more information that might give us some idea of a possible motive in this awful tragedy. thomas? reporter: so many people wondering what the connection is between mercer and this campus. we ll wait to see. nbc s joe fryer. again, thank you. and we are joined now to talk more about this by john rose rosenth rosenthal, chairman of the group stop handgun violence, and he co-founded the american hunters and shooters association. that s a group that he formed as an alternative to the nra. it s good to have you with us today. and again, we re still waiting to put together and connect the dots for all the details here, but last night we saw the president come out on the heels of the shooting, the tragedy that happened here, making this impassioned plea for the nation to strengthen our gun laws. and i just want to remind everybody what the president had to say. take a look. this is a political choice that we make. to allow this to happen every few months in america.
normal are something that affect every american. for more, i m joined by goldie tayl taylor, whose column breaking bad can be read on the grio and rosenth rosenthal, stop handgun violence, an organization dedicated to the prevention of gun violence. thank you both for being here. john, nbc news is not playing the tapes. we re not going to play them. it s an issue that news organizations have to wrestle with, whether there is news value that would add to the public understanding of what happened or whether it sort of becomes just prurient. based on what you know in the 911 tapes, do you feel there is anything in them we could have learned something new from? i absolutely think that we should hear those tapes. and i ll take it a step further. when 26 and 7-year-olds are massacred with an ammunition clip and congress does nothing, absolutely nothing to curtail