hello, everyone, thanks so much for joining me. i m fredricka whitfield in atlanta. in wisconsin a deadly shooting left a former judge dead and sources tell cnn the gunman was planning to target several other high-ranking government officials. former juneau county circuit court judge john roemer was gunned down in his home friday. police say the shooter then shot himself. sources say the gunman was also planning attacks on wisconsin governor tony evers and senate minority leader mitch mcconnell. we have details now. what more are investigators sharing. reporter: sources tell cnn the suspect had a list of targets, a long list of targets. officials say this was somehow related to the justice system. was it one case, several cases? that is simply not clear. what i can tell you this began friday morning when someone ran out of judge roemer s home, called 911 and told police someone had broken inside and shot two rounds inside that home. when police tried to negotiate with the s
republicans and democrats who are engaged in that conversation? reporter: fred, there is still such a divide between how republicans and democrats want to approach this issue of gun safety reform. you know, they were in recess this past week but there were virtual meetings that took place between republicans and democrat, these bipartisan talks but they re not able to meet in the middle just yet. as an example, mitch mcconnell said the issue is, quote, mental illness and school safety, meanwhile, democrats want to raise the age of purchasing semiautomatic weapons from 18 to 21 which has not gained any traction in these talks. republicans don t believe there should be any changes to gun reform any gun reform this this country. democrats want to see gun safety reform but, look, these talks are including topics such as upgrading school security, bolstering the country s mental health system, expanding background checks and pushing states to implement tougher red flag laws, also some g
the job right to stop this individual. but, ben we should be focusing on that. back to the original topic though, when a muslim person carried out an attack in the u.s., the president immediately called for increased immigration vetting. correct. why isn t he calling for increased background checks for gun buyers, for example? what increased background check would you call for? closing the gun show loophole. this has nothing to do with a gun show loophole. the law you described would not have federally licensed gun dealers, you and i know. that connecticut, they closed the gun show loophole, gun violence and murders are down 35%. in states where they closed the gun show loophole, it is working. getting rid of bad apple gun dealers. having a federal gun trafficking laws which republicans won t allow us to have. having requirement of a secured storage of a gun. we will never get to zero, but let s have one less mother cry
up on what gene robinson was talking about the frustration and nothing getting done in washington. in the coming weeks and months, obviously, we ll hear a lot of talk about background checks, gun trafficking laws, mental health, conservatives may talk about explicit video game violence. and how we have to have tougher ratings. we got a new one to deed the list, defense contractors between edward snowden and this murderer yesterday. now we ve got totally to reassess about subbing out all of this work. first of all i m struck, it s almost a topic for extremely dark comedy if it weren t so grim. we re now at a point where we have kind of a metrics to fill in. we know what we re supposed to talk about because these things happen so often. the thing that strikes me is how
we ll start with the two appalling gun incidents in america chasm the first, the young australian student here in america to play baseball who was apparently randomly targeted and gunned down to his death. what do yaw make. it was horrific and i think it under scores the fact there is way too many guns abroad in america. we have as many as 300 million guns in this country, and it s just an incredible number. unfortunately, you re going to see events like this take place when you have that number on weapons. we think that we re in need of sensible gun laws, federal laws, the case that you mentioned in new york, we won t talk about it but calls out for gun trafficking laws. we simply don t have that.