The Wide World Of U.S. Gun Culture

[Music] thank you [Music] hello there I'm Chuck Todd and welcome to another episode of Meet the Press reports today we're looking at gun culture in America the growing diversity of its membership and the challenge it creates in passing effective gun safety legislation America's love affair with guns is so ingrained in the country's hunting and Pioneer history that the actual right to a firearm was written into the U.S Constitution after a decade of assassinations gun legislation in 1968 imposed new federal restrictions on who could own a firearm and the National Rifle Association sprang to life the NRA was originally formed after the Civil War to Simply Better educate soldiers on gun safety and accurate shooting and it's really what the organization was about for a good 50 or so years but by the 1970s and 80s the NRA changed and it became a committed lobbyist for the uninhibited right to a firearm and it's a political battle that continues to this day now in an era where mass shootings proliferate the Supreme Court's expansion of gun rights has now widened the debate over who has a right to what when it comes to bearing arms that expansion came after a pandemic crime wave and fears of political violence which drove many Americans to gun stores some for the very first time so it raises these questions now who exactly is part of today's American Gun culture and have lawmakers lost the ability to regulate it well my colleague Cal Perry has more I've seen all kinds of gun crimes and I can tell you Brian Kemp's new law is dangerous American politics in 2022 [Music] more than 100 Republican ads 20 from Dems all centered around guns giving the perception the issue of Guns is divided exclusively along red and blue lines but in a country with 120 guns for every 100 people there are liberals who are pro-gun and conservatives who support restrictions we spoke with six gun owners Across America and for each of them the idea of America's gun culture means something different approximately 77 million adults own a gun in the United States 6 in 10 say their reason for getting one is self-protection like will who asked to be identified only by his first name his interest in Firearms was renewed during the pandemic part of it was self-protection there were a lot of not in the local area but just surrounding areas there were a lot of Home break-ins and and things like that car break in so I thought um you know might be a good time associated with my kids getting older so I wanted to protect my family protect my house there will be people who will see these ARs and will say these are the these are the things that are destroying America what do you sort of think when you hear that kind of stuff I'm sympathetic to that um I certainly understand especially for people who have experienced that trauma or or that tragedy I don't take my my ARS out and just start flaunting it my understanding in Maryland there's no rule against open carry for rifles but that doesn't mean I should just go around and flaunt it and carry it or let people know hey I have it it's not what it's for for me in some states it's legal to openly carry weapons including rifles and people do and in places like Missouri folks say it's a way of life weapons guns is a is a culture out here Charles K is a recently retired army officer who's training to be a gunsmith a lot of people need to go hunt in order to put food on the table they grew up you know two three not two three but you know five six seven year olds are learning how to shoot learning gun safety from their parents and you know who else and that's how they grew up so yeah a lot of people have guns around here that's the culture well Charles is skeptical of new gun laws there are some that he supports I wouldn't be opposed to making everything 21 I'm not opposed to all gun transactions you know having to go through a federal firearm licensed dealer of some sort never gone hunting um I've barely fished I I enjoy shooting as a hobby I enjoy shooting paper targets James who also requested his last name not be used shoots only for sport as the son of a retired law enforcement officer many might expect him to be an emphatic supporter of gun rights but he believes the right to gun ownership must be balanced with responsibility a lot of people ask me as soon as they realize that I'm a gun owner like oh man what if somebody breaks into your house are you going to use that and and uh sincerely looking deep down into that truthful mirror I don't think I would I think it would be very much a matter of call the police I think a lot of people will get on the campaign the rallying Cry of our rights our rights our rights and I think it would be more helpful for us to also consider the responsibilities attached to that the views about guns can vary widely depending on where you are for example I'm here right now in Suburban Baltimore and the views here are very different than the views in a place like where I am now in downtown Baltimore a place where the murder rate this year is outpacing that of last year I realized it was really a stress reliever like I was having kids like really coming in and wanting to fight everyone Alex long a community activist who's lost family members to gun violence has decided to open a gym to try to lure kids off the streets and away from guns and by the time they left they literally would come to me and like man if I wasn't doing this I probably get locked up in a city with more than 240 homicides so far this