protest, to feel they can come in with a notion that they are going to do damage and use as a defense if they do that damage that they felt threatened and therefore it was self-defense, and cite the rittenhouse verdict as a legal basis for them to argue self-defense. this is frightening. >> let's go to nbc's liz mclaughlin, joining me from outside the courthouse in kenosha. liz, how are people there overall responding to the verdict? >> reporter: alex, this verdict seems to be widening an already deep divide. on the right, this trial was seen as a rally cry for gun activists and we're seeing some fodder on extremist group platforms, telegram channels, for instance, celebrating this verdict. some worrying, on the other side, worrying that this could encourage more people to deputize themselves and take matters into their own hands, protected by the wide breadth that self-defense provides. the families are really heartbroken. and we are hearing from anthony huber, one of kyle rittenhouse's shooting victims' girlfriend saying that she just doesn't understand why the victims' lives don't matter. let's hear more from her. >> every day i wish that i could come home to him, but i can't. because he's dead. and now the system is telling me that nobody needs to answer for that. >> reporter: and it really, the protests are a mark of these -- this outrage. more peaceful, it's very quiet here in kenosha now, but in just about an hour, another protest set to start in chicago. and just a wider discussion about the legal implications that this could cause and the legal reforms that some are pushing for. here at kenosha, there was a handful of protesters this morning in front of the courthouse last night, a few dozen. one woman arrested for writing "judge schrader must go." los lots of controversy surrounding that judge and a lot of the decisions he made, especially comments right after the verdict. let's hear from him. >> i couldn't have asked for a better jury to work with. and it has truly been my pleasure. i think without commenting on your verdict, the verdicts themselves, just in terms of your -- attentiveness and the cooperation that you gave to us justifies the confidence that the founders of our country placed in you. >> reporter: wisconsin's lieutenant governor said that the judge all but pushed that not guilty verdict. alex? >> well, you mentioned how discussions are important, liz. we're going to embark on one right now. thank you so much from kenosha. joining me is joyce vance, nbc legal analyst. all right, joyce, let's get to you there as we've heard from the judge. he's gotten a lot of criticism for his idiosyncrasies in court. how do you view his comments to the jury that we played? >> it's pretty typical for judges to make comments to a jury after a verdict comes in, thanking them for their jury service and reminding them that it doesn't matter what their verdict is, what matters is their commitment to listening to the evidence and doing their best and diligently trying to fulfill their duties. so, this wasn't that unusual. the problem is that it was the final stage of what had been a number of, if not outright efforts to put his thumb on the scale, then blunders by this judge, who didn't seem in any way committed to creating an environment where everyone who was watching the trial would believe it was fair. on many cases, he appeared to have a strong defense orientation and he did nothing once criticism surfaced to try to reinforce the fairness of the proceedings. in many ways, it seemed like he simply doubled down and stayed on his path. >> okay, so in addition to that, there were two things the case really came down to. first, did rittenhouse act in self-defense, and two, did he provoke rosenbaum and huber before he shot and killed them? so, how difficult do you think it was for the prosecution to argue their case? do you think prosecutors were handcuffed at all by wisconsin state laws? >> well, look, it's important to say, alex, that the law in every state is different, so wisconsin law obviously isn't binding in other states. but that said, prosecutors here handle these kind of cases all the time within the structure of their laws. the real problem that prosecutors faced here was having a witness on the witness stand make out the self-defense argument for kyle rittenhouse when one of the victims acknowledged that he had had a gun in his hand that was arguably pointed at rittenhouse. that became a very difficult situation for prosecutors. >> yeah. definitely. that was a pivotal moment for sure. how do you expect this trial, joyce, to further the public conversation about guns? >> you know, using self-defense in this situation is just not consistent with our common sense understanding of what self-defense is meant for. it's meant for someone who's in harm's way through no fault of their own and who responds with reasonable force, in other words, who doesn't fire a gun at someone who swings a skateboard at them. but somehow, in this case, it went off the rails. it became political. what matters now, whether it's a conversation in the context of the second amendment or gun ownership or our rabidly politicized discourse in this country, is for law enforcement leaders and political leaders to have common sense conversations with their communities about what we expect people to be able to do to protect themselves and more importantly when we don't want people to be aggressors because kyle rittenhouse was a vigilante without regard to the outcome of the legal case against him. he came in from out of state. he brought a gun while claiming that he was a medic. he stalked through the crowd. he engaged unnecessarily. it's up to our leaders now to say that this conduct, whether he was convicted or acquitted, is unacceptable. we won't permit this in our states and in our cities. >> you know, speaking of leaders, after the verdict, several republican lawmakers voiced their support for rittenhouse. you had congressman paul gosar who offered to wrestle his colleague, matt gaetz, for the chance to hire the teen as his intern. what message does this send? >> well, it's unseemly and it's part of our politically divisive discourse, but now it's on steroids when instead of acknowledging that this was a tragic situation where people lost their lives, they're actually glorifying the vigilanteism that kyle rittenhouse engaged in on that night. >> yeah. i'm sure you heard the lead defense attorney who addressed the decision yesterday