CNN's Soledad O'Brien interrupted, bullied, and dismissed guest John Lott on Monday's Starting Point when Lott argued in favor of fewer gun laws. "[Y]our position completely boggles me, honestly. I just do not understand it," the liberal journalist lectured Lott after he cited statistics supporting his position.
O'Brien sidestepped his facts and condescended to his position from the
beginning. "How does that possibly make sense to you?" was her first
question to him. She claimed the "rational" conclusion is a ban on
high-powered assault weapons.
[Video below. Audio here [1].]
Perhaps the kicker was after Lott opined that areas with strict gun laws are a "magnet" for shootings. O'Brien derided him, retorting that "or a rational person could say that having access to a high-powered semiautomatic rifle is inappropriate. That there's no reason to go deer hunting with that, there's no reason to have access to that. And that is the connection that these killers have access to those weapons."
"So how you can say that people should have fewer laws, and not more, I think is – it just boggles the mind, honestly, and if you were to come here and talk to the people in this town, they'd be stunned by you," O'Brien cast Lott's position on the fringe.
"Why is your takeaway from all of this to get rid of gun laws, and your takeaway is not to say there are people who should not have access to certain types of weapons?" O'Brien tried to steer the argument toward laws concerning gun access.
"And if you have a man who seems to be troubled, and he is armed with a semi-automatic weapon, a rifle, then there is a high likelihood that is he going to massacre a lot of people in one location, sir, in a very small amount of time," she concluded, never directly refuting Lott's argument that criminals purposefully choose places with heavier gun restrictions.
"We only have very tiny areas in the United States which are these completely gun-free zones, and yet time after time, that's the place these criminals go," Lott had argued.
A transcript of the exchange, which aired on December 17 on Starting Point at 7:30 a.m. EST, is as follows:
[7:30]
SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: We want to
turn now to John Lott, he's the author of a book that's called "More
Guns, Less Crime." And that kind of is his theory in a nutshell. If
people had more guns, then there'd be more opportunities for
self-defense, and not only is he against new gun laws, he'd like to see
many of the gun laws that are currently on the books taken out of the
books all together. It's nice to have you talking with us. We
appreciate it. On Friday, you were talking to Piers and then again with
Wolf yesterday, and you said it's time to get rid of gun laws, like the
takeaway for you from this massacre at an elementary school is it's
time to get rid of gun laws. How does that possibly make sense to you?
JOHN LOTT: Well, because of my research, I've talked to dozens of
people who have been present at these horrible events over time, and
the feeling of utter helplessness is just overwhelming for these
individuals. It's hard to think of something more terrifying than being
helpless there when one of these attacks occur. Look there's one common
feature across these attacks. The ones the President mentioned, you go
back from 1950 at least on, with only one exception, all the multiple
victim public shootings have occurred where more than three people have
been killed, have occurred where guns are banned. We try to make an
area safe by banning guns, but what happens is, it's the law-abiding
good citizens who obey the ban and not the criminals, and rather than
making –
O'BRIEN: But there's more than one thing in common, right? Well there's
more than one more thing in common. One thing is common is that
somebody has weapons too, and they go into a place where they should
not be with a weapon. So I would say it's not just one thing in common.
They are also armed often to the hilt and often with automatic weapons
or semiautomatic weapons. Right?
LOTT: Never with automatic weapons, but with semiautomatic weapons,
sure. They have those. But here is the point. We only have very tiny
areas in the United States which are these completely gun-free zones,
and yet time after time, that's the place these criminals go. Take the
Aurora, Colorado, movie theater shootings. There were seven movie
theaters within a 20-minute car ride of the killer's apartment. There's
only one that banned guns. He didn't go to the movie theater that was
closest to his home. He didn't go to the movie theater that was
largest. The movie theater that he went to was the only one that banned
guns, and you see that –
O'BRIEN: Let me stop you there. Let me stop you there. And here, again,
a case where someone had a semi automatic rifle, how do you know that
he chose that because they banned guns? Have you talked to him? I have
not seen anywhere in any transcript of anything he has said that he
picked it specifically for that. He has not spoken to the media. How do
you know that? You don't know that.
