks and doing a lot of different things. But well be looking at ideas like that. A lot of people dont understand that airline pilots, a lot of them carry guns. And i have to say that things have changed a lot. People arent attacking the way they would routinely attack and maybe you have the same situation in schools. So does anybody like that idea here . Does anybody like it . Yes. For meadow. Your beautiful meadow. We talked about that. And do people feel strongly against it . Anybody . Strongly against it . I could look, we can understand both sides. And certainly it is controversial. But well study that along with many other ideas. Anybody else have something to say . Go ahead. Ive been in thousands of schools across the country and ive noticed in israel they have one entry point and it is very well guarded. Im not asking for us to change not saying we should turn our schools into prisons. But ive been in so many schools from speaking in a auditorium and i will go outside and call my wife or to just get a breath of fresh air and it is so easy for me to get back into that school. I know adults and students i could tap on a window and theyll open the door or catch someone coming out of the side door and easily get in. So one of the things that i have thought a lot about and seen this around the country is we have really soft entry points. That is true. Thats true. And we could do something about that. Yes, sir, go ahead. Good afternoon. Im brandon thompson. My heart goes out to everyone who is experiencing this tragedy right now. Im currently a dean of students at friendship tech prep which is in the heart of southeast d. C. Which is in ward eight cl is one of the most which is one of the most impoverished wards in d. C. However, at our school, just a solution, we actually have check points. When a student walks in the door we have metal detectors and oftentimes i see that in urban education and we have an xray machine. The students put their bags through and and right after this incident happened, a parent who didnt so much agree with it at first sent me an email saying thank you, because now i see exactly what is happening. And so we oftentimes use that tsa model when a student comes in, we have somebody at the door to greet them and do a check in just to see how they feel and we have certain point people. I know this person is not feeling well so they wont get past point one. They go through the metal detector and the bag goes through the machine. At the end of the day just talking to my students riding over today, they say i feel safe. And you come outside and you say talk about mental hospitals,er our school is across from a shut down mental hospital. We have those come over to the streets u streets, oh, my god but once you get in the building, we have the family feel and the check in points and everybody has to to go through the check points to make sure our students and Staff Members get home safe. And these are just minor solutions. Like i will say im against having a teacher with a gun in the building. Teachers are emotional. And people are emotional. So i think that is a huge factor. However, but having students and you may have to go to staff member going through the check points to ensure that, one the mental is on point, and two that were talking about they dont have any physical metal on them, and or in our building, our students dont carry cell phones because we consider that as threat. It is taken away from them learning so they turn in their cell phones. And so those things of ensure our kids are there at the moment to live the moment to enjoy school, they get that joy factor and they get that family feel and able to connect with one another and able to communicate and not worry about looking over aur shoulder when they walk out into the building because they know every person that comes through the building has through a metal check. They have bags that have been checked. And so that is just a solution. Once again my heart goes out to everyone who has been through this tragedy. Very well said. Very well said. Mr. President. Thank you for being open to hearing all forms ever solutions. I truly appreciate that. One point on the Mental Health issue and i think it is important to note that someone with a Mental Illness is highly unlikely to ever commit an act of violence. It is a very, very small percentage. What were dealing with here is more of a lack of mental wellness. This is around anger and fear. And that is not something that you could diagnose and put into Mental Health hospitals. This is more about funding for Mental Health service. So help the individuals at risk. Especially when we think about suicide. Teen suicide and suicide is the number two killer of our children as i understand right now and a lot of the suicides are performed with firearms. Which makes them unsaveable. So the idea of Mental Health and being able to identify who is at risk and who is considering these issues and go into crisis, that is important. I appreciate the point on arming teachers. It is not personally something that i support, rather than arm them with a firearm, i would rather arm them with the knowledge of how to prevent these acts from happening in the first place. How do you identify the kids in your class that are most at risk and then most importantly within a school, how do we have a Safety Assessment program so that schools know how to deal with all of these threats. Have