to put kyle rittenhouse, in fact, on the stand. here's what he said about it. >> had to put him on. it wasn't a close call. at certain points, we wondered whether we would put him on. we did -- we had a mock jury, and we did two different juries, one with him testifying, one without him testifying. it was substantially better when he testified. i mean, to a marked degree. >> hang on. a mock jury guided that decision? is that a normal practice? i mean, overall, what was the impact of kyle rittenhouse's presence on the stand and on the jury and ultimately on the outcome of this trial? >> in some ways, it's logical to think that if a defendant is going to get a jury to bite on self-defense in a case like this, they have to hear it from the defendant's mouth. but what we hear from the defense lawyer there is, i think, very, i'll say, interesting, alex, for this reason. jury consultants are expensive, and here, they had funds to run not one but two mock juries. kyle rittenhouse got a little bit different of a representation than your average defendant in this sort of setting gets, and so you know, we find ourselves doubling back here on the political context where one party, led by the guy down in mar-a-lago, wanted to glorify violence, wanted to glorify violent intervention at a black lives matter rally, at a peaceful protest that was meant to talk about justice for black people, and so it's impossible to divorce this conversation from the specter of our dysfunctional racial politics in this country. we are so overdue for a forthright, honest conversation about what's broken in our criminal justice system and what we're going to fix it, and until we have that conversation and begin to do the real work, we will not get past these moments. >> that last answer, my friend, i hope that one gets played over and over again in places. joyce vance, thank you so much. we have some breaking news to share with all of you from atlanta where we are following reports of a security incident at hartsfield jackson airport. the faa has grounded departures while an investigation takes place. there's some social media video out there showing scenes of chaos, as you can imagine, inside the terminals on this getaway weekend. atlanta airport posted this on twitter. there is not an active shooter. there was an accidental discharge at the airport. there's no danger to passengers or employees. an investigation is ongoing. more information will be published on this channel. right now, nbc news is working to verify exactly what has taken place and what is happening right now. when we get an update, we will bring it to you. right now, though, let's take a look at the other headlines we're following today, starting in washington where after a democratic victory in the house, president biden's build back better act makes its way to the senate. that legislation includes universal pre. >>-k, investments in climate change as well as an extension of the child tax credit. congressman conor lamb telling me what this would mean. >> the value of what we're getting is so important. kids that are three, four years old will be able to go to school, no matter how much their parents make. seniors will no longer have to choose between their food and medicine in a lot of cases. people who otherwise couldn't afford to go to a doctor will get to do because the affordable care act subsidies will stay in place and the list goes on and on and on. >> getting that bill across the finish line, however, is one of the many ambitious tasks on the senate's year-end to do list. they need to prevent a government shutdown, raise the debt ceiling, approve a military policy bill, and possibly take up voting rights legislation. that's all supposed to happen in the next couple weeks. good luck with that. but those hopes for a voting rights bill may be in peril as arizona senator kyrsten sinema is not budging, telling "the washington post" her stance has not changed even in the case of voting rights, saying, quote, my opinion is that legislation is crafted together in a bipartisan way is the legislation that is most likely to pass and stand the test of time. let's get nbc's julie tsirkin on capitol hill for us. the senate has so much on their plate. can you walk us through what all it is and what is next for the build back better bill. >> reporter: well, the road is long and winding on a number of these issues but specifically on build back better. it passed the house yesterday, $1.6 trillion investment in human infrastructure, but here's what's happening now. it's going through something i'd like to call procedural spa treatments in the senate. it already had a parliamentary scrub. now it's going to get a birdbath when the senate is back from thanksgiving recess which requires senate democrats to prove that each provision of the bill will have budgetary impacts. remember, that's why they're able to pass this human infrastructure package with just 50 votes and not the usual 60-vote threshold but even when you get past the procedural hurdles, you have legislative disagreements among some of those 50 senate democrats. senator tina smith was talking to you about some of those. let's listen to what she said. >> senator manchin has made it pretty clear that he doesn't support paid family and medical leave. now, i just think joe's wrong about that. i think that as the only major industrialized country in the world that doesn't offer paid family and medical leave, that this is a huge gap in making our country work for people. i'm very concerned about the s.a.l.t. deduction at a time when we want to be making our tax system more fair, we want to be addressing income inequality, i don't think this is a time to be giving big tax breaks to wealthy individuals. so, we have to work all that out. >> reporter: yeah, paid family leave there, that's something in the house-passed version of the bill. i'm told senator joe manchin just won't budge on that. he won't support it. so that will have to get taken out. a huge priority for democrats and something president biden ran on, by the way, but that other thing that senator tina smith mentioned to you, the s.a.l.t. deduction. that's something house moderates and progressives, by the way, from blue states -- high state and local tax states, i should say, that's something they wanted in this bill and it's something that progressives like senator bernie sanders and republicans, by the way, also taking a chance to grasp at this, are criticizing, because