0 this young man by all accounts had a mild form of autism and was always a person of heart. never had any close friends. never was a good fit anywhere. his mother took him in and out of school, home schooled him for a while. his parents got divorced. he stayed with his mother. but obviously the neighbors and friends of hers say there was a great strain there. many classmates say that he, unlike the other kid whose had backpacks, he always had a brief case. he had trouble looking people in the eye. he had trouble fitting in or answering questions. so he was, you know, a very difficult time for him and his mother. >> i would think in the days and weeks ahead, the immediate focus will be on what can be learned from the computers they have taken from the mother's home about lanza. >> right. to see if he left behind anything that would explain his actions. but they tell us that there was no note, no letter, unlike some of the past school shootings where the people who committed them did leave detailed writings because they wanted people to know some message. >> and one other detail that struck me, you had a lockdown the community. where would you like the national conversation to go in the most constructive direction now? >> well, you know, we are unfortunately a violent society. we have about 32, 33,000 deaths by use of a gun each year. about 18,000 of those are self-inflicted. i mean, there is a certain reality that if you have a gun in your home, the chances that that's going to be used against you or against a family member, you know, that's what happens. and in this particular case, someone tried -- decided to take those three guns and proceed to a school and literally slaughter people. so -- >> what would you like to see? >> i think there are certain problems in our society that have to be addressed. we don't treat the mentally ill well. we don't reach out to the families affected particularly well. we allow the ban on assault weapons to last. we need to have a reasonable discussion about how we help families in trouble, how we make progress in treating folks, how we intervene. having said all of that, in our particular state, we have laws that are probably more aggressive than most states. the mere presence of this kind of weapon means that this kind of weapon can be used in the way that it's been used here or has been used in other situations. >> governor, our thoughts and prayers are with you and with all of those families most directly affected by this. i really appreciate your time this morning. >> thank you. i want to turn now to the mayor of new york city, michael bloomberg. mr. mayor, thank you for being here. i wish it weren't under these circumstances. >> just tragedy. terrible. >> you have been an unspoken gun control advocate for many years. never more so than this morning. and we'll talk about that. first, "the new york post," the morning after the slaughter of innocents. describe your reaction when you saw this unfold. >> it's so unbelievable. and it only happens in america. and it happens again and again. there was another shooting yesterday. three people killed in a hospital. we kill people in schools. we kill them in hospitals. we kill them in religious organizations. we kill them when they're young. we kill them when they're old. and we've just got to stop this. >> there is in this country incredible sadness, empathy, anger, and a sense of resolve. and the president speaking after this horrible tragedy really gave voice to that friday afternoon. listen. >> we're going to have to come together and take meaningful action to prevent more tragedies like this, regardless of the politics. >> a significant statement as far as it goes. you're calling for immediate action. whati] precisely? >> well, number one, i think the president should console the country. but he's the commander in chief as well as the consoler in chief. and he calls for action, but he called for action two years ago. and every time there is a disaster like this, a tragedy like this, everybody says, well, now is not the time. or if you had fixed the problem, you can't guarantee that this particular event would have been prevented. all of that is true. it's time for the president, i think, to stand up and lead. and tell this country what we should do. not just congress and say what you guys want to do. this should be his number one agenda. he is the president of the united states. and if he does nothing during his second term, something like 48,000 americans will be killed with illegal guns. that is roughly the number of americans killed in the whole of the vietnam war. >> so what do you do? >> well, there's a number of things that the president can do and a number of things that congress can do. and there are a number of things that you and i can do as voters. what the president can do is number one through executive action, he can order his agencies to enforce the laws more aggressively. i think there's something like 77,000 people who have been accused of lying when they have applied for a gun permit. we've only prosecuted 77 of them. the president can introduce legislation even if it doesn't get passed. the president campaigned back in 2008 on a bill that would prohibit assault weapons. we have to really question whether military style weapons with big magazines belong on the streets of america in this day and age. nobody questions the second amendment's right to bear arms. i don't think the founding fathers had the idea that every man, woman, and child could carry an assault weapon. and i think the president through his leadership could get a bill like that through congress. but at least he's got to try. that's his job. >> but isn't it significant that he may only be able to try, that we have seen declining support since 1990 for stricter gun control measures? we have seen the assault weapons ban come and go. tremendous political cost to democrats when they first got it passed. >> what's the political cost? the nr a's number one objective this time was to defeat barack obama for a second term. last time i checked the election results, he won and won comfortably. this myth that the nra can destroy political careers is just not true. >> it's not a myth that after the assault weapons ban was passed, there was a huge political price for democrats to pay. and nearly 20 years later, they don't want to touch the issues. >> well, it is true that they lost a lot of seats then. the cause and effect isn't quite so clear. and what happened then isn't what happens now. if 27 people killed -- 