Joe Asks Bernie Sanders "Is There a Solution to Mass Shootings?"

That's right. Now, right now we are a week, not even a week out, just a few days away from two mass shootings in a row. And whenever these things happen, there's all these people that want action, but nobody knows exactly what to do. There's calls for gun control. There's calls for mental health reform. There's calls for, I mean, what, if anything, can be done? To stop these things from happening. And how, have you sat down and tried to come up with some sort of a solution? And is there a solution? Look, I would be lying to you if I told you I had a magical answer. I don't. And this is such a horrific situation. You know, we were in, you know, we had a town meeting, we were in Nevada actually in Las Vegas when El Paso happened. We did a town meeting and I said, let's take a moment of silence to remember the victims and pray for the survivors. Literally the next day in another part of Las Vegas, I have to do it again. And I said, I can't believe that just yesterday we did this and I have to do it again. This is – I don't know what the words – you know, my friend Beto O'Rourke was saying it's – you don't know what words – what can you say? It happens again and again. Who can imagine some lunatic walking into a school or a mall or just on a nightclub area and taking out an assault weapon and shooting down people and that we almost become to accept this as a normal part of American life is incredible. It's just totally demoralizing. All right. So here's what I think. There's no magical answer and – but let me tell you what I think. First of all, this is the reality. The reality is that today as we speak, there are approximately 400 million guns in America today. We have more guns than we have people. We have between five to ten million assault weapons and an assault weapon as you know is a military style weapon designed to kill human beings kind of rapidly. So that's – and then on top of that, we have again nothing to be proud of but we have a number of mentally unstable people, people for whatever reason. I walk in the streets, they're suicidal, they're homicidal. That's the mix that we have. I think the answer is – and I'm not the guy to invent all these ideas but here are some of what we have to do. First of all, if you want to own a gun in America, you have got to – we have got to know that you are a stable person and that means that we need to expand the background checks that currently exist. So we've got to know, did you beat up your wife? Have you committed crimes? Et cetera, et cetera. What is the state of your mental health? Number two, we've got to make that universal. Number two, right now, that – there is a background check if you walk into a gun show – into a gun shop but you can buy guns in various states at a gun show and you don't have to do any of that. So if you and I go to a gun show, you sell me a gun, I don't have to – I don't have to do that. Third of all, I can today legally walk into a gun show, pass the background check and buy a dozen guns, walk out and sell them to criminal elements who will use them for bad things. So I think those are issues that most Americans believe we have got to deal with and we can. Fourthly, I happen to believe and I believe this for 30 years that we should not be selling or distributing assault weapons in this country. They are weapons of mass destruction in a sense. They kill people rapidly as we saw and thank God, by the way, when we talk about both Dayton and El Paso, thank God, cops were there very, very quickly and did an incredible job because that guy had walked into the nightclub. There could have been dozens and dozens more people killed within a few minutes' time. I happen to believe, A, that we should not be selling or distributing an assault weapons in this country. That's my view, period. So I believe in a ban on assault weapons and I think we have got to begin thinking about when we have 5 to 10 million assault weapons, which is more than the U.S. military has, we have to think about a strong licensing procedure in terms of who owns these assault weapons. So that's some of what I think – there are many other things, but those are some of the ideas that are out there. Trevor Burrus Now, the legal gun owners who are law abiding citizens who would never in a million years think about going around shooting people, but they love guns. They hear this kind of stuff about banning assault rifles, banning assault weapons. They don't even like the term assault weapons, right? They like to refer to them as their individual names for whatever they are. These people feel like this is an inexorable part of being an American. You should be able to own a gun. It's written into our Bill of Rights. It's written into our – the way we – the way this country was founded. It's the Second Amendment. What do you say to those people that don't want to give up their guns, but they wouldn't do – and they want to protect themselves. They feel like these guns are viable options to protect themselves from criminals. John Deebenow I understand that. And Joe, you may know I'm a senator from the state of Vermont. The state of Vermont is one of the most rural states in America in every form. We've got a whole thousands and thousands of people out in the woods hunting and it's something that's part of our tradition. I believe in it. I believe in the Second Amendment. But all that I ask of the gun owners – and you're absolutely right, 99.9% of gun owners were never in a million billion years think of doing these horrible things. But in the moment that we are living in, I think that we're all going to have to make some concessions to the reality of what is going on and that is that there is a small number of – call them what you want, the brave people who are prepared to do that. In Australia, you'll remember that terrible – New Zealand, I'm sorry – the terrible shooting at the mosque and they move pretty quickly in an aggressive way. So I wish I can say in the best of all possible worlds, yeah, you can own any weapon you want and so forth and so on. We're not living in the best of all possible worlds. We're living in a world where we're shocked every day by a horror. Trevor Burrus I agree we are living in a terrible situation. I mean there's hundreds of mass shootings a year now which is insane. If you look at the number in