as i reported, this week with my colleague, leigh ann caldwell, it will lead to tax cuts for many millionaires and i spoke to senator bernie sanders about that this week. he told me, it's absurd that the idea that millionaires will be under off under this bill than under donald trump, it's unacceptable. we know senator bernie sanders is looking at that now. >> julie tsirkin, thank you so much. joining me now is illinois congressman, a democratic member of the oversight and intelligence committees. welcome back to the broadcast, good to see you, sir. this build back better bill, it could look very different when it comes back to the house. are you concerned about what the senate could take out? i mean, are there any red lines, i should say, that you think cannot be touched? >> actually, alex, i think a lot of it has been, if you will, preconferenced on negotiated in advance before it got sent to the senate so i'm very hopeful that the vast majority of it will remain. maybe there might be some revisions but i think the vast bulk of it will probably come back intact to the house for final passage. >> that is optimistic is and i'm sure the house can only hope but with the passing of this bill, house democrats, as you know, have now approved nearly $5 trillion in new spending since january. how do you and your colleagues sell all this new spending especially as americans are grappling with the rising prices of gas and food and many other things. how do you sell it? >> i think, you know, the economists, for instance, have vetted this build back better bill as well as the infrastructure bill. for instance. and they've said almost universally that they do the opposite of increasing inflation. instead, it leads to a lower set of prices over the long-term for goods and services and the reason is that when you invest in worker training, provisions that i've authored, if you help moms with affordable child care so that they can participate in the workforce again, for instance, then you have more workers, and you have more skilled workers to fill the labor shortages we have. you have more goods and services, and over time, it leads to lower prices. so, i think we have to talk about that aspect of these bills in addition to obviously the substantive components of them. >> okay. let's look on a scale of 1 to 10, what you think the likelihood is that this bill, the build back better bill, will be signed by the president before we ring in new year's. >> i'm very hopeful. i think it's going to be, i would say, closer to ten because at this point, i think there's so much momentum going into build back better. as i said, you know, this bbb bill has a aaa rating with my constituents. and it's really, as i say, addressing america's aspirations. it's a aaa bill. it addresses all the things that people are talking about at the kitchen table, and therefore, it's very popular as the components start to get messaged appropriately and people learn more about it. >> yeah. well, those folks in illinois and i've spoken with lawmakers already today from minnesota as well as pennsylvania, they're echoing that same sentiment and the way it is registering with constituents. let's change topics here, sir. >> can i just point out one thing, alex? >> sure, yeah, yeah. >> just the prescription drug provisions alone are so popular, and people don't know about them yet in part because it was a last-minute addition to the bill. last night, i was with a young woman whose sister pays thousands of dollars a year for insulin. she's a type i diabetic. and when i explained to her that under this bill, her sister would pay no more than $35 a month for insulin, she was over the moon. and similarly, people are excited about the other prescription drug provisions as well, so i'm really excited to get the word out about these different components and when we do, i think people will be very excited for final passage as well. >> well, i'm glad you just said that, and i hope that did get the work out there relative to insulin and the ceiling cost of $35. let's move to the usps. you know the president has announced two nominees for the usps board of governors. sir, i know you have been leading calls to oust postmaster general louis dejoy over his policies that have certainly slowed and lowered delivery standards. how do you see this move by the president? effectively, is it setting up dejoy's ouster? because the president can't remove him, right? it's got to be done by a board. >> that's exactly right. basically, the board of governors needs to remove him. i've been calling for his removal ever since he instituted this, you know, rather harebrained scheme to lower service standards and raise prices simultaneously, and that, by the way, started on october 1 just in time for the holidays. and so, i asked mr. bloom, ron bloom, who's the chair of the board of governors, to remove mr. dejoy or hold a vote to do so and he refused and it turns out mr. ron bloom was appointed by donald trump to basically protect dejoy. and so now i asked the president to remove ron bloom and just yesterday, the president agreed and has announced that ron bloom is going to be removed by december 7th. so, once that happens, i'm very hopeful that the new board chair, along with the board, holds a vote on mr. dejoy's tenure and we can relieve him of his duties. >> and you think this can happen by what's the date? december 7th? >> well, by december 7th, i believe the new board chairman would take office, and then after that, he could convene a vote on mr. dejoy. unfortunately, the current postmaster general will take the joy, pardon the pun, out of the holidays because the holiday season is already upon us, but hopefully the new postmaster general, whoever he or she is, assuming that one gets chosen, can put the usps back on even footing starting early next year. >> taking de joy out of the holiday season. very clever, my friend. thank you so much for joining me. i hope you have a joyful holiday season and i hope to see you soon. thank you. it's a good one. >> happy thanksgiving, alex. >> thank you. we have some breaking news on that information from atlanta, everyone. a security incident has brought departures from the hartsfield jackson airport to a halt. the atlanta police department says it appears there was an accidental discharge of a firearm. it happened near the main security checkpoint at hartsfield jackson international airport. no injuries have been reported. officers are now