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4:40 p.m.:
LAS VEGAS –The day after the anniversary of a mass shooting that killed 58 concertgoers on the Strip that became the deadliest in modern U.S. history, Gabrielle “Gabby” Giffords made a rare appearance to deliver a message about a national nightmare that’s become a central theme in this country’s storyline: Gun violence.
“Now is the time to come together to be responsible. Democrats, Republicans, independent– we must never stop fighting,” Giffords said. “Fight, fight, fight!”
For the former Arizona congresswoman who survived an assassination attempt that left her with a traumatic brain injury that makes it difficult to speak, this moment in Southern Nevada was a significant one.
It was an opportunity to set the tone before nine leading Democrats running for president pitched their plans to deal with the gun problem.
“Stopping gun violence takes courage,” she said. “Be bold, be courageous. The nation is counting on you.”
The forum, live-streamed on MSNBC.com, focused on gun policy at a time when impeachment speculation has taken over the political conversation.
A majority of Americans favor stricter gun laws, according to polls. But negotiations between President Donald Trump’s administration and lawmakers over background checks – an effort that faced long odds even before the impeachment inquiry – have stalled in recent weeks.
The gun forum in Las Vegas began with a tearful note from Nevada Gov. Steve Sisolak.
“I saw the bodies, I saw the blood,” said Sisolak who recalled the “eerie silence” of the festival grounds after the shooting spurred the crowd of 22,000 to flee for safety. “I’ll never forget the sound of those cell phones ringing – many of which were never answered.”
Given the unprecedented surge of violence that’s swept across the country in recent years, Sisolak said, tightening gun laws and regulations is an obligation.
Craig Melvin, “MSNBC Live” anchor, moderated the event and pressed candidates, one at a time, to describe their gun agendas.
The pitched policies – universal background checks, an assault weapon ban and a federal buyback program – threaded together as a unified front for gun law reform.
U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass.,described the “gun violence problem” as a dilemma with two dimensions: mass shootings, and what happens every day in underserved communities.
There should be a federal limit on the number of guns someone can buy, Warren said, to keep people from “bulking up in the middle of a crisis.”
Former Vice President Joe Biden focused partly on his top priority: Getting Trump out of the White House.
“Nothing is going to change until we get this guy out of office,” Biden said.
He referenced a plan to direct $900 million in federal money over eight years into anti-gun violence programs in some of the nation’s cities hardest hit by gun violence.
Andrew Yang – the tech entrepreneur and attorney best known for his plan to give every American a $1,000 monthly “freedom dividend” – described a “tiered licensing” program to curb gun violence.
“You have levels based on the destructive capacity of those firearms,” Yang said. “It’s analogous to what we do for motor vehicles.”
U.S. Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., said this crisis moment of proliferated gun attacks is no time for an “impotence of empathy."
The former mayor of Newark, New Jersey, pushed the concept of a federal gun licensing program.
“It is a life or death policy for people of communities like mine,” Booker said.
U.S. Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., addressed what’s happening in Washington, contending Trump as “been without courage.”
“He has not demonstrated any leadership or conviction,” Harris said. “The president has to stand up to the [National Rifle Association] and say enough is enough.”
Harris said she supports a mandatory federal buyback program, an assault weapon ban and funneling millions into redline communities that lack resources and fall victim to gun violence.
Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders had been scheduled to appear, but he has canceled appearancesafter undergoing a heart procedure. He experienced chest discomfort during a rally in Las Vegas on Tuesday night.
Contributing: USA TODAY, The Associated Press
3:45 p.m.
U.S. Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., addressed what’s happening in Washington, contending Trump as “been without courage.”
“He has not demonstrated any leadership or conviction,” Harris said. “The president has to stand up to the [National Rifle Association] and say enough is enough.”
Harris said she supports a mandatory federal buyback program, an assault weapon ban and funneling millions into redline communities that lack resources and fall victim to gun violence.
3:15 p.m.
Andrew Yang – the tech entrepreneur and attorney best known for his plan to give every American a $1,000 monthly “freedom dividend” – described a “tiered licensing” program to curb gun violence.
“You have levels based on the destructive capacity of those firearms,” Yang said. “It’s analogous to what we do for motor vehicles.”
Yang talked of a correlation between economic disparity and gun violence, contending a $1,000 check to every family every month would relive pressures that contribute to a domino-effect that sometimes ends with shooting.
“This is clearly a public health epidemic,” Yang said.
2:21 p.m.
