people who are using guns illegally to do crime, but don t lump me in that group and don t punish me for the bad things that they do. you know, jill, only five states have toughened their gun laws this year. if newtown didn t change things, some ask if the navy yard shooting didn t do it, is there a chance that gun laws can be revived in washington? do you share the same view joe is saying, that he doesn t expect it ever to see those two groups sitting down together? well, it s a really, really difficult issue and it s true that what joe says, that people do talk past each other. so that s why i think it s going to come down to changing who is in congress so that you get people to capitol hill who actually believe that mentally ill should not be able to have access to guns so easily, to basically close some of those loopholes. so until some of those changes are made and the numbers shift in congress, i think things is it tone, as joe is saying?
there s been a discussion about whether it s going to reignite the gun control debate. this debate on capitol hill is on the same place as it was yesterday morning, which is to say, completely stalled. and manchin says he hasn t talked with senate majority leader harry reid about whether they could proceed and democratic aids acknowledged that those five votes they need just still aren t there. senator manchin said also that even the mental health provisions included in his bill might not necessarily be able to go anywhere either, despite this new sort of shooting. if you ll remember, when we had the newtown debate, a lot of members up here, political figures were saying, if 20 children dying doesn t move us to do anything, what will? and the reality was, newtown didn t move the needle here in washington. let me bring in john rosenthal, you ve been on a lot with us after newtown and the
lawmaker to us move his gun reforms through, or something he hasn t already done? i think perhaps some sort of campaign. really the i shall with the public they try to reach, they disagree with him or isn t enough of an issue for them to make it part of their daily lives, make it part of the thing they are doing when talking to their elected officials. we see the polling, the polling clearly is on the president s side on a variety of issues being left out of gun control bills, talking about limited clip capacity, assault weapons bans, talking about background checks, although they will be in the senate bill. he has got the public s opinion on his side, but nobody s really moving their legislators to do anything about it, to the extent that they do agree with them. of course, those that don t agree with them, i don t think they are going to change their mind because the president s talking to them. if newtown didn t change their minds, certainly speeches by president obama aren t goin
washington it said it would have had a republican filibuster if they kept that provision in. but a lot of people who are advocates that maybe something is different, something changed on december 14th in america, look at washington and don t think so anymore. christine covers congress. it shouldn t be a surprise that this didn t get to the floor? exact low. this played out exactly like everyone thought it was. all the attention around newtown didn t change the political dynamics in the senate. the question had always been would harry reid put this assault ban into a bigger package of gun control and then force republicans to vote against an entire gun control bill which would have been much harder than pulling this piece out individually and allowing one vote on it and it will go down as an amendment and then the broader gun control package, including background checks, will likely pass. so it allows the toughest, most controversial piece to get a vote separately and allow the rest
the newtown massacre did really not change much of the political dynamic when it comes to guns. our other top story this morning in orlando, the thwarted attack with this guy with all this ammunition and guns and you wonder if not these kids at sandy hook, if that s not going to change the dynamic, what will? i mean it s the rhetorical question really because you can t imagine anything more jarring to the nation than what happened december 14th. as american society and congress accepted a certain level of this kind of news flow over and over again, a thwarted attack, an attack that went wrong, someone planning an attack, god forbid an attack that actually happened. we saw that with congresswoman giffords. a member of congress was shot in the head, and that didn t bring any kind of gun control afterward. so when one of their own is attacked and congress doesn t