working to determine the circumstances surrounding that incident, but again, airport officials say it is not an active shooter, but there indeed was an accidental gun discharged at the airport. they say there's zero danger to passengers or employees, but the faa has grounded departures while the investigation continues. we'll keep you updated on that one because 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[ ferry horn honks ] i mean just cause you look like someone else doesn't mean you eat off the floor, [ chuckles ] or yell at the vacuum, or need flea medication. oh, yeah. that's the spot. only pay for what you need. ♪ liberty, liberty, liberty, liberty ♪ with downy infusions, let the scent set the mood. feel the difference with downy. every day in business brings something new. so get the flexibility of the new mobile service designed for your small business. introducing comcast business mobile. you get the most reliable network with nationwide 5g included. and you can get unlimited data for just $30 per line per month when you get four lines or mix and match data options. available now for comcast business internet customers with no line-activation fees or term contract required. see if you can save by switching today. comcast business. powering possibilities. once again, back to that dna, everybody, a security incident at hartsfield jackson airport on this very busy weekend. the atlanta police department says it appears there was an accidental discharge of a firearm. it happened near the main security checkpoint at hartsfield jackson airport, by the way, a very busy airport. no injuries have been reported. officers are working to determine the circumstances surrounding this incident. but it's important to tell all of you, airport officials say there is not an active shooter situation. there was an accidental gun discharge at the airport. they're saying it poses no danger to employees, no dangers to passengers. the faa has grounded departures while this investigation is continuing. of course one of the big, big questions you're going to want to ask is where that gun went off. if they say it was at an area -- a security checkpoint, if that is going into an area through which passengers are traveling to board planes, we all know that you're not supposed to take guns into your carryon luggage, so that's a big question now. if it were to happen in that area leading into where you drop off your luggage, that can happen. if the gun is separated physically in the belly of the plane and not on board in the actual passenger area, we can -- i mean, that can be, certainly, handled. let's go right now to jim cavanaugh. i'm not sure you joined me into what i was saying but first question out of the gate is, how important is it where this particular incident happened? there's an accidental gun discharge. no injuries reported, no danger right now to employees or passengers. but where this happened has to be a pretty big deal. >> right. exactly, alex, because airports are secured the most, you know, from the security checkpoint forward. there's light security when you pull up, you know, you're being watched on camera. there's usually uniformed officers about. and there is light security. there's not no security. but the security gets ever tighter as you approach the ticket counter, there's more uniform police around, more cameras and of course ticket agents and once you go through the security checkpoint, you're going past tsa, being searched, they're observing you, talking to you, checking your i.d., so it's much more secure. so, if it's past a security checkpoint, you know, that's much more of a problem. >> so let's take a look at this step-by-step. let's say this happened at the initial area where you are checking your luggage and the like. that one wouldn't so much bother you because rules are that one can put a gun into a suitcase, though goodness, it can't be loaded but then how would they even check that? >> right. of course, it's supposed to be unloaded, and you can transport a firearm in checked baggage if you notify the carrier that you're going to do it. you have to -- you must notify the ticket agent and then your bag is marked, you know, they'll check it, and you can do it unloaded but you can't do it unloaded as a mystery to the carrier. you must notify the carrier. that's federal law. >> so, that's interesting. >> yeah. you can transport -- >> are you supposed to be asked if you have anything -- i don't recall -- i think it's mostly because i take carryon luggage but i do travel a lot. when you're checking luggage, are you always asked if you have any firearms? is that something a gate agent has to ask you when you're checking your luggage? >> well, the onus is really on the person carrying the firearm. but often, the ticket agent does ask, do you have any hazardous materials, chemicals, firearms? they often ask. but they're not required to ask. you're required to notify them, because you're the one transporting the firearm. if you put it in the checked baggage, this is how we used to bust gun traffickers all the time. we follow them to an airport, they had a briefcase full of guns, you know, a dozen handguns in the briefcase, flying from one city to another to traffic the guns. we follow them in the airport. we had to let them go in because they hadn't committed the crime yet. we'd have a lot of atf agents surrounding them in plain clothes. once they checked the bag and they didn't notify the carrier, we'd grab the bag and get the guns and arrest the traffickers. that's how we used to stop a lot of gun trafficking because we don't have a gun traffic law so we had to deal with it that way. >> okay. let's move to the security checkpoint that every single passenger has to go through. i mean, it's not like a gun wouldn't easily be detected in the x-ray machines, right? so, what kind of thing are you envisioning? >> well, you know, guns come in many sizes, first of all. and metal detectors have sensitivities. you could have a derringer, for example, a.22 caliber derringer that is as big, really, as your thumb. and that can be in the baggage and could be undetected. so, they try their very best to find everything, but sometimes -- sometimes things can be missed. if that derringer did not go off in the back, then no one would ever know it went to the other destination. but they try to get the mag me the magnetometers as sensitive as they can to detect everything but sometimes things slip through. >> less