established protocol to deal with them and get underneath the surface of what is going on in that childs life and find out why they are on this pathway behavior and intervene. These this is about prevention. There are some fabulous solutions being talked about today which still go to imminent danger. Lets talk about prevention. There is so much that we could do to help people before it reaches that point and i urge you, please, stay focused on that as well. It is it is the gun. It is the person behind the gun. And it is about helping people before they ever reach that point. Yes. So thank you. I fully respect all of our amendments including the second. But in maryland theyve proven that the Second Amendment does not protect these types of weapons. They have banned over 45 different kinds of assault weapons. Including the a. R. Including the a. R. They have banned they have limited magazine sizes. They have proven that it is not like we have to lose our Second Amendment. These the Second Amendment i believe was for defense. And i fully respect that like i said. But these these are not weapons of defense. These are weapons of war. And i just i still cant fathom that im myself am able to purchase one. Anyone . Thank you. Mr. President , i couldnt agree im not here to debate. I lost my sister. And like mr. President said, if you could find 20 of maybe retired Law Enforcement officers, or teachers you could go to discrete training to carry a firearm on its waist, it could have been a very different situation. Like he said, Law Enforcement takes them seven minutes or eight minutes to get there. If a teacher or a Security Guard has a concealed license and a firearm on their waist, they are able to easily stop the situation. Or the bad guy ill put it that way, would not go near the school knowing that someone can fight back against them. Also i believe that it is insanity that they would even open the gates up 20 minutes before school ends. They are supposed to protect us and the children. So in the future we need more security, we need more firearms on campus, we need better background checks, and we need to study more on Mental Health. And i want to thank everyone for their condolences and that is my only argument. Thank you. Thank you. Yes, go ahead. Thank you, mr. President and mr. Vice president and madam secretary. My deepest condolences though those who have those who have lost family and friends. My name is curtis lawrence. Im principal at friendship collegiate academy. And like mr. Brennan said, we have security, and we also have mpd on staff that we hired to make sure that things arent coming into our school. And also this immediately min e minute in the morning and during dismissal around the school to protect our kids as they leave. But last week we did suffer a loss. One ninth grader was gunned down walking distance from the school and so when we talk about safe passage, when looking at the gun violence with our scholars and our students, im saying take a double approach. Protect kids in school, as the president you have different laws in different states and so definitely where they dont have the necessary security as we may have of getting in, then we have to think about what are the solutions for the kids in florida that are going to schools with that to make sure they are safe in school and then in places like here in d. C. , what are those solutions to make sure kids are able to get home and to school safely. So i think it is a twoprong approach and i know you have a specific provision, to meet with the governors and coming with different laws on different protective to make them own that twoprong approach, to protect them in and out of school going back and forth. Mr. President , thank you so much. And thank you Vice President and madam secretary for convening this and for you you allowing the opportunity to speak about this very serious problem. And my heart absolutely breaks for the family of park larnd. I have a sense of what youve been going through it. Ive begun going through it for seven years. This is my son daniel. He was 7 years old when he was shot to death in his first grade classroom at Sandy Hook Elementary School just over five years ago. My wife jackie could not be here because shes a schoolteacher and sent me as the ambassador. Jackie is a career educator and she will tell you she has spent over a decade in the bronx. And shell tell you that School Teachers have more than enough responsibilities right now than to have to have the awesome responsibility of lethal force to take a life. [ applause ] thank you. Nobody wants to see a shootout in a school. And a deranged sociopath on his way to commit an act of of murder in a school with the outcome knowing knowing the outcome is suicide is not going to care if there is somebody with a gun. That is their plan any way. I am going to build on what my friend and colleague Nicole Hockley said, we tried this legislative approach. Ive been in this building before, many times, ringing our hands, pleading with legislators, what can we do. Until we finally say we have to go home and do this ourselves. And we built something. Sandy hook promise has built something that works. We train students and we train teachers and we train educators with a tools of how to recognize these people. And with the tools of how to intervene and with the tools to get them to the help they need before they pick up a gun or any other weapon and commit