year guns here are easy to get 13 14 year olds that will have access and is delivered like I say guys will come around here with cars and trucks full of firearms and the purpose is Target child youth where are our leaders to attack you this issue because these are our kids these aren't some will and torn country or a bunch of soldiers that have been heavily trained these our kids and we turned out back one so that's our fault you know so our kids they felt alone they felt like they have to do it on their own and sadly in a lot of cases I have to agree with them Alex and his partner are both gun owners and rather than have the government focus on gun restrictions he'd like to see more funding for programs like his that offer support for those in trouble he's working to try to prevent the worst we got to get back to giving them real support and it's not that nine to five support you mean you may have a young man call you three o'clock in the morning and say I want to kill somebody you got to be opened up to actually hear him or her and then work with them so they now hear them and understand that this ain't what I really is that the kind of calls those are the kind of calls you get absolutely the laws around guns have changed dramatically this summer when the Supreme Court struck down in New York state law that restricted a person's right to conceal carry a firearm making it far easier now to do so in places like Maryland It's meant an increase in those wanting to conceal carry since the Supreme Court ruling and unbelievable explosion of people coming to get gun training Catherine Harrison is the president of the Maryland 10th calorie Gun Club where they do more than just fire guns the club Roots its history in the Buffalo Soldier and puts a premium on educating its members about current firearm legislation here in the state of Maryland you have to have 16 hours of training so I think most of these instructors have gone from maybe averaging 60 students a month to over 200 plus what's most important to me I think is that gun owners provide or get some level of Education to use their firearms not just go out and buy one and then take it and bring it home put it in the dresser Michelle Douglas who founded the gun club has owned a gun for 16 years there's a lot of guns in America too is it reasonable to think that we're gonna we're gonna get rid off the street that ship has sailed it's too late there's too many guns out here on the street and there's too many people that don't follow the rules so lift the restrictions on people like me so we can defend our homes her concern is that more gun laws would impact the wrong people her I'm not the one that the government needs to put restrictions on I'm a law abiding citizen I adhere to the loss Lords are made to keep honest person honest it does nothing for the criminals they don't care from Missouri to Maryland some Americans believe lawmakers are protecting their right to have a gun others believe they're letting us down Michelle worries about politicians stoking divisions and like many Firearms users wants to be prepared to defend herself in case she's confronted with the violence they speak of so frequently one of the things that happens is like Republicans are pro guns and Democrats are coming for your guns now that may not be true but that's kind of where what do you think about all that well with the ex-president advocating civil violence and disobedience um my concern is do I have enough bullets at home to defend my castle when we come back can gun legislation truly be effective in a growing gun culture with growing gun rights stay with us foreign half of the state legislatures in the country oppose restricting access to guns let's break it down 30 states require neither Universal background checks nor licenses to own a gun the Gifford's Law Center which is a gun safety organization led by the former congresswoman and a gun violence victim herself Gabrielle Giffords has given an f grade on gun laws to 25 of those States the letter grade of D to Indiana and Ohio and then sees to Minnesota Florida and Wisconsin the bipartisan safer communities act which is a gun safety measure signed into law this summer does not require states to change their licensing requirements though it does force states to search juvenile criminal records for any problems or red flags for potential buyers who are under the age of 21. the law also prohibits gun trafficking across state lines it prohibits straw purchasing which is buying a gun for someone else and it prohibits those convicted of domestic violence from buying a gun for five years that's that boyfriend loophole you heard about for a while and finally this bill enhances penalties for possession of firearms prohibited by prohibited persons though Democrats celebrated passage of this first gun safety bill in 30 years President Biden said more needs to be done saw weapons need to be banned they were banned I led the fight in 1994. I'm determined to ban these weapons again and high capacity magazines the Whole 30 rounds and then let Mass Shooters fire hundreds of bullets in a matter of minutes I'm not going to stop until we do it so join me now I've got Congressman Brian Higgins he's a Democrat from New York whose District includes Buffalo the site of a recent mass shooting Marcel Davis is an owner and Firearms instructor at my sister's keeper defense Corey Winfield a site director at Safe Streets Brooklyn in the Baltimore area and Dr Alan Lichtman is a professor of history at American