we understand the letter was intercepted at an off-site facility. my understanding we have live pictures of that off site facility. all indications are the system that was set up after the 2001 anthrax letters that were sent to lawmakers that created such hysteria on capitol hill, system worked in this case. a test positive and lawmakers were told of this at a briefing this evening with the f.b.i. director robert mueller and janet napolitano and terry gainer. there was no harm done. it was caught at an off-site facility. shep: live pictures we re looking at that from postal facility. anything from senator wicker s office? they are remaining tight-lipped. he has been a low profile guy and has served since 2007. member of the joint economic
their staffs have been doing. the tens of thousands interactions they had quite safely with their constituents. we ll also emphasize that they need to report any suspicious activity, letters, illegal things to us so that we can work with the secret service and fbi to connect the dots on those type of individuals. then they need to make security part of their planning, the same way they would where they re going to have it, how they re going to have it and how many people they could expect. if they could sit back and say, do we have security issues? between the local law enforcement, their knowledge of the community and what we can do, i think we can bring more safety to these type of events. sergeant at arms, terrance gainer, you have a big job. we thank you for taking time out to talk to us. thank you. peace be with you. you, too. just a reminder, this evening president obama will be right here university of arizona in tucson to speak at a service
two congressmen jason chaffetz and heath shuler carry their own handgun when they visit with voters. terry gainer joins us now. thank you for joining us. i m wondering what you think about lawmakers carrying guns. chris, i don t think it s a good idea. i don t think that should be the first reaction, but i also feel guilty about talking about this type of stuff while we re on this special day of remembrance. but that said, i don t think firearms, introducing more fire power is the way to bring common peace to a situation. you have been working, i know, since this happened because there is the reality that there are people out there who threatened members of congress and i know you re outlining new security measures for lawmakers and without, obvio obviously, revealing too much, can you give us a sense of what additional steps are being taken to at least try to prevent another tragedy like this one? well, we re going to affirm the work that the members and
you. it appears she had no enemies, and guess what, we don t know if she was targeted. she could have been part of something random because so many people were shot and injured and, of course, killed. that s a very good point. and i should remind our viewers something we reported earlier, that the u.s. capitol police sent out a notice to senators, obviously she s in the house, but this is to senators, saying just that, that they have no indication at this time this event is part of a larger threat against congressional membership. i spoke to the senate sergeant at arms who was getting briefed on the investigation. his name is terry gainer. he told me it appears to be an isolated incident. isolated to her and, again, very important to know in terms of the motivation, we just don t know yet. senior congressional correspondent dana bash. thank you so much for that information. the president spoke out just a short time ago about this tragedy and said the full force
safeway supermarket when the shooting started. the doctors say the congresswoman is out of surgery now and is expected to survive. their words, optimistic. that s what they said. let s go now to our senior congressional correspondent dana bash joining us from washington. dana, you have new information you want to talk about. what s going on there among our congress people as they get word of this? don, i just spoke with the senate sergeant at arms. he is the man who is in charge effectively in charge of all security for senators. obviously gabby giffords is a member of the house, not the senate, but this is very interesting what he said to me. he said, terry gainer, he said that threats to members of the senate at least had been very low of late. they said they have not been high. he said he gets briefings very, very frequently and he has been struck by how low they are. he also said to me that when it comes to the gunman that we have been reporting on, he said, it appears to be an i