likely to slip through would be something someone's carrying on their person, right? i can't tell you how many times i've been stopped with absolutely nothing but those sensitive machines will pick up something. i mean, you know, they'll be checking my wrist and waistband and i'm like, there is nothing there, but go right ahead. >> you're exactly right. i would say this. the -- no one in the world can do it better than the tsa check at the airport with the thoroughness they do. but they're human and machines are fallible. and guns and weapons can be very, very small. so, there's always a chance that something could slip through. that's why security is always in layers. that's why if you do get on the plane, the cockpit is sealed, and even if you got on with a gun, you can't breach the cockpit. so there has to be layers all through, and they do a fabulous job. the tsa, i mean, we could look at the numbers, how many guns they confiscate every year, people bringing them to the airport, usually by accident, and they, oh, i forgot my pistol and left it in my bag and of course they get the pistol confiscated, sometimes get arrested. you know, many years ago, i was on a secret service detail at nashville when jimmy carter was president and we had very tight secret service and atf cordoned around him and within a couple of hours of that event, john hinckley was arrested at the metropolitan national airport trying to go through the magnetometer and he had three pistols and he had come to the event at the hotel where jimmy carter was, probably was going to try to shoot him. but he got arrested at the magnetometer. we had them back then mostly for hijackings and he was arrested by the airport police and he was -- the guns were taken. he was fined $62 and he was released. so, you know, six months later, he shot ronald reagan. >> wow, jim. >> people do try to get through security checkpoints. they do try to carry guns for criminal purposes. most accidentally do it. so we don't know what happened at hartsfield today. we do know a shot rang out and that citizens and certainly the police reacted to that and we know no one's hurt. so, that's a really good news story for us. and one of the stories, alex, and you've covered all these tragedies is when you see people reacting appropriately to the shot. not in a panic, but moving away, getting small, finding a place to go, getting away from the shot. >> yeah. i have to say that john hinckley story, though, i'm certain i've never heard that story, that there was an incident like that relative to jimmy carter prior to him shooting president reagan. that's pretty extraordinary, jim, and what experiences you have had. let me ask you about the penalty for folks who would bring a gun, whether intentionally or they're, like, oh, as you mentioned, i forgot it's in my suitcase and aye got to get it out. can those guns be taken away permanently from them, and how often are they arrested? >> it's a mixed bag whether you're arrested. the united states attorney can decide whether to charge the person. a lot of times it depends on the interview. was it really an innocent accident? is the person a citizen of good standing with no criminal record? it's unlikely that the federal prosecutors are going to want to charge that person or that the special agents would recommend a charge. so it's usually depends who the person is. if it's al capone and he's got two .45s on him, he's going to get charged so the criminal background of the actor is going to matter. it's going to be looked at in total. we were never after innocent citizens accidentally violating the law, because they forgot something. you know, we've talked about kenosha all week, and people seem to forget that kenosha started with a federal felony, the straw purchase of that ar-15 by rittenhouse's 19-year-old friend. that's a federal crime. rittenhouse gave black the money to buy that gun because he could not buy it because federal law will not allow a gun dealer to sell a long gun to anyone who's under 18. rittenhouse was 17. so, he gave the money to his associate who was 19, lived in wisconsin, who went to a gun dealer and lied on the form that the gun was for him. it's a false statement. so, he was charged in state court, but it started with a felony. so, it started with a straw purchase, federal crime, and of course because of the open carry laws up there, people can run around the streets with rifles and that's what we're seeing all over the country and that's bad business because back in the day, when everybody wanted to romanticize back in the day, how great it was, we had laws where if a policeman saw you with a rifle on the street, you would be stopped. he would have been arrested because he was not allowed to have, you know, a gun like that once they traced it and found out it wasn't -- he would have been arrested for illegally carrying a gun if there was no open carry law. usually it's a misdemeanor, usually called something like carrying a weapon for the purpose of going to armed or unlawfully carrying a weapon, but once he was arrested and the gun taken, the gun was traced, and he was interviewed, then the unlawful federal crime would also be uncovered and he would have been prevented from being on the street. based on the existing law we currently have, the federal law, and if we had the past normalized state laws for people not, you know, brandishing slung military-style weapons. so, that probably could have been stopped. it could have never happened. >> yeah. jim, do stay with us. hey, guys, i want to give you the very latest. this is a tweet just coming from atlanta airport, if my director, rob, can put this up. we're getting a little more in terms of the timing of all this. i'll read it to you, whether or not you have it. the most recent one reads, at approximately 1:30 p.m. today, a little over an hour ago, everybody, a weapon accidentally discharged at atlanta security screening area. there is not an active shooter at the airport. apd is on the scene. more information about the situation will be made available on our social media channels. so, that is the latest thing, again, from the atlanta airport. jim, as i ask you to stay with me again, i'm joined now by captain john cox, he has been with us for many an event here on msnbc over the years. he's a retired pilot, also an msnbc aviation analyst. so, john, it's got to be very concerning for any pilot who may have been walking into atlanta hartsfield airport thinking, wow, here