Anderson Cooper's lone guest to talk guns on Thursday night was the
anti-gun New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg (I), echoing CNN's ridiculous disparity [1] of pro-gun control guests and gun rights advocates on its newscasts.
Cooper pitched him a fairly easy interview, first asking, "your
impressions of the President's proposals on gun control. Are you happy
with them?" He later teed up Bloomberg to bash the NRA. "What do you
think of the NRA, of how they have been fighting this?" he questioned.
Bloomberg
predictably scoffed at the NRA. "I don't think their strategy makes any
sense at all. The other day, to bring in the President's kids was just
bad PR. It was also an outrage, it really was. You don't do that."
Cooper even offered some strategic advice for gun control legislation:
"You know, there is a school of thought of why try to go for so much?
Why not go for something which, as you said, has more support, like more
stringent background checks rather than try to throw in assault weapons
as well?"
Cooper did offer two Republican "rebuttals" to Bloombeg's argument
later in the interview, quoting Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) that Obama's
proposals wouldn't have stopped the Sandy Hook shooting and citing Newt
Gingrich's claim that Chicago has a high gun murder rate despite having
strict gun control.
NewsBusters reported [1]
that on Monday, CNN hosted 13 gun control advocates for segments on the
gun issue, compared to just 2 Republican guests who either opposed gun
control or defended the gun lobby. Mayor Bloomberg is one of the leading
gun control advocates in the country, so it is telling that Cooper made
him the lone guest for Thursday's gun segment.
A transcript of the segment, which aired on Anderson Cooper 360 on January 18 at 8:30 p.m. EST, is as follows:
ANDERSON COOPER: First of all, your impressions of the President's proposals on gun control. Are you happy with them?
Mayor MICHAEL BLOOMBERG, New York: Yeah. You're never going to have
everything you want, but I thought it was reasonably comprehensive. It
outlined things that he could do by executive order and it outlined
things that he has now got to, with help from the Vice President, help
from lots of other people, convince Congress to do. There's two kinds of
problems and he addressed both of them.
COOPER: You said earlier today that there are some things that he's not
going to be able to get legislation on. He's not going to be able to
get through –
BLOOMBERG: Well, I think some things are tougher than others. I think
there's a general consensus in the country that background checks before
you buy a gun should apply to everyone. Right now, it applies only to
gun shows. To, I'm sorry, to gun dealers.
COOPER: Right, licensed dealers.
BLOOMBERB: Licensed dealers, but most people would be in favor, and I
think that's easier for Congress to get done. You have to explain it to
them, they have got to hear from their constituents. And I think they
will do that rather easily, compared to getting rid of assault weapons.
That is a tougher sell and that's what we've really got to work on. I'm
optimistic, but it's tougher.
COOPER: You know, there is a school of thought of why try to go for so
much? Why not go for something which, as you said, has more support,
like more stringent background checks rather than try to throw in
assault weapons as well?
BLOOMBERG: Look, there are lives involved here. And if you can stop --
if you can save one life, isn't that worth trying? And I always thought
that you should address issues when they're on the public's conscience,
when they're being covered by the press, and you should try to do a
complete job so you don't have to come back again and again and again
for the same thing.
COOPER: Marco Rubio yesterday was quoted as saying, nothing that the
President is proposing would have stopped the massacre at Sandy Hook. Do
you agree?
BLOOMBERG: That's probably true. A woman had guns, it wasn't her son
that – I don't know if she went through a background check, but her son
certainly didn't. He took his mother's guns and killed people. But that
doesn't mean that having fewer guns around isn't a better idea. It's
like, you know, there are people who run through traffic lights, they
just run a red light. Does that mean we should get rid of all traffic
lights? No, in macro sense, these laws do work. And there's an awful lot
of evidence that if you have fewer guns, things are better. In New
York, New York State has very good or strong gun laws, so we have fewer
guns on the streets. Our murder rate is one of the lowest murder rates
of any big city.
COOPER: You look at -- Newt Gingrich brought this up on the show the
other day. You look at a city like Chicago which has very tough gun
legislation, yet also has a very high murder rate.
BLOOMBERG: Yeah, New York has tough gun legislation and a low murder
rate. It's not a panacea for everything. You still have to have a very
good police department, have it well-funded, have it well-led, have it
diversified, deploy it where the problems are. You have to be very
aggressive with the kids who are most likely to carry guns to make sure
they think they're going to be stopped and if they have a gun on them,
they're going to get arrested. That keeps them from carrying guns.
Because otherwise it's a macho thing. There's no one solution this.
This is, however, a very important step. Fewer guns means fewer murders,
fewer guns means fewer suicides. Fewer guns means you and your children
are safer.
COOPER: What do you think of the NRA, of how they have been fighting this? Just recently since the Newtown –
BLOOMBERG: I don't think their strategy makes any sense at all. The
other day, to bring in the President's kids was just bad PR. It was also
an outrage, it really was. You don't do that. They made a big deal
back, the day, or a few days after the Connecticut shooting, that the
cause of all this wasn't guns, It was the video games that are so
violent. And one month later, they came up with their own video game,
which was violent. I mean, you know, you're shooting at the shape of a
coffin, for goodness sakes. What are we trying to teach our kids? The
original thing that happened would have been right on that.
These games, I think, are teaching your kids, you know, you hit a
button. You can blow somebody away. And you hit the reset button, they
come back. That's not the real world. I know a lot of parents who don't
let their kids play these games, but to have the NRA criticize, blame it
on them and then do their own is just ridiculous.
COOPER: They say more security in schools, security in every school. Is that something –
BLOOMBERG: You really want your kids to go to school in an armed camp,
number one? Number two, more guns means more murders. How do you know
the person in the school isn't mentally deranged? How do you know some
kid doesn't get the gun in the school? Bringing guns into schools where
there's a bunch of kids is not a smart thing to do. I have said to our
police officers, everyone I talk to all the time, don't take your guns
home at night.
COOPER: What do you make of – the problem isn't just Republicans in
Congress who are opposed to this. There are a lot of Democrats who are
opposed to this –
BLOOMBERG: This is not a Republican or Democratic issue. You go back in
the first two years of the Obama administration. The Democrats had the
White House, the Senate and Congress, and they did nothing. And I've
blamed both of them, and I went during the presidential campaign, I
pointed out that Mitt Romney had championed a assault weapon ban in
Massachusetts when he was governor, signed the bill, got it passed and
signed it.
President Obama, when he was running four years ago, he championed an
assault weapon ban, said he'd put it in if he got – try to get in if he
got elected, and neither did anything. I criticized both of them. This
is not a partisan thing. Somehow or other, Connecticut children, you
know, suburban, nice, Norman Rockwell kind of image in your mind.
Somehow or other, that's touched the American public's heart.
-- Matt Hadro is a News Analyst at the Media Research Center