a horrible tragedy. It works. We dont charge for it. Were not asking for money. Weve already stopped School Shootings. We have already prevented suicides. Weve already captured other social issues like bullying and cutting. We know that it works. We have a solution right here. Were asking for you to please help. We need to do this nationally. Now. Thank you. Thank you. Mr. President , id like to take the opportunity to thank you and the Vice President and to thank everyone here for joining us today for telling your stories, for sharing your perspectives and please know that this is the beginning of a long conversation. We are committed to seeing a solution to this very, very tragic and horrible situation. And so know that our hearts will continue to be with all of the families affected here and thank you again for being with us today. Thank you, betsy and mike and everybody for being with us. Were going to work very hard and it is very difficult and very complex but well find a solution. We have been looking at this issue for a long time, too long as far as im concerned. And youll be back and youll be back in a much more positive light. We will get there. If you have any suggestions, if you have any feelings as to what we should do because there are many different ideas, some are good, isnt arent good and some are very stringent as you understand and a lot of people think they work and some are less so. But in addition to Everything Else, and in addition to what were going to do about background checks, were going to go very strong into age and age of purchase and into the Mental Health aspect of what is going on. Because here was a case where it cried out. This person was a sick very sick and people knew he was very sick. And i know Law Enforcement also i learned a lot from this event. Were also going to look at the institutions and look at what you do when you find somebody like this because again right now were not equipped like we were many years ago. So well look at that whole aspect of what is going on. I want to thank everybody. I know weve been through a lot. Most of you have been through a lot more than you ever thought possible. More than you ever thought humanly possible. And all i can say is that were fighting hard for you and we will not stop. We will not stop. Were going to get there and i just grieve four for you. There could be nothing worse than what youve been through. Again, thank you for your ideas and thank you for your thoughts. Thank you for pouring out your hearts. Because the world is watching. And were going to come up with a solution. God bless you all. Thank you. [ applause ] good evening. Im chuck todd here in washington. Weve been watching together the president trumps listening session on School Shootings. It included parents and teachers, and students. Including parents and students from parkland high where 17 people were gunned down last week as the president looked on. He heard from a number of grieving parents and what you might call shell shocked students from park larnd High School Parkland and we heard please to make it stop. Well go over this. Michael steele and correspondent Shane Harrison and jennifer palmieri. First this is extraordinary event at white house. Everybody might have their own cynical view but this is what you want any president to do here. We heard from both sides of an argument and you heard impassioned and he sat there and took it. It is a catharsis for many of the people. He is demonstrating that the president is listening. And that it is called a listening session and that is what he was there to do. So month for many of them it was profound and i dont know if policy was abound and he went around the room and asked for peoples ideas. It is not something as we sat here and listened and we expected to hear. So it is a symbolic moment. But a significant one as well. Look, it could raise the stakes for action. You dont hold an event like this and i had a feeling he turned the tv camera and doing this, the question was would he do it live like this. So it raises the stakes for him to do some action. But it raises the stakes but i dont t means he will think it pleb means he will deliver. You had the dreamers and daca and that is a good solution and we should take it and do it and didnt do it. It is a uniquely american meaning and that could only happen in the United States of america tragically so. And i think there were two students, samuel zeif and he was so im not sure if you are saying his name. I think we should hear from him. Because absolutely, this was a moment. A student here. Let me play what you are referring to so people know what you are talking about. I lost a best friend. Who was practically a brother. And im here to use my voice because i know he cant. And i know hes with me, cheering me on to be strong. But it is hard. And to feel like this it doesnt even feel like a week. Time has stood still. To feel like this ever i cant i cant feel comfortable in my country, how are we not stopping this after columbine, after sandy hook. Im sitting with a mother that lost her son. Its still happening. Lets be strong for the fallen, who dont have a voice to speak any more. And lets never let this happen again. Please. Please. Like i said, it is hard to describe it. You have to see it. And there was a student before him who said that he was 17 and born after columbine and didnt say it but after 9 11. He said i dont know peace