night, just hours before governor john hickenlooper signed new gun control legislation. we ll be taking all of that in a few minutes. plus, something special tonight. we conduct an informal account of u.s. senators asking whether or not they would have supported dianne feinstein s proposed ban on assault weapons. the numbers are not official and in some cases the answer wasn t quite as simple as a yes or no but we will give you those results in a few moments. i now want to turn to my panel of police chiefs in newtown, and the surrounding area, chief michael kehe, chief douglas fuchs, chief joseph gaudett, chief montgomery of brookfield, patrick ridenhour of stratford. first i ll read the names of the 35 senators who so far have told us that they oppose senator feinstein s assault weapons bill. it s important to know who they are. senators alexander, ayotte, baucus, begich, boozman, burr, coburn, cochran, crapo, cruz,
that were passed today or whenever they were signed into law, but maybe what needs to be is they need to relook at that and maybe they need some input from the sheriffs to make the laws enforceable. and one that certainly all officers can enforce instead of having to think about what s the interpretation of the law. chief fuchs, we talked about magazine sizes. at sandy hook, had he had a 100-bullet magazine, he could have killed a lot more in the same period of time, right? and you re right. this is an inarguable fact. is that right? there s two issues, one is one my colleague in colorado is speaking about. that two seconds makes a difference. that two seconds is an opportunity. that two seconds is a chance. and we know that in law enforcement. that protects civilians and that certainly protects our officers and gives them a better or fighting chance when in harm s way. i think the other point, as chief kehoe raises, if that law
we don t need pictures to know that. i think in our own minds, we can certainly imagine it. and that should be our driving force. chief fuchs, you had, i think, two children who attended sandy hook school. they no longer attend the school. they attend another newtown school, just from age point of view. for you it must have been a very, very harrowing experience again, simply because this could have been your children. it was. and to be honest, when i was responding, we didn t know at first to which school we were responding. we heard the radio calls coming over the air. immediately my first reaction was it s going to be the high school. and i have a child at the high school. and that s where i thought i was heading. when i heard it was an elementary school, i don t think it ever really processed that i was going into a school where the kids who would be that young who were going to be affected by this. there s lots of debate going on about what the best response should be.