Amy Klobuchar, a three-term U.S. senator from Minnesota, contends leaders in Washington are “being a bunch of wimps” when it comes to addressing gun violence as “domestic terrorism.”
If elected, she said, her first 100 days would focus on enacting policies like an assault weapon ban, ammunition limits and universal background checks to close loopholes that allow violent people with nefarious intentions to obtain weapons.
She also plans to address the"boyfriend loophole"– where stalkers and domestic abusers can typically buy and own guns if they aren't married to their accusers.
“We’re going change the tone,” she said.
1:30 p.m.
Former Texas congressman Beto O’Rourke continued his pitch for a mandatory government buyback program for AK-47 and AR-15 rifles.
There is no place in this country for weapons designed kill in a quick, efficient an effective manner, he said and pointed to a recent visit to Dayton, where a mass shooter killed 10 and wounded 17 others.
“In under 40 seconds,” O’Rourke said, “10 people were killed by one of these weapons of war.”
O’Rourke in recent monthsretuned his campaign to focus on gun control, vowing to ban assault weapons after a gunman targeting Hispanics killed 22 people in his hometown of El Paso.
1:10 p.m.
Asked about allegations that Donald Trump pressured Ukraine to dig up dirt on him, former Vice President Joe Biden the president’s actions were “beyond anything I quite frankly thought he would do.”
“He’s the issue,” he said.
Biden said there is no possibility gun violence will not be addressed as long as Trump is president.
“Nothing is going to change until we get this guy out of office,” Biden said.
Biden said he’s confident lawmakers can pass an assault weapons ban and referenced a plan to spend $900 million in federal money over eight years into anti-gun violence programs in some of the nation’s cities hardest hit by gun violence, according to twosenior campaign officials.
In emphasizing the scourge of urban violence in his gun policy, Biden is trying to underscore to voters in inner city communities that he recognizes the impact violence is having on communities that endurehundreds of gun-related killings per year without getting the same sort of media or political attention as mass shootings.
11:30 a.m.
U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass.,described the “gun violence problem” as a dilemma with two main dimensions: mass shooting, and what happens every day “on our sidewalks and in our playgrounds.”
Warren said there should be a federal limit on the number of guns someone can buy to keep people from “bulking up in the middle of a crisis and serves as a flag.”
Stephen Paddock, the man whose Las Vegas shooting rampage killed 58people and left more than 500 injured, bought 33 guns in the year before the attack. Some of his gun purchases dated back more than 20 years. Most of those weapons were rifles.
Under federal law, gun stores are required to report multiple handgun purchases to theBureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives but notmultiple rifle purchases.
The lack of notification for multiple rifle purchasescreates a loophole where people can stockpile assault weapons, similar in design to those used by the military and police SWAT teams, with little federal detection.
“A hundred people are likely to die today from gun violence,” Warren said.
If a hundred people were to die today from a mysterious virus, she added, “we’d be all over this.”
“But because it’s guns,” Warren said, “because it’s so twisted into the political corruption, people don’t want to ask that question.”
11:16 a.m.
U.S. Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., said this is no time for an “impotence of empathy."
The former mayor of Newark, New Jersey, pushed the concept of a federal gun licensing program.
“It is a life or death policy for people of communities like mine,” Booker said. “We can find a federal standard to end this patchwork.”
In some communities, Booker said, weapons of war in the streets make neighborhoods feel like war zones.
In America, the senator said, there are more active shooter drills than fire drills.
“Enough is enough,” he said. “We will change laws under my leadership.”
10:44 a.m.
Bullets should be expensive, and every piece of ammunition should be tracked, saidJulian Castro, the ex-mayor of San Antonio and HUD secretary under former President Barack Obama
Moderator and “MSNBC Live” anchor asked Castro how he plans to navigate the gun violence problem in the conservative fields of Texas
“It’s going blue in 2020,” Castro said, and the audience applauded.
In Texas, Castro said, people are changing their mind about guns – especially after the shootings in El Paso and Odessa – and now support concepts like universal background checks and an assault weapons ban.
The number of guns in Texas did not prevent the El Paso shooting that killed 22 and injured 24.
“That shooter knew he was walking into a place where a lot of people were carrying,” he said. “That didn’t make a difference.”
Running tandem to the conversation about mass shooting prevention is a conversation about law enforcement reform.
“Police violence is gun violence,” Castro said. “Too often times, poor communities of colorbear the brunt of excessive force… I want to end that.”
10:20 a.m.
Pete Buttigieg, South Bend, Indiana mayor and surprise Democratic presidential favorite, was the first of the presidential candidates to take the stage.