and safety. And i feel like this generation and you saw that picture of the young woman in tallahassee so devastated and in florida they didnt pass the assault weapons ban and the kids have felt like gone from feeling they are not safe to their sacrifices. And this is a good meeting but it would have been great if the president had started by saying there is nothing more precious than your lives, there is no more resource in our country that is more important. And were not just going to try to arm teachers, but were going to do everything that we can to make sure youre safe. He cant say that. Because the politics dictate other terms for him. And that that for me is what is potentially so transformative about this moment. I remember tweeting out the day after this event took place. And my hope was it has been affirmed by that young man we just witnessed and so many others that this generation, these teenagers, these 16, 17, 18yearolds take control of this and theyre the ones who are going to push up against the adults who are too weak, too afraid, to do anything. And so this is the tension youre going to see play out over the next few weeks, months and i would suspect year. I dont think this goes away as easily as some predict. The cynics and others maybe are even hoping. That image of that young man in that white house repeated over and over again will galvanize Young Students around the country to say this is our time to do something. Let me play a little bit more. We know some people may have come in and out of this meeting. And again it featured people from different sides of the solution debate on this issue. Take a listen. I was there during the shooting. And im a survivor. And i want you guys all to emphasize the point that i survived. I was lucky enough to come home from school. Unlike some of my other classmates and teachers. And its very scary. And knowing that a lot of people did not have this opportunity to be to be here still, it is mind blowing. It doesnt even seem real still. Everything seems fake. I dont i cant even i dont even know what is going on. It is just crazy. Everything happening, it is just so tragic. I feel so bad for all of you who have lost so many. And im just begging for change. We need a change. There needs to be significant change in this country. Because this has to never happen again. People are dying. And we have to stop this. We have to stop. If hes not old enough to buy a drink, to go and buy a beer, he should not be able to buy a gun at 18 years old. It should have been one School Shooting and we should have fixed it. And im pissed. Because im daughter im not going to see again. Shes not here, shes not here. Shes at in North Lauderdale at whatever it is, king david cemetery. That is where i go to see my kid now. Emotions pretty high. Yeah. Pretty important probably for the president to hear that. Most definitely. And for the American People to hear that as well. And for these people to say it. For the young people who suddenly have to grow up faster than they would have expected even though theyve never known an environment in which School Shootings are rare if not unheard of. Leaders will emerge from this. That is that will galvanize them and they will go forward and many of them have the benefit theyve never been politically engaged so they dont know and so they dont have the cynicism. And they say just make it stop. They are just down to the very basics of it and beginning the conversation from that point. That is unique. And from that point that you just made is important to note what happens yesterday in florida when those students showed up. And the Legislature Said were not going to hear the bill and the response was okay, then this fall we got to fire you. We have to let you go. And so does that translate into some type of Political Action that goes beyond the rhetoric . Well see. But it goes back to my point about how i think the way the way adults respond to this and the people that are the movers and shakers of gun policy, et cete cetera, how they will respond will animate how wide receiver this goes next. Let me play a little bit before the president. And well bring in somebody from tallahassee but let me play the president s pledge that he made. Were going to be very strong on background checks, well be doing very strong background checks. Very strong emphasis on the Mental Health of somebody. And we are going to do plenty of other then things. It is not like talk in the past. It is going on too long, too many instances. And were going to get it done. So that was sort of an earlier summation, as we heard at the end, he did throw in one thing that i was mildly surprised to hear, which was we may look at the age issue. Which gets to the idea of who could and in fairfax and the nra had i have talked to others who said the nra their going to give the president a lot of room some room here, but the age restriction might not be one of them. I cant imagine that would be one of them. But i think that we are the reason why we havent had action meaningful action on guns for so long is as michael said is the politics and i started a Gun Control Group after columbine. It was for the middle of the road and it doesnt work out because anybody who cares about guns doesnt feel moderate about it. There is no moderate gun people talk one way or the other. It is well meaning but a flawed concept. And now the passion it has been a voting issue for the for the