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  • The Vice President: I just want you to know what we've been doing and then maybe

  • we can have a longer and larger conversation.

  • (multiple cameras clicking)

  • As a consequence of what I think we'd all agree is an incident

  • that sort of shocked the conscience of the American

  • people, unlike anything that I've seen or felt, and we've

  • been around a long time, you know, all the time I've been

  • in public life, there have been a number of tragedies that have

  • occurred and natural catastrophes, but I've never

  • quite seen anything that has shocked the consciousness of

  • the American people like six and seven-year-old kids being

  • riddled with bullets in a classroom, in a neighborhood,

  • in an area that was considered to be immune to this kind of

  • behavior and had done everything that seemed logical and able to

  • be done to protect the children in that school.

  • And so the President asked me, because I had spent so much time

  • on these issues relating particularly to guns and

  • violence in my years in the Senate, whether or not we would

  • -- and admittedly it's quick, in a matter of less than a month --

  • put together a set of proposals or direction that we could move

  • the federal government that would enhance the possibility

  • that or lessen the possibility this kind of thing could

  • happen again.

  • We know that it is -- there is no silver bullet.

  • There is no, as one of my friends said no seat belt

  • that you can put on to assure that you will not be in this

  • circumstance again.

  • But I asked the Cabinet to come together, the Attorney General,

  • Homeland Security, the Department of Education,

  • Health and Human Service, et cetera, because we know this

  • is a complex problem.

  • We know there is no single answer.

  • And quite frankly, we don't even know whether some of the things

  • people think impact on this actually impact on it or not.

  • And so I want you to know you have not been, quote, singled

  • out for help, but we've asked a whole lot of people.

  • I want to give you a sense of the meetings we've had so far.

  • We met with the law enforcement community which has obviously

  • one perspective.

  • And we met with -- and there is a wide range of those

  • communities and they don't always agree on anything from

  • weapons to preventative action that can be taken

  • for the violence.

  • We met with the medical community, a dozen or more

  • of the American Academy of Family Physicians, the AMA,

  • the American Academy of Neurology, et cetera,

  • more than a dozen leading institutions.

  • We've met with at risk groups, at risk youth and child advocacy

  • communities from the obvious one that everyone knows from Boys

  • and Girls Clubs, the YMCA, to the After School Alliance and

  • there is more than a dozen of those we met with.

  • Domestic violence prevention community, which I've done a

  • great deal of work on having authored the Violence Against

  • Women Act, and they have various views and suggestions.

  • Legal and justice organizations, from the ABA to other legal and

  • judicial organizations we've had in as well.

  • Civil rights organizations.

  • The civil, excuse me, participation and national

  • service organizations from the Kiwanis Club to the Rotary Club

  • and everything in between and beyond.

  • Youth groups.

  • Campus groups.

  • Peace groups, et cetera.

  • Gun safety advocates from the Brady group to all of the major

  • gun safety organizations in the country.

  • More than a dozen of them.

  • The educators and parents who are groping for answers.

  • The mental health community including the American Academy

  • of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, to NIH, we've been

  • through all of those groups.

  • Not an extensive study but just a meeting on literature that the

  • staff has been working and government wide to much of

  • what you already had, but some of which has been new

  • trying to devour.

  • And maybe the most interesting meeting we had was with an

  • interfaith group representing for the first time in all the

  • time I have been doing this, not only the traditional mainstream

  • Protestant churches and the Catholic Conference of Bishops,

  • but evangelical groups who generally have been reluctant

  • to engage in this because it's been viewed as maybe an attack

  • on cultural norms relating to rural communities and gun

  • ownership and the like.

  • But we've had, all of these groups have shown up including

  • the leaders of the Muslim community, the Hindu community,

  • et cetera.

  • And it was really a fascinating discussion, very enlightening, I

  • think there is a moral dimension to this, to state the obvious.

  • And then we met with sportsmen and rural groups which are

  • distinct from but not necessarily disagree with

  • the gun owner groups from the NRA and others but they have a

  • different perspective.

  • They include the Association of Fish and Wildlife, Blue Water

  • Strategies, the Outdoor Industry Association, et cetera.

  • Yesterday we met with the gun owners from, ranging groups from

  • the Defense of Small Arms Advisory Council headed by

  • a retired major general, to firearms and export roundtable

  • which that's their business, to independent firearms owners,

  • the NRA, et cetera.

  • And there is actually difference among them as well.

  • It's not a uniformed view.

  • And we also met with retailers because they're a part of this

  • potential solution in terms of background checks and the like.

  • All the box stores, the big five sporting goods operations and

  • who sell an awful lot of weapons.

  • And we met with your colleagues in Hollywood yesterday, the,

  • quote, entertainment industry, but you're entertainment as

  • well, but the entertainment industry as it relates to film

  • and broadcasting.

  • And we will be meeting with technology experts because to

  • overstate the case, there is a lot could change if,

  • for example, every gun purchased could only be fired by the

  • person who purchased it because it literally would be unable to

  • be fired.

  • That technology exists but it's extremely expensive.

  • But if that were available on every weapon sold, there is,

  • there is significant evidence that that would -- may very well

  • have curtailed what happened up in Connecticut because had the

  • young man not had access to his mother's arsenal, he may or may

  • not have been able to get a gun.

  • And then we're meeting with outfits involved in social

  • education and you and the video gaming industry.

  • And I come to this meeting with no judgment.

  • You all know the judgments other people have made.

  • And I think we had a very productive meeting yesterday

  • with the broadcast and film industry.

  • And they had some very constructive ideas as to

  • how they could help.

  • And so we're looking for help.

  • I understand two of you here are researchers in assessing the

  • impact, if any, on behavior, of certain behaviors and so we're

  • anxious to see if there is anything you can suggest to us

  • that you think would be -- would help, as this President has

  • said, diminish the possibility even if we only save one kid's

  • life as a consequence.

  • We have also spoken, by the way, at length with, you know, we

  • have a problem beyond, quote, the massacres, the Columbines,

  • through the Aurora's to Connecticut, you know,

  • there is ten thousand people a year gunned down in our cities.

  • Different motives, different reasons, different explanations.

  • But, you know, it's a real problem.

  • It's serious.

  • And one of the things that I know of no way to gather any

  • real empirical data on, and you all may, is I make an analogy to

  • when we first started dealing with the issue of crack cocaine,

  • Moynihan and I, back in the early '80s when it was coming --

  • from late '70s, early '80s from the Bahamas, actually, is when

  • it first hit.

  • And although I was senior, I was not equal to Daniel Patrick

  • Moynihan, who was a great mind.

  • And I'll never forget him standing up on the floor of the

  • Senate and holding up what was called then a photostatic copy

  • of a newspaper, front page of newspapers from I think it was

  • 1937 or '8 where one of the mafia bosses was gunned down

  • in a barber chair and riddled with blood and just about

  • decapitated with machine gun and it made the front page of every

  • paper in America.

  • Then he held up, if I'm not mistaken, a New York Times and

  • he referenced a story and it happened, if I'm not mistaken,

  • it was in the Bronx where an entire family, grandmother,

  • mother, father, three, four children, aunt, uncle were

  • murdered execution style in their apartment.

  • And it made page 57 of the New York Times.

  • And we refer to it as the defining deviancy down.

  • And there is no measure that I'm aware of to be able to determine

  • whether or not there is a coarsening of our culture in

  • a way that is not healthy.

  • I don't know the answer to that question.

  • But and I'm not sure what impact it would have or wouldn't have

  • on the kind of events we're looking at.