Possible by the corporation for public broadcasting. And by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. Thank you. Suarez president obama called today for what amounts to a National Awakening to stop gun deaths in america. He detailed an action plan, all the while acknowledging that the most farreaching measures face tough going in congress. We cant put this off any longer. Suarez with that, the president laid out his strategy, before an audience of congress members, cabinet advisors, and the families of those killed in the School Shootings in newtown, connecticut. In the month since 20 precious children and six brave adults were violently taken from us at sandy hook elementary, more than 900 of our fellow americans have reportedly died at the end of a gun 900 in the past month. And every day we wait, that number will keep growing. So im putting forward a specific set of proposals based on the work of joes task force. And in the days ahead i intend to use whatever weight this office holds to make them a reality. Suarez the president then offered the most farreaching proposals to curb gun violence since at least the clinton administration. They include 23 steps he can take on his own, through executive action. Among them, improving the system of background checks already in place for gun purchases. Providing funding to study gun violence, including the effects of violent video games and entertainment. Helping schools develop Emergency Response plans and hire resource officers, including police, if they want them. And clarifying that Mental Health providers are allowed to report patients who make violent threats. Joining the president on stage as he signed those executive orders were four children whod written to him, following the massacre at sandy hook elementary. But mr. Obama acknowledged that the most significant reforms will not come from his office. As important as these steps are, they are in no way a substitute for action from members of congress. To make a real and lasting difference, congress too must act, and Congress Must act soon. And im calling on congress to pass some very specific proposals right away. Suarez for one thing, the president is asking the senate to confirm todd jones as director of the bureau of alcohol, tobacco, firearms and explosives, where hes been interim director. The a. T. F. Has had no permanent head for six years. Other proposals include barring the sale of ammunition magazines with more than ten rounds and reinstating and strengthening a ban on military assaultstyle weapons. A majority of americans agree with us on this. And by the way, so did Ronald Reagan, one of the staunchest defenders of the Second Amendment, who wrote to congress in 1994 urging them this is Ronald Reagan speaking urging them to listen to the American Public and to the Law Enforcement community and support a ban on the further manufacture of militarystyle assault weapons. Suarez additionally, the obama plan calls for congress to order background checks for all gun sales, ending the socalled gun show loophole. And it seeks stiffer penalties for people who sell guns to criminals. All told, the plan would cost some 500 million. And president obama said, its going to take some heavy political lifting. This will be difficult. There will be pundits and politicians and politicians and special interest lobbyists publicly warning of a tyrannical allout assault on liberty, not because thats true but because they want to gin up fear or higher ratings or revenue for themselves. And behind the scenes theyll do everything they can to block any commonsense reform and make sure nothing changes whatsoever. Suarez even before the president spoke, david keene, head of the National Rifle association, dismissed the plan, in an interview with Judy Woodruff last night on the newshour. The problem that we have is that none of the things that they have suggested are going to do any good. Theyre asking the question, judy, what do we do about guns . The question should be, what do we do to prevent the kinds of things that happened in connecticut . And we dont think that theyre asking that question, but theyre pursuing their own agenda. Suarez today, the n. R. A. Said it will focus on securing schools, fixing the Mental Health system and fully prosecuting violent criminals. The group also struck sparks with the release of this web ad late tuesday. Are the president s kids more important than yours . Then why is he skeptical about putting Armed Security in our schools when his kids are protected by armed guards at their schools . Mr. Obama demands the wealthy pay their fair share of taxes, but hes just another elitist hypocrite when it comes to a fair share of security. Protection for their kids and gunfree zones for ours. Suarez today, a white house spokesman called the ad with its use of the obama children repugnant and cowardly. Brown coming up, well have reaction to the president s approach. Also ahead general Stanley Mcchrystal; the obama campaigns online push and a cyclists confession. But first, the other news of the day. Heres hari sreenivasan. Sreenivasan president obama is losing another member from his firstterm cabinet. Interior secretary ken salazar announced today he will step down in march, after four years on the job. Salazar pushed for greater conservation and renewable energy. And, he oversaw a moratorium on offshore drilling after the b. P. Oil spill in 2010. Industry groups said the shutdown cost thousands of jobs, but salazar defended it today in his