0 >> the fish were happy and then hungry. let's get to the news. president obama will be in connecticut this afternoon to continue his push for new gun legislation and joining the president today will be the family members of those killed in the newtown massacre. in an emotional interview last night on "60 minutes," some of the parents and spouses spoke about the morning that changed their lives forever. >> i ran to the firehouse and frantically was looking around. all of the kids in the class were on the floor and isaiah popped up and i grabbed him and held him and he was crying. daddy, so many gunshots. i saw this and i saw that. i took my son in my arms. he is obeyibig kid. i was running from room-to-room trying to locate others in the class. >> i got a text from jimmy. i have isaiah, but i don't have ania. i kept texting 10, 15 seconds, ana. question mark? then exclamation point. we had isaiah. i didn't understand why we didn't have ana. >> you can have a million bullets but if you have to put them in one at a time, the ability to do any kind of real damage is significantly reduced. >> we looked to the search warrants as well and know that he left the smaller capacity magazines at home, that was a choice the shooter made. he knew that the larger capacity magazine clips were more lethal. >> the more bullets you can get out of the end of that gun in the least amount of time, that is the single area that i believe affects legality and the size of the magazine placed in that weapon is a direct contributor to that factor. i would like every parent in this country, that is 150 million people, i would like them to look in the mirror -- and that is not a figure of speech, scott, i mean, literally find a mirror in your house and look in it and look in your eyes and say, this will never happen to me. this will never happen in my school. this will never happen in my community and see if you actually believe that and if there is a shadow, the slightest shadow of doubt what you said, think about what you can do to change that. it's going to happen to again. it is going to happen again. and every time, you know, it's somebody else's school. it's somebody else's town. it's somebody else's community until, one day, you wake up and it's not. >> back in washington, congress is set to take up gun reform this week. it's an issue met with a threat of a filibuster from a number of senate republicans. senator john mccain is not among them. >> what is your thought on a filibuster on this? would you be against that? >> i don't understand it. the purpose of the united states senate is to debate and to vote and to let the people know where we stand. >> so you'd encourage republicans not a filibuster? >> i would not only encourage it, i don't understand it. what are we afraid it? >> this thursday morning, joe will host a round table on gun violence with vice president joe biden and we will be joined by people who have differing views on this debate on gun safety. that will be fascinating. >> a great interview yesterday in front of the weekend review or whatever they call it now. >> sunday review. >> we still call it the brooklyn dodgers too. so it's week in review. i tell you what, richard haass, i saw john mccain there. and i'm hopeful. because, you know, there are a lot of guys out there in the senate and they are going out because it's a free shot. this is free. i'm going to filibuster gun control and you automatically win unconditional support from a segment of your voting population. it doesn't cost anything. it's not like making a tough choice on medicare or medicaid. it costs you nothing. but it does cost the republican party, overall. and i think john mccain understand that. we got an issue that is a 29-7 issue and i can't believe that republicans, first of all, aren't going to support it but, secondly won't let background checks against rapists, people who have committed manslaughter in the past, people with mental illness, dangerous mental illness, i can't believe those republicans are going to allow the entire republican party to be the party that basically put rapists rights over parents rights to keep their kids safe when they go to school. >> i hope you're right. you had to like what john mccain said. all you can say is whatever happens this time, and it's going to be less than, i think, the people around this table hope happens this time. even if you got background checks my hunch is a lot of people want more than that. the only thing i'm hoping is the debate is not the end of it but the beginning of it. over time, these issues evolve, they ripen and maybe this year you get this amount. what i'm hoping is rather than this being the peak because it's the reaction what happened to newtown and the rest this is the beginning of the change and public attitudes. we have seen with other issues the last couple of years whether it's gay marriage or immigration. >> it certainly has moved on the assault weapons. 60/40 now. >> i'm hoping seeing it less, if you will, as an event and more as a process. what i'm hoping that this is the beginning of a changed political -- so maybe this time around, lots of republicans filibuster but the next time around, they don't because they realize the political price they pay is what i'm hoping for. >> i'm concerned, willie geist, for my republican party, if they do filibuster not like we reached the end of history. newtown is not the end of history. think of the killings and shootings since newtown. there hasn't been a mass killing yet but there will be. why do we know that? look in the recent past, kids shot up in an oregon mall. teenagers shot and killed while they are watching a movie in aurora, colorado. a grandmother shot while worshipping god up in minnesota. and then, of course, these first graders dismembered by all of the bullets that were shot at them in rapid succession. republicans, maybe they believe this is the end of history, but it's going to happen again and when it happens again and 92% of americans have asked them to do something and they don't do it, it's just going to have devastating political impact on everybody. so those four or five grandstanding right now say they will filibuster a bill they don't even know and haven't even read, it might be great for them with a small segment of their base in their state. it's pretty rough for the republican party. >> go to the front page of the "chicago tribune's" website this morning the top headline 14-year-old boy shot to death on west side. it goes to your