right and never been one for others and i think that is that is what is changing now. And i think it probably wont respond wont result in congressional action, meaningful congressional action this time but that is going to change in 2018 and beyond. So im ultimately hopeful of that. Lets pause this conversation. I want to come back to you. But i also want to talk about what they are doing down in florida. Some of the parkland students were the at the white house and some in tallahassee. Politico is reporting that a deal is coming together in the Republicanled Legislature to include age limits and waiting periods to buy certain assault rifles so that could mean fewer guns in schools. But the legislation would also include a program to arm more School Officials which some argue that puts more guns in schools. But that sounds like it was taking half a loaf from each side of certain arguments at the white house. And joining me now is jay fant of jacksonville and running for Florida Attorney general. He voted against a motion yesterday to take up a bill that would ban assault weapons but today there is the piece of compromise legislation and representative, first welcome to the show, sir. Thank you. Glad to be on the show with you. Let me ask you about this compromise out there which sounds like it is an attempt to try to merge two different ideas here. Raising the age limit on who could buy an ar15 for instance and more armed folks in schools. Where are you on this . Well as i answer that question, i want to share with you where im standing right now is where hundreds and hundreds of the parkland students and their families were here today, emotionally expressing themselves to us and to the world. We couldnt be more proud of their efforts and it has been a very heavy day. And couldnt be more proud as a floridian for these kids. Now to your question, well see what kind of package comes out but i will share i would not support a gun ban it is part of the package because gun bans dont work in preventing these types of crimes. What the package will likely include are some things weve been working on. Even before this tragedy. One is house bill 621, School Safety. Where we create programs to train in a highly specialized way administrators or appointed people in the schools to defend the students from lethal attack. And that is what it is about. How do we protect the students from harm. You just said you ruled out any gun ban at all. What does that mean to you . What what firearms shouldnt somebody be able to own . What civilian, what firearms shouldnt a civilian be able to own . The reason gun bans arent helpful in this discussion because it is incumbent upon us to find ways to protect these kids. And gun bans dont keep criminals from getting guns. It prevents lawabiding citizens from getting guns but not the criminals. These things still happen. So we need to go defend the schools, do things that will work. Let me go to something about background checks here. And essentially creating more time, particularly when it comes to the Mental Health issue. So let me ask first about the specific incident in parkland. What information that the school got the School System had a lot of information on this young man and his mental unfitness. But none of that information is even mandated to be in the background check system to purchase a gun. How do you change that . Well, lets first address what should be the biggest problem is what did the fbi do when they dropped the ball and all of the tips that led them to indicate this man was a lethal threat to the community. So when we look for answers about how government can solve problems, how does government solve problems when our existing programs wouldnt do the things that could have protected the kids. Let me go back. The background check system. If somebody calls into the fbi and has a tip like this, should that tip, which by the way no crime has been committed yet, you cant prearrest somebody necessarily. But should the fact that that complaint got filed with the fbi, should that be something that should in the fbi in the background check system, in tni data base to prevent somebody fr from buying a gun. Any tip has to be received and understand in totality. The fbi had just cause to take action against this man and they did not. I want to go back, though. What information that a School System gets on a student and in this case they expelled him, should that information, should it be mandated that that information be put into the data base so that when he stepped in to go buy a gun, that popped up in the data base as a yellow flag or a red flag for either more scrutiny, more interview, extended delay before allowing the purchase to go through. I think youre point is debatable. I have to admit, a fairly narrow point. Im not sure it is one that is a c change. Were looking for c change here in florida. We cant have things like what happened in parkland happen again. We have a sheriff right here in florida, Sheriff Grady Judd who has created a program in polk county which models how to train administrator and volunteers going through vigorous training for the sole purpose of plooef preventing lethal attacks in schools. This is how you protect people. Let me ask you this. You and i probably none of us have the perfect solution. But what is wrong with an all of the above approach . All of the above including a gun ban . Meaning extend the background check period