University and he's author of the book repeal the Second Amendment the case for a safer America so before before we sort of get into the larger debate about guns in America what are we debating are we debating whether whether everybody should have access to a gun are we debating gun safety because I feel like the debate continues to change I'll start with the congressman Congressman Higgins what are we debating what are you really debating in Congress the rules to buy a gun or the or who should be able to own one well no technology advances more quickly in our society than the technology of killing every day new weapons are being made and manipulated to kill more people more quickly and more completely we had the Buffalo shooting we had one shooter with an AR-15 who killed 10 people in a premeditated pre-planned racist attack and the killing lasted for two minutes and three seconds 123 seconds one shooter 10 people dead three people injured I think there's a common denominator here and it's assault weapons that are in the hands of the wrong people and getting to the core of that we'll get to the core of the issue of gun violence Marshall Davis how do you define an assault weapon because that seems we we don't feels like one of the bigger problems we have is agreeing on which weapons should be classified as what I think it's in a misnomer essentially when people say something that's an assault weapon that's like saying an assault knife you can commit a crime or act of violence with any type of weapon any tool but I think what people mean usually when they say assault rifle is AR-15 style or platform rifles so how would so respond to the congressman there he believes these things should be in many ways if not totally off the streets which is what I think President Biden is advocating um should there be different rules for someone who wants to own an AR-15 I would say different rules as in exceptional training I always say that in that same scenario in the Tops Grocery Store shooting what we didn't factor for is that there was a security guard there who did oppose the threat who did use his handgun against the criminal with a rifle imagine if that same security guard had a rifle had the same equivalent or higher means of self-defense not only did he with his handgun slow down the shooter but I believe he saved lives and I think Hattie had the same or equivalent weapon he would have been able to stop the attacker Corey let me ask you what you think the debate should be your your background you you serve time for committing gun violence uh and now you're you're sort of you tell me what you think the government how they should be intervening you're you're working for a group that's advocating for more non-violence on the streets how should the government step in here when it comes to guns I think the government should step in and and put a cap on exactly what kind of guns should be allowed to be manufactured also um so the number of guns made in a given year are given amount of time yes yes this tomb is entirely too many guns on our streets and they'll fall in the hands of our young black men in the inner city of America and we are dying at alarm and race and it's not like they're going to gun stores to buy these guns right I mean we had it in the piece it's just they're they're almost too available for sure I can leave this office right now yeah and come back with a gun in how long in 10 minutes yeah in 10 minutes literally but I can't leave this office right now and come back with a cell phone in 10 minutes right yeah because I'm gonna need what ID identification they want my social security card they want all this stuff right but so so we know this then we need to start addressing it properly and stop dancing around the rules and start and stop right and gun violence is costing us 557 billion dollars a year a year each city is paying one million dollars for victim one million dollars so right now in my city Baltimore Maryland we are well over 250 murders this year so right now we are in we are in 250 million dollars in a year is not even over with and we probably ain't even finished paying the well over 300 million dollars from last year because we was well over 300 murders so this is a problem Alan you have a book that says repeal the second man let's put the Second Amendment up I want to put it up on screen so everybody can see it because it's a very you know it's not a long Amendment uh it's it's a it's an amendment of very few words a lot of commas uh and the question is this phrase well regulated militia let's just take the the two words well regulated if the Supreme Court didn't interpret it the way they currently do we probably could pass laws that would classify guns in certain ways that would allow for the ID card that he's asking for but it seems as the way we interpret the legal Community the way the courts are interpreting the Second Amendment legislators are handcuffed no absolutely and that's why I've talked about the need to repeal the Second Amendment I'm just saying that's a long shot but we did repeal the prohibition Amendment but more specifically the idea that the Second Amendment creates an individual right to keep and bear arms is one of the greatest hoaxes in the history of this country in 1955 the Constitutional Authority for the National Rifle Association wrote a memo saying the Second Amendment only relates to Collective defense through a well-regulated militia then in 1977 the radicals took over the NRA and perpetrated this hoax that it