comparison to the rest of the world, it's crazy. Like a big one in other countries, like three mass shootings in a year, we had more than 270. It's crazy. But how would you implement something like this? John Deebenow Well, the idea of banning assault weapons has been done in 1994. We banned assault weapons, I believe it was for 10 years. That ban was undone by a Republican majority. And it didn't – I'm not suggesting by the way that anything here that if you banned assault weapons tomorrow that it would radically change everything. But we have got to do the best that we can do. And again, I preface my remarks by telling I don't have a magical solution. You've got hundreds of millions of guns out there. You have people who should not be owning these guns who get set off by God knows what and do terrible things. All we can do is the best that we can do. But to say we can't do anything, I think is a real disservice to the American – I'll tell you something else that bothers me. In addition to the horror of seeing people lying on the street dead is what this is doing to the children of this country. And I think we underestimate that. I have seven grandchildren. And for them and for kids all over this country, you're going to see the falls coming, kids coming back to school. You're going to see in schools all over America drills. All right, this is what you do if somebody walks into the school. All right, you're going to hide under here. You go over there. Kids – a couple of months ago, I was in Iowa. This guy is about 6'2", big guy, probably a football player. And he says, Senator Sanders, I've got to tell you that the young people in my school are increasingly frightened, terrified about what could happen in the school. Think about what this – the trauma, the trauma of what this gun violence is doing. So I think we're all – as Americans, there ain't no easy answers here. But I think we're all going to have to come together and figure this one out and do the best that we can. Darrell Bock Now, would that mean forcibly removing these guns from people's homes? I don't think you're going to have the FBI knocking on somebody's doors and taking – that's not what we do in America. You know, if we have 400 million guns already out there and they're building more every year. Right now, as we speak, gun manufacturers are making more guns. This is happening right now. So if those guns already exist, there's more than enough. How would you stop? John Deere Well, again, I think – look, you know, I do think there should be a ban on assault weapons. So that means that manufacturers would not be able to produce or sell those weapons. Darrell Bock To American citizens, but not to the military, obviously. John Deere Right, obviously. Okay. So, you know, and your point is well taken. If you've got 400 million guns out there, you know – so I think there are approaches. No one has any magical solution, but I've given you – I'll tell you something else that I didn't mention and that is the role of gun manufacturers is that if you are a gun manufacturer and you are selling a hell of a lot of guns to a gun store in an area which normally you would not think – I mean, these guys know, you know, what cities buy or what towns buy how many guns. And if suddenly there is a tremendous demand, you've got to be thinking – why is this gun store buying so many guns? It doesn't reflect the population in the area. You've got to deal with that issue with the gun owners who have to take some responsibility. Darrell Bock Besides the guns – John Deere The gun manufacturers, I'm sorry. Darrell Bock Right. Besides the guns and the gun manufacturers, the other gigantic issue is mental health. The only way any of this ever happens is someone has to be insanely mentally depraved. That's the only way. And many of them are medicated. And many of them are on pharmaceutical drugs and they have been since they were children, including amphetamines like Adderall and Prozac and all this different stuff that has varied effects on the human brain. What could be done and what would you have done to analyze this, to find out what the cause and effect are, and to try to figure out what role and how much these drugs are responsible? John Deere Well, two things. Let me respond first by saying it goes without saying that we have a mental health crisis in America before we even talk about drugs. And for whatever reason, there are a whole lot of people in the nature of our healthcare system getting back to healthcare is – I just talked to a woman literally last night and we had a town meeting and she said, this is unbelievable. She said, Bernie, I was in Las Vegas when the terrible shooting took place. And now I am – and I can understand this perfectly. I'm seeing Dayton and I'm watching television El Paso and I'm getting a PTSD reaction. That's totally – if you were in a place where people were shut down and she said, I'm trying to get counseling. I can't find it. I remember a guy called up – a woman called up my office in Burlington, Vermont and she said, I'm worried about my husband, what he – my brother was his brother. What he might do to himself or somebody else, we're looking for mental health counseling. We can't find something that we can afford. So we need above and beyond gun violence. We need – and this is why I believe in Medicare for All. Mental health is healthcare. You break your arm. That's a health issue. That's a medical issue. Mental health is a medical issue and we have got to make mental health counseling available to all people in this country when they need it, not six months from now at a price they can afford and under Medicare for All, it would be free. So that's number one. Number two, your point about studying the impact of drugs on people's behavior and possibly resulting in violence absolutely deserves to be studied. We should be studying the impact of drugs. In my view, this is a layman's view, not a psychiatrist. I worry very much that we are over medicating kids in schools. We have this deficit, the deficient issue. Kids are running around and they're active. You know when I was a kid, people used to run around and they were active. They weren't drugged up. So I worry about that whole business but your point is well taken. I think we need to study this issue and make sure that these drugs in fact are not causing kinds of reactions that we will regret later.