and include more things in the nic data base, raise the age limit, put in armed teachers. Both of these ideas, what is wrong with the all of the above approach to see which ideas work rather than declaring one idea dead on arrival because i have my idea that i know my side likes better. Lets be very clear about ideas. This is the place where ideas get exchanged. We are not new to the debate on gun bans or various features of how we put School Safety into the forefront of the public mind. Now that is with the legislative process is for. When the kids came here today, they have multiple ideas. Some good, some interesting, some new. And then we receive those ideas. That is the deliberative process we do in the legislature. What we have to do is make sure that that jonathan cruz, after he took those livers in parkland, doesnt also take our constitutional right as long with it out of an overreaction to the situation, that wont accomplish what we want which is defending floridas kids. My final question is this, though, we have expanded access to guns over the last 20 years. And one could argue that over that last 20year period weve had more of these Mass Shootings. Why not try an approach that attempted to limit how quickly guns got on the streets . Well there is certainly evidence of when in this country there has been a restriction of gun rights. And weve had Mass Shootings during those periods as well. Remember, ultimately when you ban guns, only lawabiding citizens refrain from purchasing those weapons. The bad guys obtain the weapons in illegal ways and the shootings still occur. We have he bought it legally. A mentally ill person bought this little legally. And i dont see this as narrow, i see this as a mentally disturbed we dont put mentally disturbed information that we get into this nic data base. It doesnt happen. Chuck, if nikolas cruz didnt buy it legally, he could have bought it illegal. That is what criminals do. The president has made some very good points about making sure that our systems that we have now are robust and they actually work. The fbi needs to actually work. The background checks need to work. We need to pass hb 621 in the Florida House and defend our students and have sentinel programs like polk county spread throughout the state and this country. We cant let our children be att risk, chuck. I think everybody shares that goal of safety for the students there, no doubt, this is obviously a very heated debate sometimes. Appreciate you coming on and sharing your view, sir. You got it. As you can see there, guns are turning into a big issue, perhaps in all the governors races, the democratic candidate for governor phil levine has already decided to put a Television Ad on the air, its nearly a Million Dollar buy. Hes now the former mayor of miami beach, he just finished his term there and hes now running for governor. Mr. Mayor, welcome to the show. Thank you, chuck. Youre out on the air with ads, youre calling on the legislature. Let me ask you this, why do paid ads now . Why not focus your energy why did you want to do the tv advertising first, say focus your energy at the legislature . Chuck, ill tell you why, you just heard this guy right there, this elected leader. I mean literally listening to him is kind of like when you watch the Charlie Brown special and the parents are talking and all you hear is wonk, wonk, wonk, thats called tallahassee double talk. Hes saying basically, im getting my nra money, so dont even say the word ban on the air because theyll cut my money. I want to put more guns in schools, and that will be the solution. When you and i both know thats not the solution. But a typical politician, like the guy you just had on, thats all he can say because hes running for office he wants the job and kids are dying in our schools. Its a shame. These kids are unbelievable. Let me ask you this, youre going to say some things during the primary is one thing, but when youre elected governor, it is a very diverse state in so many ways, culturally in so many ways. The gun culture is pretty deep in this state. Whats a realistic compromise that you think you could actually get passed in that Florida Electric chlegislature . Chuck, right now we have the weakest gun laws in the nation, what i would like to see happen and i will not rest, is for us to have the safest gun laws in the nation. Im not only a gun owner, i have a concealed weapons permit. Im not against the Second Amendment, i have a gun myself, im not against people having weapons, but we must have safe weapons. We must have restrictions on these assault weapons. If all the teachers have guns then theyll be able to protect themselves, i would like to see a teacher with a gun protect himself with an armory of guns. If you have Mental Illness, you should not be able to buy a gun. Thats what we want to hear, thats what floridians want to hear. Those young people, thats what they want to hear. On monday morning ill be leading a major rally in tallahassee with a womens march and a bunch of Political Parties from all across the state, because we want action. One thing i think people would retort to you, you can ban the ar15 all you want, its everywhere. Its the number one long rifle. What are you going to do with all the weapons that are out there . I tell you what im not going to do, im not going to make an existing problem worse and putting more of them on the market. Obviously hes in the business of