departure statement. Attackers in algeria stormed a b. P. Natural gas complex today and took dozens of foreigners hostage, including seven americans. At least two people were killed. One was british. The nationality of the other was unclear. We have a report from chris ship of independent television news. Reporter the gas facility in southern algeria which early this morning was attacked by a group, claiming to be islamist militants, and where tonight that group is holding several hostages a number thought to be british. Another briton who worked here is reported to have been killed. A Jihadist Group with links to al qaida in Northern Africa claims its holding 40 hostages. This man Mokhtar Belmoktar claimed yesterday days they were seeking retaliation for the French Military action in mali. A day later the algerian gas field was attacked. The gas field is at a site in southern alergia called in amenas. It is on the border with libya, but algeria also shares a border with mali. Across this area of north Africa Al Qaida inspired militants have been growing in numbers and growing in strength. Ultimately, across the entire north african reason, a lot of these islamists we see come from roughly the same group which is a fragmented and splintered group thats been reinforced as mostly after the fall of moammar qaddafi in libya and the flood of weapons that its released. Reporter the action in neighboring mali against islamist militants is led by the french, although u. K. Transport planes have helped to ferry supplies. Tonight the group claiming to have kidnapped the gas workers demanded an end to that operation in return for their safety. In washington, a spokeswoman at the state department confirmed that americans were involved, but she would not say more. I hope you will understand that in order to protect their safety, im not going to get into numbers. Im not going to get into names. Im not going to get into any further details as we continue to work on this issue with the algerian authorities and also with their employers. Defense secretary leon panetta said the u. S. Would take all necessary steps to deal with the attack and hostage taking. In syria, car bombers targeted the Northern City of idlib today. State media said at least 22 people died. The opposition said it was 24 most of them, government troops. The attacks came a day after two large explosions killed 87 people at the Main University in aleppo. Classes were suspended today. Iraq witnessed its own string of bombings that killed at least 33 people. The city of kirkuk suffered the worst attack when a car bomber blew himself up outside the offices of a Major Kurdish party. 21 people were killed in that bombing and another nearby, and nearly 200 were wounded. A u. S. Marine pleaded guilty today to urinating on the remains of dead taliban fighters in afghanistan. Staff Sergeant Edward deptola submitted his plea at camp lejeune, north carolina. Images of the incident surfaced last year, sparking an international furor and outrage in afghanistan. Another marine pleaded guilty to similar charges last month. Three others were given administrative punishment. The two Biggest Airlines in japan grounded all of their brand new boeing 787 dreamliners today. The move came after one of the planes had to make an Emergency Landing in western japan. The crew reported a burning smell, and a cockpit message showed battery problems. It was the latest in a series of incidents involving the 787s. As a result, all Nippon Airways and Japan Airlines voluntarily grounded the jets for safety checks. Boeings troubles rippled down wall street. The aircraft makers stock sank 3 , and that dragged the Dow Jones Industrial average down 23 points to close at 13,511. The nasdaq rose six points to close at 3,117. Also today, two more big banks agreed to settle federal complaints that they abused the home foreclosure process. Goldman sachs and Morgan Stanley will pay a combined 557 million. More than 8,000 School Bus Drivers in new york city are now on strike. They walked out early today, in a dispute over job security. The strike forced 150,000 students, many of them disabled to find alternative transportation. Most of new york citys million plus students take Public Transit or walk to school. Those are some of the days major stories. Now, back to jeff. Brown and we return to the president s proposal today on gun control, Mental Health and school safety. We get four perspectives on the ideas, the realities of implementation and the difficulties of passing new legislation. Josh horwitz is the executive director of the coalition to stop gun violence. David kopel is an adjunct professor of constitutional law at the university of denver and a gunrights advocate with the libertarianleaning independence institute. Dr. Liza gold is a clinical professor of psychiatry at Georgetown University and Vice President of the American Academy of psychiatry and the law. And norm ornstein is a Longtime Congress watcher and a scholar at the American Enterprise institute. Welcome to all of you. I want to start with you, Josh Horowitz. Whats the most important aspect of what you heard the president say . Well, first of all, i think its great that were having this conversation today and this day is a long time coming. And what i heard at the white house today was very exciting which is that the president wants to have ask congress to have background checks on all gun sales. Right now, as you know, only about 60 of the gun sales in america have background checks. We