20 children isn't enough to change the psyches and the desires of the american public -- >> let's talk about this, mr. mayor. here is the reality. let's look at the weapons that were recovered from the scene of the disaster. you have this bushmaster assault rifle. this would have been banned under the assault weapons ban. the pistols, the semi-automatic pistols, were recovered. the medical examiner said they were not used. this information could change. but also we are now learning that these weapons were found and legally purchased by his mother at her home. >> she was in a rural area. you have them for self-defense. a lot of americans agree with that. >> i can't tell you that if you stop people who have psychiatric problems, who have criminal records, who have substance abuse problems, who are minors, if you stopped every one of them from buying a gun, i can't promise you that this particular event wouldn't have taken place. but this particular event is just one of a series that happens again and again and again. and a big chunk of those would have been placed aside. your argument is there is no reason to have speed limits because it wouldn't have stopped that one person when the cops weren't around to step on the pedal. that's not true. the aggregate of all of this would be if congress were to act, if congress wasn't so afraid of the nra, and i think i can show you that they have no reason to be, but if they were to stand up and do what was right for the american public, we'd all be a lot better off. and congress has the ability to do this. and the president in my view is the one who has to lead this. the president campaigned in '08 on an assault weapon ban. and the only gun legislation that the president has signed since then, one is the right to carry a gun in national parks where our kids play, and one is the right to carry guns on amtrak. i assume that's to stop the rash of train robberies which stopped back in the 1800s. this is ridiculous. >> did you talk to him about this before you endorsed him? >> he knows my views. i didn't talk to the president or to mitt romney just before i decided to endorse barack obama. and i said in my endorsement that i endorse barack obama because i think his views on issues like this are the right views. but the president has to translate those views into action. his job is not just to be well-meaning. his job is to perform and to protect the american public. >> there is -- and i'm not advocating the position, but i'm playing devil's advocate as you know. the position that after a tragedy like this, the debate immediately seems to move in many quarters to gun control. as opposed to looking at sort of wider causes. after the aurora shooting at the movie theater this summer, i had governor hickenlooper of colorado on the program. and he was making the point that, yes, he used an assault rifle, but, you know, had he not had that he could have had a bomb. this is a portion of our conversation. >> i mean, if he could have gotten access to the bombs, what kind of bomb would he have manufactured? we are in the information age where there's access to all kinds of information. and humans can be diabolical and twisted in the sense that he was almost a terrorist. >> i don't think you can go to parents and say, i'm sorry, there's always going to be some crazy person, so we as a society are not going to protect your children. you don't really mean that. and i assume the governor didn't mean that. there's always going to be bad people, and there's always a way you -- you can strangle somebody with your hands. that doesn't mean everybody should have an assault weapon. you're going from one thing to another. the bottom line is that if you -- people say -- the other thing they said after aurora was education. don't you remember that? the solution to all of this is to improve our educational system. i think that came out of both ends of pennsylvania avenue. my recollection is one of these guys was a ph.d. student. another one at virginia tech was an engineering student. come on. this is not a panacea for all of society's problems. but this is one that's easy to focus on. >> so how do you change the leadership dynamic? talk a little bit about your experience in new york, wherere got the lowest crime rate since the 1960s. >> i don't think it's remarkable because we are doing the right things. we have sensible gun laws. we have proactive policing. and we incarcerate people when they are dangerous to society with tough punishment. >> there's also some of the searching methods that have been controversial and been criticized. >> that's proactive policing. we send our police officers to problem places where there are problem people. we focus our efforts where there is crime and make sure that the people who might commit those crimes know that there's a high probability that we will find them carrying weapons, and they'll go to jail. we have the toughest gun laws in the country. 3 1/2 year mandatory sentence in jail is state law if you're found carrying an illegal loaded gun. all of those things scare people from carrying guns. but the people that they scare are not the hunters and not the people that want to have guns to protect themselves in their homes. those things are guaranteed by the constitution and guaranteed by the supreme court. the supreme court also said that you can have reasonable restrictions. carrying guns on a college campus, for example, is one of the dumbest things i've ever heard of in my life. i don't remember what you were like when you were in college, but i shouldn't have had a gun when i was in college. nor should anybody i knew. we just don't need guns every place. we don't need people carrying guns in public places. that's not what the founding fathers had in mind. it doesn't add to anybody's safety. quite the contrary. it makes us have a much more dangerous society. >> how do you change the leadership dynamic? connecticut has a very strong set of gun laws. an assault weapons ban that ironically did not cover the weapon used in this case apparently. they tried to limit the high capacity clips and faced tremendous pressure. they weren't able to do that. but they still have tough laws. how do you change the dynamic? you say that this does change it automatically. >> the first thing, david, is having tough laws is one thing. enforcing those laws is something different. legislators' jobs is to come up with jobs, come up with agreements, get everybody into a room, form a bipartisan coalition, get everybody something. most of them