To start, the mayor characterized “white nationalism” as a threat to national security. “Not all terrorist threats come from abroad,” Buttigieg said.
Early on, he leaned on the tightening of regulations at the king pin of the gun violence problem in America. No one with a hate crime on his or her criminal record should be allowed to get a weapon, Buttigieg said.
He pointed to the “generational alliance” now standing in formation against a system that’s allowed guns to fall into the wrong hands.
In the '60s, he said, protesters rebelled against their parents.
“What you see now,” Buttigieg said, “their parents and grandparents are cheering them on.”
What’s at stake, he said, are human lives.
9:55 a.m.
Gabrielle “Gabby” Giffords, a former congresswoman from Tuscon, Arizona, who survived an assassination attempt in her district 2011 and was left with a traumatic brain injury that makes it difficult for her to speak, took the stage to a standing ovation.
In a short speech, Giffords encouraged a sustained battle against gun violence.
“Stopping gun violence takes courage,” she said. “The courage to do what’s right, the courage of new ideas… Now is the time to come together, to be responsible – Democrats, Republicans, independent[s], we must never stop fighting. Fight, fight, fight!”
The crowd erupted in applause.
“Be bold, be courageous,” Giffords said. “The nation is counting on you.”
9:41 a.m.
Nev. Gov. Steve Sisolak asked the crowd to stand in silence for the victims of the Las Vegas shooting.
“I saw the bodies, I saw the blood,” Sisolak said, recalling the “eerie silence” of the festival grounds after the shooting spurred the crowd to flee for safety. “I’ll never forget the sound of those cell phones ringing – many of which were never answered.”
Sisolak said it’s “our obligation” to tighten gun laws and regulations to keep citizens safe.
“No one policy is going to stop all gun deaths,” Sisolak said.
But the key word, he said, is “try.”
9:37 a.m.
Sandra Nevada Assemblywoman Sandra Jauregui took the stage.
The Democratic lawmaker and her then-husband fled as gunfire rained down at the Route 91 Harvest Festival, where 58 people died in the deadliest shooting in modern U.S. history. Neither was wounded, but it’s an event Jauregui said she remembers “vividly.”
“Hitting the ground,” she said, :and having my husband crawl on top to shield me from the raining bullets."
Jauregui pointed to several gun control measures Nevada lawmakers enacted in the two years since the tragic shooting on the Strip – including a measure that ended a two-year court battle over a voter-approved initiative to expand gun buyer background checks.
“We’re not done,” Jauregui said. “I will not stop fighting here in Nevada.”
Original story:
Nine of the top Democratic presidential contenders are in Las Vegas on Wednesdayfor the 2020 Presidential Gun Safety Forum, which is being held one day after the second anniversary of the mass shooting at the Route 91 Harvest Festival on Oct. 1, 2017. The event is co-hosted by Giffords: Courage to Fight Gun Violence, March for Our Lives and MSNBC.
Candidates expected to appear include:
- Pete Buttigieg, mayor ofSouth Bend, Indiana
- Julian Castro, former secretary of Housing and Urban Development
- Cory Booker, U.S. senator from New Jersey
- Elizabeth Warren, U.S. senator from Massachusetts
- Joe Biden, former U.S. vice president
- Beto O'Rourke, former U.S. representative from Texas
- Amy Klobuchar, U.S. senator from Minnesota
- Andrew Yang, entrepreneur
- Kamala Harris, U.S. senator from California
Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders had been scheduled to appear, but he has canceled appearances after undergoing a heart procedure. He experienced chest discomfort during a rally in Las Vegas on Tuesday night.
“Sen. Sanders experienced some chest discomfort. Following medical evaluation and testing he was found to have a blockage in one artery and two stents were successfully inserted. Sen. Sanders is conversing and in good spirits,” senior campaign adviser Jeff Weaver said. "He will be resting up over the next few days. We are canceling his events and appearances until further notice, and we will continue to provide appropriate updates.”
The program will begin with a speech fromformer U.S. Rep. Gabby Giffords, who was injured in a mass shooting in Tucson, Arizona in 2011. Others scheduled to be in attendance include:
- Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Connecticut)
- Nevada Gov. Steve Sisolak
- Nevada Attorney General Aaron Ford
- U.S. Rep. Dina Titus (D-Nevada)
- Nevada Assemblywoman Sandra Jauregui, survivor of the Route 91 mass shooting
- Nevada Senate Majority Leader Nicole Cannizzaro
