thank you so much for letting us in your homes during these extraordinary times. the beat with ari melber starts right now. happy monday. happy monday, thanks, nicole. welcome to the beat. i am ari melber. the civil case against donald trump over defamation and battery, nicole was discussing that earlier. we have that later in the hour here on the beat. our top story tonight is a topic that could be the top national story on most nights by many metrics. america s gun epidemic and the ongoing threat and reality of a highly armed nation with easy access to some of the most dangerous guns in the world and a gun-related death toll that exceeds every other country per capita in the world. that can look like this. [gun shots] that was the harrowing scene at a recent little league baseball game in south carolina. you can imagine and feel how all the kids and parents felt and that is the kind of story that may not even make what we call national news, that you may not have
come here. what happened? what happened? shooter. active shooter. go out the back door. no. no. that is real footage. there was no active shooter. no shots were actually fired during an incident that was still, of course, very scary to everyone there. we re just showing you some of that initial reaction. police found there wasn t an active shooter but the instant reaction of an overarmed and traumatized pop pu traumatized poplus quite clear. you can see how quickly everyone goes into active shooter mode, because people understand quite intuitively that more guns has not made the united states safer than less armed countries. and in many ways, it has not made people any less afraid as those scenes from little league to basketball to any mini mart in america can show you where people immediately go into this mode. the scenes illustrate, even