MELISSA-HARRIS-PERRY
December 15, 2012
Guest: Jeffrey Gardere, Gregory Thomas, Michael Eric Dyson, Colin Goddard, John Edwards
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Just after 9:30 this morning, the Newtown police
received a 911 call for an emergency at the elementary school. There were
several fatalities at the scene, both students and staff.
BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Our hearts are broken today
for the parents and grandparents, sisters and brothers of these little
children, and for the families of the adults who were lost.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There were 18 children who were pronounced dead at the
scene. There were two children who were transported to area hospital and
pronounced dead at the hospital. There were six adults that were
pronounced dead at the scene.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Evil visited this community today. This is a terrible
time for this community and for these families.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MELISSA HARRIS-PERRY, HOST: Good morning. I`m Melissa Harris-Perry. We
are awaiting a press conference on the latest on the school shooting in
Newtown, Connecticut. Today, we are focused entirely on Newtown.
Approximately an hour and a half outside of New York City, Newtown,
Connecticut, is a small commuter town located in Fairfield County. It is a
predominantly white and middle-class community, with a population of nearly
27,000 people. Newtown has seven schools and several churches and
synagogues, and it`s a town like many others across the country, with a
Rotary Club and a basketball league. But yesterday, as many of you know by
now, Newtown became the latest community to be afflicted in what is
becoming a disturbing pattern of mass gun violence.
A heavily armed gunman opened fire on schoolchildren and staff at Sandy
Hook elementary school, killing at the latest count 20 children and 6
adults.
The president addressed the nation yesterday in response to the tragedy.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
OBAMA: As a country, we have been through this too many times, whether it
is an elementary school in Newtown or a shopping mall in Oregon or a temple
in Wisconsin or a movie theater in Aurora or a street corner in Chicago.
These neighborhoods are our neighborhoods, and these children are our
children.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HARRIS-PERRY: Newtown authorities continued to update throughout the day
and into the night.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We will leave no stone unturned as we are looking at
every facet of this investigation, whether it is the shooter, any of the
victims. We are going to look at everything, and we certainly will go in
and out of state, and we`ll work with fellow law enforcement, including
federal agencies if we need to, to answer every single question to exactly
what transpired here.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HARRIS-PERRY: This is a continuing and developing story, and for the very
latest, let`s go now to MSNBC`s Chris Jansing in Newtown, Connecticut.
Hi, Chris.
CHRIS JANSING, MSNBC CORRESPONDENT: Hello, Melissa. Well, we were
expecting this news conference to start two hours ago. The delay, though,
perhaps not surprising.
I spoke this morning a little after 7:00 to Lieutenant Vance. He is the
lead spokesman for the state police here, and they are the lead
investigators on the scene. As you can imagine, with the number of
fatalities here, the number of victims, an extraordinarily complicated
investigation is under way.
First, you have the scene at the home of the mother of the shooter, that is
one crime scene. And then of course a massive scene at the school.
Although it did take place in one area of the school, it was in two
different rooms, and through the night, we know the coroner`s team was on
the scene.
Late last night, we also saw a parade of vehicles leaving there, including
four cars that had priests in it, members of the religious community, who
have come together to try to help these grieving families.
All of the families of the victims have been notified. What we are
expecting here this morning is to get a list of those victims. Of course,
many of them already known to the community, because in this close-knit
town, people know each other, and people have spoken among themselves, and
many of them, of course, were in that school or know people who were in
that school.
The second part of that is exactly how this all unfolded. We have learned
some things over the last several hours about the timeline, where the
shooter went first. Of course, to the home where he apparently shared with
his mother, and then to the school.
We learned this morning that he shot his way in. There were some reports
that he had been buzzed in. The school does have a security system, but
the local police spokesperson confirming that he used a gun apparently to
enter that school, and then went on that terrible rampage.
There was a huge service here last night at the Catholic church. When I
talked to the monsignor this morning, he told me that they were talking
about some sort of interfaith service, but the grief is so huge, and so
many people want a way to express it, they did not think that they would
have a facility that is large enough. And it has been so cold here that
they did not want to hold it outside.
I did see a sign coming in this morning at the local Episcopal church, that
they are going to have a service at noon today, and the individual stories
that you can imagine are absolutely heartbreaking about the people in the
room who had to tell the parents that their children were among those who
were not coming home. The monsignor told me that he expects to hold six
funerals this week, and one of the little girls who was killed was going to
be an angel on Christmas Eve. Melissa.
HARRIS-PERRY: Chris Jansing, in Newtown, thank you so much. I know this
is a tough piece of reporting, and you have been there on the ground for us
since the beginning. Thank you for that.
JANSING: Thank you.
HARRIS-PERRY: Let`s go now to NBC`s Pete Williams. Good morning, Pete.
PETE WILLIAMS, NBC CORRESPONDENT: Good morning to you, Melissa. There is
still a great deal that we don`t know. The why, the precise movements that
caused all of this to begin, but we do know that the horrifying day started
about three miles from the Sandy Hook school, at the house where the
gunman, who`s been identified as 20-year-old Adam Lanza lived with his
mother, Nancy.
Now, whether she had a connection with the school is still unclear. The
school superintendent said this morning that she was never on the staff
list, but others have said she may have been a substitute teacher there,
and some government officials have said that she was either a worker or a
volunteer at the school.
In any event, authorities believe that he shot his mother at the house,
then drove her car to Sandy Hook elementary. They say he was dressed all
in black. Some say he wore a mask and was heavily armed. He was carrying
at least three guns, two handguns and a rifle, and those weapons, they say,
were legally purchased by his mother.