comes a gun that gets that close, it's in the terminal, somehow it gets dislodged. talk about it from the pilot perspective. i mean, there's got to be all sorts of things that run through a pilot's mind when they hear about a gun dislodging at the airport. >> well, any time there's a discharge of a weapon in an airport, it's extremely serious. and the question is, what's the secondary security concerns and what i mean by that is, okay, the weapon discharged. is there an ongoing threat? that's the first i think you want to protect are the passengers and the airplane. so, that's -- from what i have read, they were able to quickly determine there were not any secondary security issues, although they do have a large number of passengers out on the ramp area, so this is going to take quite a while to get sorted back out. >> yeah, that makes sense and i wasn't aware of the passengers on the ramp area. thank you for that information you're bringing to the conversation. john, jim cavanaugh mentioned the security of the cockpit doors now on airplanes. i seem to recall that was something that was put into effect in the wake of 9/11. but are they all impenetrable by a gun if a gun were able to get on board a plane, which, again, to jim's point, he's made this as a really positive story in that this was stopped. nobody has been injured. there's no employees or passengers that are at risk now. so that's the silver lining of this incident. but is there gun or bullets, weaponry, ammunition that could penetrate a cockpit door? >> the doors have been hardened in the wake of 9/11, and that's true on all airliners today. so, the -- they are designed to be bulletproof, and to my knowledge, they are -- the tests have proven them to be an effective barrier between the flight deck and the cabin. >> have you ever been on a flight where there has been a known entity while you were in the cockpit, a danger like that present on a flight, and if so, how does one react to that? >> well, we train for that on a regular basis. i mean, every week, our training has a security piece to it, and it varies from year to year, but the safety and security is taken extremely seriously, and any events that happen anywhere in the system are made known to all the airlines so that they can continually shift their defense to whatever the most pressing threats are. have i had security events? yes. and you deal with it because they're somewhat unique almost on a case-by-case basis using your training and the assets that are available to you. the idea is of course to protect the passengers, crew, and the airplane. >> yeah, you make a good point. my next question to you, john, was going to be about the crew. to what extent are they trained -- i mean, there is a presumption that guns, weapons like this should not get on a plane. to what extent are they trained for the unfortunate possibility that it could happen? >> well, they certainly -- we do a lot of things to ensure that they don't get on the airplane, and history has shown that those steps have been very, very effective. you don't hear -- i haven't heard in probably since 9/11 of there being an unauthorized firearm on an aircraft. so, the tsa, they're finding them at the airport screening stations, which is where i understand this accidental discharge in atlanta occurred. so, they're -- and i don't know at this point -- i have not read whether it was a law enforcement weapon or whether it was one that had been found by the tsa in the screening process. so, that's one of the things that i have not heard yet. so, the screening process appears to be effective, and we're not seeing firearms get on to the airplanes. >> you've anticipated my next question to you, which was, are the air marshals armed with guns always? are they armed with those guns ready to go? or would they have to arm them by putting in a bullet and -- i mean, do they carry guns, first of all? >> air marshals are armed, as are appropriately credentialed and trained other law enforcement officers that may be traveling as passengers. we carry a large number of those. secret service, fbi, a lot of different law enforcement officers and then frequently, they're armed -- usually, they're armed, and so the state of carriage of their weapon would be in accordance with their particular organization's policies, but usually, they're fully ready to go. >> okay. john, i'm going to ask you to stay with me. very quickly, jim, i have one more question to you, and the likelihood that this is a terrorism-related incident or something just somebody, potentially if it's a passenger, who unintentionally left a gun. you know, i mean, it doesn't sound like it's terrorism. how often does this kind of thing happen in your experience as a terrorism analyst, that it's just some, you know, knucklehead who forgets to take a gun out of a suitcase? >> yeah, well, right, alex, let me be an odds maker here, we're in a nation with 320 million guns, and you know, there's a lot of accidental discharges, because people aren't familiar with the manipulation of the firearm or how to handle the gun. and it's one thing if it's done on a range, you know, with the barrel pointed down range and you have an accidental discharge. it's not uncommon for shooters to have that happen. but when they're manipulating a gun or moving a gun, they sometimes shoot themselves, shoot themselves in the leg or the foot. those things can be very serious. and you know, to what you talked about, john, carrying guns. i carried guns on many, many, many flights, and one of the best protections, you know, is the flight crews. a lot of the pilots are trained with firearms, and all of the agents, like atf, fbi, secret service, we went through specialized training with tsa about, you know, carrying firearms on aircraft and all the security involved. and whenever we went anywhere and we were always flying all over the country for missions, we were always armed and of course you wouldn't know we were armed, and the only people who would know would be the pilots. and we would usually surreptitiously meet the pilot, and the flight crew would know who we are. they'd look at us, we'd talk to them beforehand quitely so we all know the flight crew knew that was a federal agent in seat 3b. we were glad to have the armed pilots in the cockpit and -- because that was tremendous security. they're not going to shoot through there and get in that cabin, and if there's federal agents in the back, and a lot of times