selling weapons because the more weapons he can promote, the more money he can get from the nra and god forbid a man like that ever become our attorney general. When some would argue that the capital has some of the strongest gun laws, yeah, we do, you can funnel plenty of guns into chicago from gary, indiana. The federal government, if its not a shared federal government law, what are you going to do . Chuck, youre 100 correct. But it doesnt mean we cant start with our state. When i watch the president there, and i heard the president say everything we wabut what we wanted to hear him say, im going to ban assault rifles in this country. He didnt even say how he was going to do better background checks, he spent an hour and hes going to do just like he does with Everything Else is nothing. Thats not going to change. Its the country that needs to change. Thanks for coming on and sharing your view, i appreciate it. Quick, quick panel talk. You just heard that, polarized version of the gun debate right there. Florida is that polarized. Right. Which is everybody does own a gun and everybody does have this polarized view of it. But florida had orlando and parkland both. I mean, it was just less than two years ago that we lost 50 people in a nightclub there. And then you compound that with this tragedy and so i think its going to feel differently in 18. And i think its easy to get mired into the deficiencies of solutions, but what is lacking is that overall political will. The one place it seems like theres small momentum here, everybody says the right thing about background checks. Everybody says it. Its sort of like, its time to call some bluff s here. Put more information in there. We could have some Civil Liberties arguments, i dont know if youve been expelled, putting that into the system. I know some libertarian officials who would say thats not really fair. But its an extended back ground check. Remember when we had the patriot act . Oh, my god, the governments going to be spying on me and all that stuff. We get the sweet spot, you make some mistakes, you find out things. But i think youre pressing the attorney general candidate, you pressing on the point he would not answer, this is not necessarily a federal problem, its a state by state problem. Because thats where it is closest to the ground, governors, legislators get their feet on the ground and how they identify for a Bigger Mission on guns and it starts in the states. And he didnt want to address that because thats a tender spot right there. Hes also in a primary. Hes in a primary. Hes in primary, you cant budge in a primary on this, frankly on either side of the issue. If youre a centrist democrat, theres more to the issue. Theres movement, but i think that there is but it does seem that there its not any one thing. I would have hoped sandy hook would have been the one thing that made people act. Its the accumulation of this. One of the things we were going to run earlier today, it gets to this point. The Washington Post ran this math, more than 150,000 students have been in a school during a School Shooting. Lets do the math, times that by 10 people that they each know, okay . I mean, you dont have to get to you dont have to exponentially keep going the math to get to the full population to get the six degrees of kevin bacon. Everybodys getting to the point where either i know somebody, or i know somebody who knew somebody. Its with the kids right now, this is a cultural movement, this is going to be the kind of thing thats going to develop during the arc of their political lives and they will talk about it differently than these elected officials do and theyll start demanding that elected officials start looking at it differently. This is not going to pay off at the midterm. This is a decades long proposition for many people. Is it possible were stuck in the old debate . Us old guys here, we have too much memory. Baggage. The nra never does that. A new base of voters comes in and changes conversation. Millennials moved boomers on gay rights like that. You talk about the personal exposure to this. Im sure most of my colleagues, i know the former president of the United States agrees with me. The most the you know, the event in the Obama White House that had the most impact on me was new town. Like not even close. Just covering it, having to sit there all day and cover it. You were there and jake tapper was there, i remember everybody who was in the white house that day, and i lived through columbine in the white house too. Its those tragedies that hit people, when they hit people personally, they are meaningful and they change their life. I think youre right, this is going to change the culture, as a generation that grew up where that happened to them and theyre going to change it. All right, guys, thats all i got. Thank you. Well be back with more mtp daily. I wonder what you were thinking witnessing the president , a president who you and i both know from observing, is not known, i think its fair to say for a lot of listening, is not known for playing that role, and yet he seemed to be trying to do it just then. I actually think he does like moments like that. I think the question is, what did he what does he take away from it . Right . I think thats what we dont know. We saw at the meeting he convened on daca and all of the senators. You know, it was a well done event at the white house. It was the right way to do this, th q