NBC’s Andrea Mitchell, on Thursday’s edition of MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell Reports, implored liberal New York Democratic Senator Chuck Schumer to push for more gun control. After noting that students from Sandy Hook Elementary School had finally returned to class after the tragic shooting, Mitchell pressed Schumer: “Is something meaningful going to happen on guns this year?”
An appreciative Schumer responded: “I hope so.”
The following is the relevant exchange from the January 3 edition of MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell Reports:
ANDREA MITCHELL: Senator, the children from Sandy Hook are going to school today for the first time, in another school, in classrooms that have been recreated to look like their own. I know that Carolyn McCarthy is going to introduce symbolic, largely symbolic legislation on the House side. The Senate side we're expecting Dianne Feinstein to introduce her legislation around the time of the Inaugural. Is something meaningful going to happen on guns this year?
SEN. CHARLES SCHUMER: Well I hope so and President [Obama] has appointed Joe Biden to be head of this commission and he believes something reasonable. You know, you can put reasonable limits on who gets guns without interfering with the legitimate Second Amendment rights that are enshrined in the Constitution. We on the liberal side of things have to accept that. But you can put reasonable limits on any amendment. The First Amendment. You can't scream fire falsely in a crowded theater. We have anti-pornography legislation. Those are limits on the First Amendment. Limits on the Second Amendment that prohibit criminals, the mentally infirm, spousal abusers from getting guns and tightening up those laws, as Senator, as Congresswoman McCarthy's legislation does and I carry that in the Senate, make reasonable sense. And I hope we can come together in the middle. Not an extreme legislation that will scare those who believe, who have guns, use guns, hunt for self-protection but at the same time will make our country safer. I think there's a possibility for real compromise here.
-- Geoffrey Dickens is the Deputy Research Director at the Media Research Center. Click here [1] to follow Geoffrey Dickens on Twitter.