get the -- the majority get the most of it. an executive's job is to make a decision. take the law and go out and apply it given the intent of the law. and that's exactly what we do in new york city. the fact that we have the lowest murder rate of any big city in the country says we know what we're doing. and we have it every year. we have had a reduction in murder rate virtually every single year for the last 20 years. >> as the leader of a huge city in america, new york city, what about the role of other people, our mental health professionals, law enforcement? >> all of that applies. >> what about gun owners and gun right supporters? what role do they have in this if there's to be a new dialogue? >> i think gun owners really have spoken. when you do the polling, most gun owners think that an assault weapons ban makes sense in this day and age. that study has been done again and again by both democratic and republican pollsters. and the trouble is that the nra is just never willing to have any restriction whatsoever, no matter how reasonable it is. the supreme court fortunately was. they said having reasonable restrictions is consistent with the constitution. >> does that dynamic change now? does the nra have disproportionate power? you argued a moment ago they didn't have the power they once did in a presidential election. >> i'll give you a good example. i'm not the kind of person to sit back and say, you know, the world is getting worse for my kids, and i'm gone, i don't care about their lives. i do care about their lives. i'm going to do everything while i'm alive to make the world a better place for my kids but also for society. and take a look. one of the things i decided to do in the last election was to support some candidates that were running against those that had great records with the nra, where the nra was putting their money into one side. i decided to put my money into the other side. >> joe baca in california, one of the democrats that you supported? >> we won four out of seven -- four out of seven where the nra supported every one of those four and we won with a small amount of money. there is this myth that the nra is so powerful. you go back to what happened back when the democrats lost after the assault weapons ban. i don't know that the two are connected then. but today, the nra's power is so vastly underrated. when you do the polls, the americans want to stop this carnage. and if 20 kids isn't enough to convince them, i don't know what will be. >> so the top priorities as of gun control are today to reinstate assault weapons ban? >> what about regulations? what about sensible gun laws that limit what you can do, when you can do it, make it consistent with the constitution, but also don't jeopardize everybody. and that's what i'm trying to do. >> so which ones would you fight for if you were the president? >> number one, there is a loophole in the federal law requirement that says you have to have a background check. the loophole is called the gun show loophole. there was this concept that at a gun show, if you wanted to sell one gun, and i just wanted to buy one gun, we wouldn't go through a background check because it was too complex. number one, it's not too complex. 99% of the gun dealers in this country do background checks, follow the law to the exact letter of the law. it really does work. but the gun shows have involved from you just selling one gun to me to you having 500 guns and 10 or 20 like me come in to buy guns from you. it's a way to avoid the federal requirement for a background check. the background check database isn't kept up to date, and the president by executive order could certainly do something like that. there was a disaster, a murder six, eight months, a year ago, a military guy. the military knew he had psychiatric problems. never put that into the database outside of the military. and he goes and kills people. so populating the database. having -- making sure that you stop the gun show loophole. those are the kinds of things that congress can do. and enforcing the laws. the alcohol, tobacco and firearms division hasn't had anybody in half a dozen years running it, four years. the president hasn't fought hard for somebody. i know it's tough to get people through congress, approved in congress. the president deals with that all the time. this should be one of his number one priorities. >> how much are you prepared to spend in the future to counter the nra? >> i don't know how to answer that. but when i care about something, i care about something. i think i have an obligation as an american to -- and as a citizen, as a human being, to help others. smoking is going to kill a billion people this century. i put $600 million of my own money into trying to stop the tobacco companies from getting kids to smoke and convincing adults that it's not bad for their health. that's one issue. who knows? >> you're prepared to put a lot more money to support stricter gun regulations? >> wouldn't it be wonderful if we didn't have to do that, if everybody just said, ok, let's just have some common sense here. we don't need assault weapons. military style weapons with big magazines on the streets of our city. and we've got to make sure that people who don't have the maturity or the capacity, mental capacity, to responsibly handle guns don't have them? >> mr. mayor, thank you. >> you're welcome. >> appreciate it very much. >> very tragic. a note here this morning, we reached out to all 31 pro gun rights senators in the new congress to invite them on the program to share their views on the subject this morning. we had no takers. coming up here, big events like these often trigger a lively debate online. this tweet caught my eye. from @michellelaw, one guy tries to use a shoe bomb and everyone at the airport now has to take their shoes off. 31 school shootings since columbine, but no change. a provocative thought. and like mayor bloomberg just said, is what happened in connecticut going to be a catalyst for change in this and other areas? we'll talk about it with our special panel of key voices in this conversation after this short break. ♪ [ male announcer ] with free package pickup from the u.s. postal service the holidays are easy. visit usps.com. pay, print, and have it picked up for free before december 20h for delivery in time for the holidays. you can even give us special instructions on where to find it. free package pickup. from the u.s. postal service. because it's nice to have an extra pair of hands around for the holidays.