point. it's going to continue to happen and it's going to continue to happen. how do we react to it and how do you solve this problem? i mean, if you look at numbers, the polls we have seen, 90/10 on background checks and you said assault weapons moving in that direction, why isn't the congress of the united states reflective of the american public? i think the point you're making and at some point that catches up to politicians. when you're not answering to what the public wants, you'll pay for that down the road. >> there is rarely, steve rattner, opposing these pieces of legislation. they will say if you want a background check to make sure rapists can't just go if and buy a gun and people have committed manslaughter in the past are violent offenders. if you want to protect your family from a background check they say the background check is only national registrations. it won't. that's illegal and against the law. assault weapons, they say, next they come after my handguns. nope. that is not true either. there is always one excuse after another after another and the excuses are bad. but you look at chicago. those are handguns. we are not going to get the handguns out of people's hands. they have a constitutionally protected right to have those handguns but mayor bloomberg said to me six weeks ago, even before it looked like we weren't going to get an assault weapons ban, he said, you know, assault weapons ban, fine. we can get that. it's symbolic, it had to do with -- i get it. he said, but what connects more killings than anything else is the background checks. in chicago, across america. we have got to stop one gang member from giving a handgun to another gang member and giving it to another gang member and then somebody else shooting them. that is how it happens. you get gun trafficking and a universal background check against criminals and mentally ill people, you know, he believes you take care a lot of shootings from chicago out to l.a. >> sure. look. first of all, notwithstanding what some of these republicans are saying now, it's really hard for me to imagine that after newtown with all of the emotion that this bill is going down on a filibuster and it seems to me at the end of it all no republican wants to be responsible for this bill falling over a filibuster. number two, the background check issue, at the moment, seems to be an issue which i actually have some sympathy for the concern about which is one farmer wants to sell to another farmer and the father to the son, all of these kinds of specific cases of how does this actually work. so now you have joe manchin and pat toomey off and colburn moving back from it and manchin and toomey trying to get a deal down. i get progression is what is happening on gay rights and on other issues. i think the history of gun control is kind of opposite in way we pass assault weapons ban and repealed it and tried in '68 to get a robust piece of gun legislation after rfk and martin luther king was killed and maybe a watered down version. maybe you're right and i hope you are but think this is our moment and a time we need to get everything we can get. >> i agree with richard. i think history is moving in one direction on this issue. i think 33% of americans have a gun in their home versus 50% not so long ago. that number is going to keep going down. and i do think history is on the side of those that want some reasonable rational gun safety laws passed. again, 92% of americans want background checks for, you know, to make sure that rapists and child molesters, people that have committed battery don't get their hands on gun. >> it's going to take some strong voices on the side of assault weapon control. >> what kind of leadership -- first of all, people have been criticizing the president. do you think the president is showing sufficient leadership? look. i think the argument now is whether he went for too much. or if it was too narrow ultimately and what could actually happen in washington because there's so many reasons why things don't get through. but if you look locally, this is a narrative now, we have seen other issues as well, where governors are able to get more done. governor malloy of connecticut. >> north of the city. >> yeah. listen. >> it's north of the city. >> they just passed really strict gun laws and he took on the head of the nra without mincing words. >> it reminds me of the clowns at the circus. they get the most attention and what he is paid to do. but the reality is that the gun that was used to kill 26 people on december 14th was legally purchased in the state of connecticut even though we had an assault weapons ban but there were loopholes in it that you could drive a truck through. i mean, this guy is so out of whack, it's unbelievable. i can't get on a plane, as the governor of the state of connecticut, without somebody running a background check on me. why should you be able to buy a gun or buy, you know, armor piercing munitions? it doesn't make any sense. >> building was the guy who had to be in the room to tell it the family members of 26 people, that hair loved ones and babies will not be coming home and they are the ones that got killed that morning. i don't know if other governors and other politicians who represent different areas of the country have to go through that to understand exactly what we are talking about here. i just don't even get the argument. in joe's piece yesterday kind of crystallized this circular conversation you can have with gun rights folks, that it's just endless and it boils down to wayne lapierre's arguments which just fly in the face of the reality that we face in this country. >> i thought joe nosierra's piece yesterday, i tell you what i think is missing in this segment of legislating. i actually agreed with the gun guy the overwhelming amount of time. but i think he is like me. he's a gun guy when it comes to second amendment rights and believes the federal government wants to chip away at those rights and liberals don't want you to have handguns or shotguns. they will let you have one hunting rifle and one bullet you have to lock up. that's basically his view. i think he makes a great view that we have to start demanding more responsibility of gun guys as he kept calling it but i think he, like myself, is saying let's have background checks so people who have committed violent crimes in the past can't walk into a store and get a gun and go home and cull their estranged wife and five kids. let's make sure he hasn't had domestic