brought legislative reactions from washington. between 1934 and 1994, congress passed at least four laws in response to gun crimes. it was something, at least. so what will it take to break the cycle? mike waldman, you have thought about this issue a lot and you have written about this issue. basic question to begin with. does this moment feel different? i ve covered a number of these shootings. people hope that it will, people sense that it will. does this time feel different to you? well, it does feel different, but it s often felt different before and then, sadly, i feels the same as passions fade and people move on. as a lot of people have noted, we re not the only country with people with mental illness. we re not the only country with violent video games. they watch a lot more of them in japan than they do here. we re not the only country with white supremacists. but we are the only country with 400 million guns. that s one of the main reasons we have this constant problem of s
that we have billions of dollars raised in elections and typically, overwhelmingly from special interests. from k street from people who have some economic involvement with politics or with government. there is a change. you do see now in the rise of small donations, on the internet, not just for progressive candidates, for conservatives, also. a way for people to participate in a much more small d democratic way. interestingly the democratic candidates are talking about campaign finance reform, for the first time in decades. you re talking about these issues. the media actually hasn t caught up. there hasn t been a single question on voting rights or on political reform in any of these debates. but the public is there and the candidates are retooling their campaigns, to try to meet this new moment. it s a question for the next debate. michael walton, christina beltron and eugene scott. join us tomorrow, maria hinajosa is going to be here along with
entire burden, using tariff revenues to basically make those farmers leland: sir, i have to we have to back off here. you are going off leland: okay. i will try to roll off the set. hold on, you said farmers were made whole. i ask the questions and you answer, you said farmers were made whole, i ve had a number of farmers on the program that are not made whole at all, are they not telling the truth? sir, that s a silly question you re asking me because i haven t met those farmers, i haven t heard you talking to them. leland: okay. secretary of agriculture sonny perdue has program which has made those farmers whole using payments that we ve gotten leland: just because they said they have been made whole we should take
talking about an assault weapons ban which brings up the question what is an assault weapon in your opinion? well, that s defined by the department of justice so i m a co-author of a bill with david cicilliny that would do that. but i want to focus what we have in front of us, that could be an accomplishment for both parties. now, that republicans and democrats do support. the notion that we can never agree on something, we have to disspell and we have an opportunity to do that? well, it s interesting that the last time that congress really skipped the august recess was in 1994 dealing with the crime bill and the violence against women s act and the assault bill, assault rifle ban, i should say. is it time to call congress back? do you believe that the time is now or are you okay to wait till september? i think we should be called back. i would go back in a moment s notice and i think the senate should be called back and vote on this. leland: do you take the president at his word w
things that are simply scary because we don t understand them. i don t think that there s a common definition of what a assault weapon or a military style weapon would be. and this is a debate that obviously we need to have, but i certainly think that that s a slippery slope. kristin: but if there were a defined definition of an assault weapon, is there some category of that that you would get behind? well, you know, we can look at that. again, the devil is in the details. there s already a ban at the federal level on automatic weapons, for example. there s already a federal law that requires a background check on every commercial sale of a firearm. and so, you have to ask the question, would any of what