there are, not air marshals always, but federal agents who are flying for, you know, various normal law enforcement missions, and often police officers too. from city, state, and county agencies that must travel so a lot of times there are officers and agents on board. agents and officers are not flashing their guns. they're not, you know, vigilantes on patrol at city x trying to show everybody they have a gun. they don't want you to know. we don't want anybody to know we have a gun. you're the last guy's going to know we have a gun. so we don't want anybody to know because if you know we have a gun, you're going to shoot us first. so we don't want that. so we try to operate very discreetly and also not going to be brandishing our guns or pulling our guns out if there's a fistfight. that's the training. so the flight crews take care of most everything. they're just absolutely fabulous, and in atf, we used to train the flight attendants from certain airlines on bomb recognition, you know, how to deal with explosive devices, bombs, what to do with them, how to get away from them, how to act. and just -- they're just smart, dedicated people, and they do a wonderful job and on a weekend like this, when america's in, you know, major travel mode, it's those flight crews and those ticket agents and those tsa agents that really are the front line to keeping you safe. >> 100%. >> they're doing the work. >> you know, jim, i've been told we're going to take a break but i have to ask a couple more questions to you, and that is, when you were carrying a gun on board the plane, a, was it loaded? and b, if a gun were to go off inside of a plane, i mean, how devastating could that be to the safety of the actual flight itself? >> well, it's -- well, i never carry an unloaded gun. i don't think i ever carried an unloaded gun in my whole life since i was a policeman and i started when i was 21. and i still carry a gun every day and it's always loaded. an unloaded gun is -- that's a loaf of bread. it's not any good to you. now, on the -- as far as a round going off on an aircraft, those aircraft are pretty stout machines, and those pilots are superly trained and if a bullet went through, you know, in the cabin floor, unless it really struck some real vital thing, i think the pilots could handle it. i'm not saying there couldn't be a problem but the odds of it being a major problem for the pilots, i don't think is big. it's not a big problem. >> well, you know, we have a pilot with us. john, what do you know about the prospect of it damaging literally the flight, the safety of that flight, were a gun to go off inside of a plane? >> the only concern would be damage to the aircraft's systems. as far as putting a hole in the airplane, the pressurization system can handle that. and so, i -- it would never be anything that we would want, but i don't believe it would immediately put the flight at risk. the case of having a shooting out a window and that causing this mass depressurization is much more the things of hollywood than it is of fact. and to jim's point about the armed pilots, yes, i was one of those, and i know the training that we went through before we were carrying weapons on the aircraft in the post-9/11 world, so -- and i concur with him. it is not uncommon at all to have law enforcement officers on flights and so that there's multiple levels of protection from a security standpoint. >> okay. let me reiterate for anyone just joining us what we are covering here. the good news is we don't have any injuries or passenger safety concerns at this point at atlanta hartsfield international airport. however, we know at 1:30 p.m. today, a weapon accidentally discharged. it happened at one of atlanta's security screening areas. there is no active shooter right now at the airport. atlanta police department is on the scene. we are getting word about many passengers who have gone out on to the tarmac. we're getting some video in here right now showing you a rather chaotic scene. pretty frightening for folks there. i'm joined by nbc news senior producer jay blackman. what do you know about this incident? >> government official tells me this is -- this is a senior government official that the passenger's gun was discovered after checkpoint in their accessible property. the passenger then grabbed it and accidentally discharged the weapon at the checkpoint. so, this was -- sounds like it was a mistake. the first -- of this year, there were more guns discovered in passenger luggage than ever before, so that was a record. it's just that people bring guns to airports, and as captain cox said earlier, most of the time, they are discovered and they're sent on their way. >> okay. jay, i need you to reiterate because the audio was a little sketchy at the beginning of when you joined us. so you're saying that somebody grabbed this gun -- explain one more time how this went down. >> sure. a single government official tells me that a passenger -- a gun was discovered at the checkpoint in the passenger's bag. the -- when they discovered it, the passenger tried to grab the gun. the gun accidentally discharged. >> okay, so, wait a minute. so, i would imagine this particular passenger's right now being questioned about what's going on, but so, the gun gets discovered, and your understanding is that he went to grab the gun? that would indicate he or she knew that it was loaded at the time, which in itself is -- causes great concern. anything more you can shed light on that? >> that's all i know at this point, alex. what's not clear is whether they knew it was loaded or not. i can't say that. the tso and the passenger at the same time must have realized the gun was in there when they went to search the bag. as you know from going through airport security, if they discover something in your luggage, they put it off to the side and then an officer and you walk over to a table and they open the -- they go through your bag until they can find what they're looking for. >> yeah. jay, stay with us as well. john and jim as well. i'm joined on the phone by a former detective with the new york city police department, that's tom. so, tom, one thing we're getting some concern about is, you know, crowd panic. i don't know if you can see what we're airing on msnbc, but we're looking at a level of chaos. things have been knocked over. people probably heard the sound of that gun and went into extreme panic mode, understandably so. tell me how that complicates a situation. in