believe theres no reason for criminals to be able to avoid the background check system an we welcome this proposal. Reporter so the background checks is what jumped out as important to you . A lot of great things happened today. There was four top agenda items including assault weapons ban, high capacity magazine ban and antitrafficking law. Those things are incredibly important and we dont have those. The assault weapons ban expired in 2004. These are important pieces of an overall comprehensive program. Brown david kopel, what did you hear . What seemed most important in what the president said today . Well, i think we had two positive things one is he said hes going to work to i guess change the regulations or do something to facilitate it so gun stores if people who are not customers of the gun store but one guy is selling a gun to another and they want to come in and voluntarily go through the National Instacheck System hes going to help the gun store facilitate that. And really in terms of expanding background checks to private sales, thats as far as you can go in a practical sense. Criminals who are selling guns to each other, its already illegal for them to do that. And theyre not going to suddenly come in and start bringing their guns into gun stores for checks. But for the person whos selling a gun to someone he knows may be reasonably well but not absolutely its a good thing to have that option. Second, the president offered at least a start of all the things he said today there was only one that would have made any practical difference and could have stopped all those murders at newtown and that was armed guards in the schools. What his proposal which is doesnt have too much funding in it but at least its a beginning is offer federal grants to some schools where they can hire another counselor if they want to or a School Resource officer, basically a Police Officer who guards that school. We know that these attacks on schools and typically when a lawabiding person with a firearm shows up and the attacker crumbles and kills himself. So the soonier that happened it is better and if we can have more police protecting our schools from what is almost inevitably the copy cat crimes that this very intense Media Coverage seems to inspire, thats a great start. Brown im assuming you didnt like many of the legislative proposals . The ban . The assault weapon ban, for example . Well, the department of justice conducted a study of the effectiveness of that ban published in 2004 after it had been in effect for mine years and concluded it had done absolutely no good. No lives were saved. There werent fewer shots fired in shootouts with Police Officers or anything else. So it was its a proven failure. Connecticuts had a ban on socalled assault weapons in effect since 1993. Obviously that didnt do any good at newtown. The problem is the bans dont have anything to do with how fast the guns fire or how powerful their bullets are, its all based on these superficial things like whether the gun has a folding stock, whether theres a grip on it, whether the grip is in the right place or the wrong place. And thats really a trivial thing for us to be talking about when we should be talking about how to keep guns out of the wrong hands and make sure that there are guns in the right hands. Pelley you know what . Before i go to the Mental Health let me come back to Josh Horowitz on that issue. Well, look, i think the assault weapons were talking about are short barreled rifles that take detachable magazines and have pistol groups. That allows you to keep the barrel on the target for a long period of time. Theres no muzzle creep in those weapons, you have magazines up to 100 rounds. Theres no use for those things. And a bunch of scholars got together last monday and tuesday at Johns Hopkins at a symposium and looked at different issues, they looked at the evidence and they recommended banning assault weapons and high capacity magazines. Brown i want to bring in dr. Lori gold. From a Mental Health perspective, what did you hear good and bad that advances this . Well, i think taking advantage of this opportunity to increase resources for Mental Health, resources in training for Mental Health to get regulations on board that create party in Mental Health insurance, to talk about guns in terms of people who are dangerous as opposed to gun and the mentally ill. I think its been a big disservice to people who struggle with Mental Illness that these two subjects have been linked because the majority of gun violence in this country has nothing to do with Mental Illness and most people who are mentally ill are not violent. So to take it out of that context and put it back into a context of people who might be dangerous, a small section of those people, may have Mental Illness. But the increased training, awareness, focus on getting people identified and getting them referred to treatment is a good thing and long overdue and should be broadened, actually, from what was proposed today. Brown and limits and complexities are hard to implement, right . A lot of questions going on . Theyre right. Because we dont a comprehensive Mental Health system in this country. Its almost a fallacy to call it a system. Its fragmented. Treatment is difficult to access. Often unaffordable. This is an opportunity in terms of complexity to actually move forward by addressing how do we go get a comprehensive Mental Health service . Brown norm, youve watched this before in a way, right . So put in the some l