protected an individual right to bear arms why not here's the history of 13 colonies with their own constitutions the precursor to the amendment all but one were either silent on firearm rights or linked it to Collective defense through militiam moreover who framed the amendment James Madison a slave holder who voted for it in Congress in the states hundreds of slave owners do you think for a moment they would have voted for or ratified amendment that gave black people an unlimited right to keep and bear arms of course not but by linking it to a well-regulated militia they kept arms out of the hands of black persons because they were barred from the militia Brian Higgins the Second Amendment what would pass in Congress if it wasn't for the current Court's interpretation of the Second Amendment I'm not certain but I think we need to do a better job in identifying the problem Rob Elementary School Uvalde Texas one shooter the shooting started and stopped in room 111 and 112 in two minutes and 30 seconds one shooter 21 people dead into including 19 kids uh Sandy Hook Elementary School Newtown Connecticut December 2012. the shooting started at 9 35 in the morning was completed at 9 40. five minutes 26 people on campus dead including 20 kids between the ages of five and seven their autopsy showed that many of those kids hit three and four bullet wounds in them it's their there's the common denominator it's young people who are not mentally healthy in the Buffalo case the shooter was 18 the evaldi case the shooter was 18. Sandy Hook he was 20 but they have had a history of mental problems and they're all possessing this same gun which is designed and manipulated every day to kill more people more quickly and more completely Marshall how would you respond look you're you're a gun owner and you're an advocate for gun ownership but I'm guessing you're an advocate for responsible gun ownership absolutely so uh where are you comfortable government stepping in and deciding yeah look you need to you have certain rights for this level of weapon but you know hey the same reason you have to get a commercial driver's license to drive a semi you know you should have a different license to operate an AR-15 I don't disagree with Education and Training I don't disagree with mental health programs I don't disagree with a lot of the things that are being proposed I think that we put the focus on the tool instead of the people not all people are committing mass shootings you don't see black women committing Mass Shooters you don't see Hispanic women or you know indigenous men and women committing mass shootings there's a specific demographic of people who are committing these crimes so I think we should focus on why why do these specific demographic people have such a disdain for human life and why are they using these tools to hurt people but how would you respond to say but shouldn't we just shouldn't we make access to this a little bit harder I think changing access is on having age limits that's something that was proposed yeah I think that's fine that's not an issue but still if those same people are intent on hurting people and causing loss of life they will find a way to cause loss of life so we need to figure out how can we change the person and the mentality also in addition to everything else that's proposed Alan you're shaking your head go ahead yeah I'm fundamentally shaking my head look as horrific as mass shootings are they are the tip of the iceberg of gun violence in America 15 000 gun homicides a year 40 000 gun violence and we have the evidence showing that gun controls work you talked about the Giffords Law Center the five states with the tightest gun controls according to the Giffords Law Center had a Firearms homicide rate it's in my book of 2.4 per 100 000. the five states with the loosest laws had a triple rate of 6.3 per 1 100 thousands look at gun deaths 5.1 per hundred thousand for the five strictest States 18.2 for the five loose Estates I also looked into this proper cause gun permits that the Supreme Court just struck down the half a dozen states with those laws had a gun death rate of 6.3 per hundred thousand all the other states were 16.3 gun controls work the proof is in the data Corey would you say this with with these young men that that are looking for weapons and they may come back at you and say if I don't have one how am I going to protect myself I'm getting one because I got to protect myself is there any amount of training or awareness that would change that mindset the only thing would change that mindset is is not to have the gun itself right now all young men like I said earlier is done it's a it's Wars that's going on in our inner city and we're not paying attention to it or we're just playing a blind eye toward or we just frankly don't give a damn and and let's keep let's call it like it is right um if we if we if we won't really get to the issue and the core I mean I don't care about any of them any any stats anything like that that's because we still dying right now somebody's been shot right now right somewhere in America somebody's being shot might be in my city when I get back right so so all that can go right out the window because you got to stand in front of Grandmother when you got to stand up from a mother and tell and say I'm sorry that your six-year-old was hit by a straight bullet that's leaving out of school and and we're gonna get to the bottom of that that's bull crap the whole question is so if the criminals the people who