your experience. >> well, it complicates it because it's a little bit of hysteria to the moment. as you're showing on the air, people are diving for cover, people have knocked over the barriers. and they're trying to escape what they don't know is an active shooter or an accidental discharge. and what happens then is law enforcement has to respond. the atlanta police department and the airport police have to basically clear the terminal to determine what happened, determine it was an accidental discharge. and go through all the procedures that jim and the captain were very, you know, eloquently telling you about. >> yeah. tom, with regard to reports of folks being out on the tarmac, somewhere presumably just around, you know, under the belly of a plane, kind of underneath where the gates protrude, i guess the airway access, if you will, for folks to actually board those planes. how much is that going to complicate things, not only getting everyone back safely inside but of course that in itself is a security breach. >> of course. they have to basically clear the airport totally and make sure that no one is remaining on the tarmac that could be another concern. you don't want to start the airport up again back out a plane and accidentally hit someone who's hiding. you have to make sure -- and they'll clear the tarmac, the atlanta security forces and law enforcement will clear the tarmac, get the people back. they're going to probably have to recheck people in to certain flights. >> yeah, i can about imagine. john, how much do you think this is going to cause a cascading domino effect? i mean, again, look at the timing of this. it is saturday of the weekend before thanksgiving. we're looking at record numbers of travelers. certainly, as compared to last year's thanksgiving when we were all dealing with the covid pandemic and not many people were flying, but when you look at this, this just complicates air travel overall on a holiday getaway weekend. >> to put this back together. when you lose a major hub like atlanta, cascading effect of having not only passengers that missed connections but the ability to reconnect them because all the flights are full, that can go on for days. the flight crews are out of position. the airplanes are out of position. so, all of the airplanes that are currently trapped in atlanta will -- they will be moved to -- as quickly as they can to try to restore it, but the -- it's going to take quite a bit of time because there's not a lot of excess seats in the system right now. so, the dispatchers, the flight dispatchers for all the airlines are right now trying to make alternative plans to get people where they need to go. >> you know, jay, i know that you're there gathering more information for us, jay blackman. have you been alerted to anything in terms of a return to normalcy? because again, we know that there is no danger at this moment posed to either employees, members of the faa that are there, tsa, no passengers certainly. have you heard thing from atlanta hartsfield about saying, guys, we're trying to get everything back to normal and get things cleared out in this particular terminal? and do you know which terminal this is that's been affected? >> i don't know which terminal it is, alex, but they have two checkpoints there, north and south terminals. i did hear from the faa that the ground stop has been lifted. when incidents like this happen, as per the airlines ask for the ground stop, which means nothing in and nothing out and now that the ground stop has been lifted, planes will start taking off but captain cox is, of course, right. it will take time for them to rescreen all those passengers, get people to their gates. so this -- and it's a giant delta hub. this will take delta some time to clean up. but the ground stop being lifted at least allows planes to start moving around and start taking off again. >> but that has not happened yet, the ground stop has not been lifted? >> the ground stop has not been lifted. >> okay. i think for anybody who's watching this and thinking -- >> alex, alex, i'm sorry. >> yeah, go ahead. >> the ground stop has been lifted. the ground stop has been lifted. >> okay. so, that's -- that's good, and that refers to the planes being allowed to take off, but again, they have got to get the terminal and of course that area on the tarmac where people did run out of the terminal. they've got to get all that cleared so this still may take a bit. can you just reiterate the airlines that are affected here? yes, delta airlines is a major hub there in atlanta. are there other airlines for anybody watching this, knowing that they're going to have to go to the airport and pick up loved ones at some point, but they're thinking, oh boy, is this going to affect me? what other airlines are affected? >> i mean, delta's a giant airport so you have all the u.s.-based carriers have some flights there. you're going to have international carriers who also have flights there. i mean, yeah, delta, i'm not 100% sure, in many years it's been the busiest airport in the country. i would have to look that up to be 100% sure. and of course, record numbers of people traveling post-pandemic, people wanting to go see their family after having been home for last thanksgiving. >> yeah. no, absolutely. john, any guesstimate how much time it's going to take to get things -- get back to normal again? if the ground stop has been lifted, again, according to our senior producer, jay blackman, it's gotten a green light but how long will something like this -- when you look at the chaos that we're looking at in this video, how long might it take to get everybody rescreened? are we talking hours, minutes? it seems to me like it's going to be hours. >> the rescreening process and the determination by airport security that things can begin to move is going to take time. the faa's lifting of the ground stop probably -- may not have been coordinated. they're saying that as far as an air traffic control standpoint, they can move traffic in and out of atlanta. that does not mean that the airlines are going to be cleared to start boarding passengers and putting them on flights. that's going to take the approval of the airport authorities in atlanta. so, if they end up having to rescreen everybody, and i suspect they will, that's going to take hours because you're talking about thousands of people that are in the terminals and then once

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