LOTT: Okay. There are two points. One is, I don't know in this
particular case. But he picks one out of seven. It's the only one
there, and the point is, every time. You go look at these mall
shootings, most of the malls in the area aren't posted as gun-free
zones, and yet the only ones they always pick are the ones that are
banned. Pick the Columbine case. You probably don't know – let me give
you one piece of information here. Take the Columbine case. Do you know
that Dylan Klebold, for example, was lobbying against the concealed
handgun bill when it was before the state legislature? He was writing
his state legislators, he was strongly against it, he was particularly
upset about the part of the law that would allow concealed handguns on
school property, and do you know the day the Columbine attack occurred?
It occurred on the day of final passage of the state concealed handgun
law. At Columbine, how many times do you talk about that?
O'BRIEN: Why is your takeaway from all of this to get rid of gun laws,
and your takeaway is not to say there are people who should not have
access to certain types of weapons? In this particular case, we now
know the investigation is just at the beginning stages we know, but we
know that he used a semi-automatic rifle to blow out essentially the
glass wall at the entrance to the school. So the security was useless.
Why? Because he had a high-velocity, multishot with many rounds with
him to be able to access the school. So why would you not say, that's
exactly the kind of weapon that someone should not be able to easily
get their hands on? And he was able easily to get his hands on it
because it was legally registered to his mother. Why is that not your
takeaway?
LOTT: You know what country had two of the three worst public shootings
prior to Friday? It was Germany. Germany had three of the five worst
public school shootings in the world. Now, they have extremely strict
gun control laws. You can't get semi-automatic weapons. It takes a year
to get a bolt action long rifle there. And yet they've a worse record
in terms of multiple-victim shootings at schools than we've had here in
the United States, even with this attack. And so I –
O'BRIEN: I don't see how any of that brings you to the decision that
the answer is to get rid of gun laws. The other question that I would
ask you, and often people will say –
LOTT: Because they serve as a magnet for these attacks. Because these criminals –
O'BRIEN: Or – or – or a rational person could say – or a rational
person could say that having access to a high-powered semiautomatic
rifle is inappropriate. That there's no reason to go deer hunting with
that, there's no reason to have access to that. And that is the
connection that these killers have access to those weapons. Let me ask
you another question. Let's go back to the Second Amendment, because –
(Crosstalk)
LOTT: Now I'm not a Second Amendment. I don't argue Second Amendment. I
argue crime. That's what I do. Now I just want to answer your question
here. These guns are just like any hunting rifle. The inside guts, they
fire one bullet. In fact, the bushmaster gun there is – would be
equivalent of a rifle that would be used for hunting very small game,
like squirrels. It's not – it looks different on the outside, because
some people like to have guns that look like military weapons, but it's
not. It's like any hunting rifle. If you want to ban all hunting
rifles, that's fine.
O'BRIEN: Sir, sir – if you are trying to kill a large number of people
in a massacre, that kind of gun is what you grab. If you are trying –
(Crosstalk)
O'BRIEN: – that you possibly could inflict on people, it is that kind
of semi-automatic rifle that you grab. So how you can say that people
should have fewer laws, and not more, I think is – it just boggles the
mind, honestly, and if you were to come here and talk to the people in
this town, they'd be stunned by you.
LOTT: I have talked to, unfortunately, lots of people at many multiple
victim public shootings, as I started off. Semi-automatic guns are the
most common guns in the United States. They're beneficial for
self-defense. If you had two criminals coming at you, you're not going
to want to have a gun that only fires one shot like that. What are you
going to do? What are you going to do? You can't fire even a warning
shot. If you miss the first shot and you don't have a semi-automatic
gun, what are you going to do for self-defense at that point?
(Crosstalk)
O'BRIEN: And if you have a man who seems to be troubled, and he is
armed with a semi-automatic weapon, a rifle, then there is a high
likelihood that is he going to massacre a lot of people in one
location, sir, in a very small amount of time. We could continue this
debate for a long time, I appreciate you talking with me this morning,
but I just – I have to say, your position -- your position completely
boggles me, honestly. I just do not understand it.
-- Matt Hadro is a News Analyst at the Media Research Center