You're watching...
Former Judiciary Committee Counsel to Sen. Dianne Feinstein Adam Eisgrau on America’s response to the gun-control debate.
Also in this playlist...
Auto-advance: ON
Auto-advance
This transcript is automatically generated
Adam -- -- -- he's former -- committee counsel to senator Dianne Feinstein he helped write the 1994.
Assault weapons ban.
So welcome to the program good to have you in the debate today thank you.
But -- -- -- would you tell me that if we renew the assault weapons ban.
Even make it more drastic a real ban on assault weapons going forward do you think that that would stop future mass killings.
By itself.
No Americans are.
And I'm one of them are in love with quick fixes where in love with -- ones and dare I say we're in love with silver bullets no single public policy proposal is going to get acts the problem to the degree that in the wake of sandy hook we have to.
And that's why I think the president is right to call for comprehensive proposals.
And to have everything on the table you think that an assault weapons ban was simply stop pointing us in the right direction the direction that America should go is it is saying that right.
I I think it's a key component of a comprehensive set of what we hope will be solutions to a very complicated problems.
Now the next question if you do ban assault weapons in the future.
That doesn't do anything about the assault weapons Colin what you will which -- in circulation right now on the must be millions all of them.
You cannot go out that and take those guns -- people -- Well I mean theoretically you can but let me be very clear that certainly not something that I would propose -- completely.
Inconsistent with what I wrote recently in the newspaper to the effect that we have to.
Have the participation.
Of gun owners in this debate however.
When you look at the experience of the 1994 assault weapons and even the research that could be done given the restraints on research the president and vice president are trying to left.
You find -- very interesting data to be effective these guns then get harder to find much more expensive or used west.
In the kinds of crimes and particularly in in crimes that police face every day bank robberies etc.
I just -- -- There -- some perspective require -- I am told that's last year yeah.
Only three and a half percent of the mode is committed in America was a rifle used more people died -- -- -- how much.
As an offensive weapon more people were beaten to get to death with fists that was rifles.
Maybe we should get some perspective into the whole long gone debate did you think.
Well -- I think perspective and any -- -- a very valuable -- -- but let me let me put it this way when the assault weapons ban was first written and has new ones are proposed.
We're gonna hear exactly some of the same criticisms we've heard the first time around.
When we talk about what exactly is an assault weapon what features if you will.
Comprise those weapons and the criticism is -- kind of -- cannot Republican gonna break him for a second because that's a key question.
How do you define what is an assault weapon I mean can you define it clearly for me now.
Well I can tell you the way the law did it and is likely to do we're going forward and that is a semiautomatic weapon.
That's capable of accepting -- has integrated into it a detachable magazine.
Or potentially -- fixed high capacity magazine.
That also contains about one or more of certain kinds of features like a forward.
Hand grip for example and that was what I was alluding to on the one hand you can say that's merely a cosmetic on the other hand it's very hard to spray fire -- gotten.
The way many of the shooters in these horrific school incidents do without something like that and so this needs to be studied and it needs to be looked at carefully without the rhetoric getting in the way.
Right from the get go I'd say I think the public opinion is probably on your side and I think that the president will win this one because the public.
I think public opinion has been changed by the sandy -- shootings.
Because my last question.
-- -- seems to me very likely.
That the -- would use an executive order to get around congress and satisfy the public demand to do something and do something now.
The legislative process would take a very long time -- suspect.
And that will be an impetus for the president to -- -- get around congress and do it fast with an executive order would you approve of that.
Well I defer to the real constitutional scholars on that I would simply say it's not necessary be good original assault weapons ban passed in November of 93.
It passed the house in May of 1994.
And it was signed into law as part of the crime bill and August of 94 we can certainly take that amount of time to have a thorough public policy process.
There was a recording made it up the 911 calls -- sandy hook and one of the people on the -- in the first responders eventually said call for everything.
We don't want to be in those circumstances again.
And that's what we need to do now in the policy process at a much drought we we're really wanted to have a good debate on this issue and I'm sure we will in the future -- you contributed to it -- and we appreciated thank you very much so.
-- -- -- --