are committing these murders have these weapons right what do you propose people do to defend themselves do they say hey I voted in support of gun control hey I called the police what do they do to defend their lives in that moment what I'm saying to you is that it's our people are going at each other I agree I think so so so what's happening is right that white people and people like to sell right are not in our inner cities fighting and pulling guns on each other right I walked down the street every day we are killing each other about nothing nonsense right so what we need to do is really put our money and our energy and intervention programs to stop this kind of stuff right put our money in the school system to educate our kids so they can be better and comprehensive thinking of not doing this I agree with all that so my question was what do you say to someone who wants to defend themselves if they live in a neighborhood where this crime is happening what is the answer what is the answer the answer is proper cause gun permit laws which save lives the states that don't have it their gun deaths are more than triple if you really need self-defense you can get it moreover the data shows that as compared to gun homicides the use of guns for self-defense is minuscule and most murders are not committed by criminals they're committed by ordinary people who have guns when arguments and fights escalate and become deadly Brian Higgins you've been listening in this conversation and I'd love for you to respond particularly to what Marcel was talking about which is capping the number of guns we have in America limiting the num the availability of the manufacturing of guns to a certain number you know how much do gun manufacturers play a role here well they play a big role in this there's 330 million people in America there's 400 million guns and there's 41 million assault weapons obviously if you look at all the mass shootings of late it's typically carried out by one individual with a AR-15 that kills a lot of people very quickly and completely so obviously there's a problem the Centers for Disease Control and prevention has identified gun violence's leading cause of death for children in America today we have had 518 mass shootings this year in America alone obviously you know negotiating down bills to combat gun violence is not helpful it may help in the margins but what we really need to do is look at the facts and who's carrying out these shootings and what is their weapon of choice it's obviously multifaceted there's a social media issue there's a mental health issue but there is also a gun issue and to suggest that there is not is to ignore the problem altogether but it sounds like I'll be honest even though there's been some disagreement there seems some agreement in figuring out how we can cut down on gun violence absolutely we're just data is clear yeah the the problem May simply be the Supreme Court is tying the hands of anybody to try to do something through a misinterpretation no it may be even the most conservative judge judge Posner the most sighted jurist of the 20th century said Justice Scalia in that 2010 decision read his own values into the concept right now the Senate has in front of them to break the cycle of violence Act they need to sign that bill and that's and that and you're talking about it actual interventions before they start turning that's the answer to you but it has to be nice to skip across state how do you defend how do you help yourself how do you defend from from gun violence so in that moment stop it before it happens okay so in that moment also also we have to think on ourselves I'm violence I'm also a survivor of a home invasion so in those moments you saying let's go back in history let's go back in time or go forward in time and change the thought process of these criminals does not help me in that moment what helped me in that moment is being able to defend myself well what will help you in that moment is knowing that if I am if I'm educating myself of knowing how to get out I'm a Survivor of gun violence I've been in front of the gun and behind the gun so I understand how to get out of this and how we're going to get out of this is we have to help each other and then the Senate has the signed that everybody has to sign that bill I'm going to land this flame Alan I appreciate it I think we've given a lot of perspective okay I think this has been exactly the conversation I was hoping to have because it's about surfacing um this tension a little bit and surfacing these issues that we've got to figure out how to solve you guys were terrific thank you all for this uh next time on Meet the Press reports ten years ago the bitterly fought recall of Wisconsin governor Scott Walker for shadowed the widening Gulf between the two parties that would come to Define American politics today I'm going to travel to Wisconsin to report on the political dynamics that make the state Ground Zero for our country's polarization and which could determine which party controls Congress in the coming elections I'll see you next time on Meet the Press reports and this Sunday on Meet the Press [Music] foreign [Music] thanks for watching our YouTube channel follow today's top stories and breaking news by downloading the NBC News app

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Keywords: dc, election, government, meet the press, mtp, politics, washington, washington d.c.

Id: rWPb0f9wCwQ

Length: 30min 22sec (1822 seconds)

Published: Thu Sep 29 2022