abuse. >> let's at least try. >> let's make sure this guy hasn't been arrested and sent to jail and out oral on parole for violenting raping a woman and he has a handgun. let's give ourselves a chance to keep our children in school and our teenagers when they go off to college or even go to the mall or go to a movie safe. there are a lot of gun guys, a lot of guys like me that -- i say it again. i think i should have a right to carry a concealed weapon in new york city. i don't. but i think i should. even though nobody is violating my constitutional right, but it seems to me i should have that right if i pass gun safety law, classes and everything else. but there's some of us that, again, are with the gun guys 95% of the time. in fact, a lot of gun guys are that way. it's just these extreme gun positions. i say not only for safety reasons because i know it will hurt the republican party in the long run. that's the question. >> it's hard to think of another 90/10 issue where the congress and government have come around to do the right thing. >> it's inevitable. i was thinking about doing a package for this vice president, this talk we are going to have with the vice president. >> round table we are going to have. >> and i'm going to try to find issues that only hit 7% because i know 13% of americans think barack obama is anti-christ. i know that when bush was president, 37% of americans believe that he intentionally blew unfortunate building 7. but 7%, hugo chavez had higher approval ratings, willie, in america. more people have a higher opinion of hugo chavez's leadership as the late leader of venezuela than they do think that we should not have background checks against rapists, against people that commit manslaughter, against mentally ill people. >> wayne lapierre's position gets a lot of attention in the press and his voice is heard loudly in the press but on that issue of universal background checks he doesn't hold the minority position but a fringe position. below 10%. >> and his own organization. >> within his own organization among gun owners it's still a spring position so something to consider when you hear that position advance over and over. >> so let's drain this bit of emotion and steve rattner, let's look at this as a business proposition. wayne lapierre, he is not irrational and he is not crazy. he's a business person. he makes a lot of money off of guns. and he represents people that sell guns and they make a lot of money off of guns. now, i'm not questioning wayne lapierre's motives. i believe that he is a fervent believer in the second amendment and a fervent believer of background checks a decade ago after columbine but at the end of the day this is about money. i believe the guys, the companies that are making so much money on guns, that have made millions and millions of dollars off the deaths of these 20 little children in newtown and the panic caused by a lot of what wayne lapierre said, they are are irrational at the end of the day. they are left wing and in the end it's all about money in hollywood. haven't they already figured out we got to give one here? we have got to give on the background checks? i'm just saying rationally as a business person, a lot of hedge funders have bought these gun companies. do rational business disis, okay, 92% of americans are against this w we need to -- are against our position. we need to give them this position before the next bad thing happens or next time they are going to go after our assault weapons? >> sure. i would imagine any business man involved in this industry would take the rational position we ought to give them this because we want to save our business and we want to be on the right side of it but as you see in foreign policy in a lot of places leaders don't do the rational thing when it's in their economic interest and other factors take over, emotion. the 7% in any issue that is 93/7 can often be more vocal, more passionate, more powerful in some ways than the 93% and i think that is what wayne lapierre is dealing with as well as his own views and his own personality. >> do you know how many guys that run hedge funds that would make this decision? >> no. but look. guys who run hedge funds are the most commercial, the most focused, the most sort of data driven what is in their interest kind of guys. hedge fund guys are not emotional. >> i think at the end of the day, mika, i think that that is why i believe we will have a deal on this because wayne lapierre doesn't speak for second amendment rights gun owners. he speaks for the people that make millions off of guns and they know it's in their best interests to give on this issue. >> i just hope that the republicans -- i hope those that are really, really tough on this and still opposing gun legislation have the -- have what it takes to do what is right. coming up on "morning joe," democratic senator from new york kirsten gillibrand will be with us and lawrence o'donnell and cass sunstein and tina brown. >> we have a lot of republicans in that lineup so we can ask them. >> it's a happy spring forecast today. d.c. could be up there near 75 to do. i mean, it's going to be the warmest day by far up and down the east coast. all the way up into areas of new york city who could hit 70 for the first time this year. the east is warm and quiet today. all of the problems the next three or four days in the midwest. a little rain heading to chicago for your morning commute and a raining in minneapolis and duluth and snow north of duluth if you can believe that. the forecast today, three days in a row with severe storms and typical of the springtime but haven't had much yet. with we are going to get tornadoes a few in rural areas of western kansas along the colorado border and strong storms possible for southern kansas. if we see a minioutbreak it will be tuesday night so pay attention. make sure you keep us in the back of your mind. kansas city all the way down to oklahoma city, tulsa, ft. smith, dallas area to austin. now behind the storm, i have gotten people from montana and wyoming. it is ugly asnowind it is snowi. 1 to 2 feet. how bad is that? temperatures today in new york city and washington, d.c. by far the weather we have been waiting for. very warm. leave the jacket at home. you're watching "morning joe" brewed by starbucks. ♪ ♪ ♪ i don't want any trouble. i don't want any trouble either. ♪ [ engine turns over ] you know you forgot to take your mask off, right? 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