Once inside, they say he fired dozens of rounds and killed the children at
close range.
At first, there was widespread confusion about his identity. Officials say
that`s because Adam Lanza was carrying an identification card belonging to
his 24-year-old brother Ryan, who lives about 80 miles away in Hoboken, New
Jersey. Authorities questioned him for several hours last night, but they
say they believe that Adam Lanza acted entirely on his own.
They say that Ryan, after hours of questioning, told them that Adam Lanza
has a history of mental health issues, and that the two have not spoken in
a couple of years.
So police and federal agents are questioning the gunman`s father, as well
as his friends and relatives. They are searching his recent writings, if
any, on social media, though he appears not to have been much of a social
media user. They are looking for any clues that might shed light on what
led to such an unthinkable mass shooting.
But friends who knew Adam Lanza say that he was very quiet, intelligent,
but not at all social. Even so, they say there was nothing about him that
would suggest the potential for such an extremely violent act. So the big
question remains, was there a triggering event here, something that caused
him to single out this school? And if so, what was that? And we are still
waiting for the answers on that.
HARRIS-PERRY: Pete, let me ask you one question. I was on air yesterday
when all of this news was just beginning to break, and at various points we
were hearing about crime scenes in New Jersey and in Connecticut. Are we
very confident now that the number of fatalities is not going to rise, at
least in the sense that there aren`t any additional secondary crime scenes?
WILLIAMS: We have heard nothing to indicate that there are additional
victims beyond those at the school and the mother at her home. But you are
right, there was a lot of confusion yesterday. Because of the horrific
nature of this crime, it was overwhelming for police and federal agencies
who were responding to it. They were trying to chase a lot of leads at the
same time, and there have been a lot of rumors about other potential
victims, but so far, we have heard nothing to indicate that there were more
than those. And in fact, the state police have said several times that
that is the total number that they are aware of.
HARRIS-PERRY: Thank you, Pete, I greatly appreciate your reporting.
We want to go now to NBC`s national investigative correspondent Michael
Isikoff, who is on the ground there in Connecticut, where we are still
awaiting a press conference from local authorities. Michael, what are you
hearing?
MICHAEL ISIKOFF, NBC NATIONAL INVESTIGATIVE CORRESPONDENT: Well, as you
say, Melissa, we are waiting for this press conference and hope to learn a
lot more. One of the striking things, though, in a story like this is so
much of what gets reported originally then has to be amended and turns out
to be wrong. I mean, it started right from the beginning yesterday, when
there was confusion about between Adam Lanza, the shooter, and his brother,
initial reports being it was his brother who was the shooter. That was
wrong. There was reports yesterday that he buzzed his way into the school
under the school security system, and as Chris just mentioned, I spoke this
morning with Lieutenant Sinko of the Newtown police, who says that is not
the case. They now believe that he shot his way into the school. There
was shattered glass by the window adjacent to the door.
One other, and there is still a lot we don`t know about the suspect Adam
Lanza, but we did talk this morning with a friend of his mother`s who told
us some very interesting things. First of all that she was very disturbed
about her son, knew he was unstable, was protective of him and worried
about his mental health. We`ve heard that he had mental health issues.
There has not been a lot of specificity of it. But we are learning at
least from the friend of the mother that his mother was very concerned
about this. Another part of this, though, that is -- that we have learned
is, you know, she was the owner of those guns, and the friend tells her
that she was an avid gun collector, that she went to local shooting ranges
and took her sons to those shooting ranges. She enjoyed shooting. It was
a passion of hers. Now, what we should make of that, is hard to say, but
we do know, those were the guns - that`s where the guns came from that were
used to shoot these children, and it was from the mother, who, of course,
Adam Lanza, had shot first before he went to the school.
HARRIS-PERRY: Thank you, Michael Isikoff. We are continuing to await a
press conference in Newtown, Connecticut. We will learn more at that time
about this horrific crime. We will take you there live as so soon as it
begins, but up next, after so many shooting tragedies this year, is this
one finally, finally the tipping point in a gun control debate? We will be
right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HARRIS-PERRY: Let`s go to Newtown, Connecticut, now, where police are
expected to begin the news conference right at this moment on yesterday`s
shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary.
LT. PAUL VANCE, CONN. STATE POLICE: They are still in the process of doing
some of their work, and as soon as that work is completed, we will be
prepared to release in writing to you a formal list of names, birth dates
and information. There is one, well, there`s a couple of major factors.
Number one, when we release that list, and we would ask you again as we did
yesterday at the request of all of the family members, they have asked for
you to please respect their privacy. They are going through as I know you
understand a very difficult and trying time. We have in fact under the
auspices of the chief and the colonel reassigned and continue to assign a
trooper to these folks to help to maintain that solitude.
So again, I would ask you, and I am pleading with you as you know this is
extremely heartbreaking, difficult thing for these folks to endure, to
please abide by their requests. In addition, for the townspeople in the
town of Newtown, a crisis intervention team from Yale New Haven Hospital
has been established here in the community, and they can be reached via
telephone. That telephone number is 203-270-4283. And again, they are
open and they are available to anyone in the community who may have the
need to discuss, to talk, to talk about this incident in its entirety. I
have the ability to take some questions, I just simply want you to
understand that we still - that major crime detectives and Newtown
detectives working at the scene in the school. That is not completed, that
probably will not be completed for at least another day and a half to two
days, and I am putting a time limit on it, and it could take longer.
As I have explained to you in previous press conferences, we have done
everything we need to do to literally peel back the onion layer by layer
and examine every crack and crevice of that facility and that does not
include - or exclude, I should say, the outside of the building. The
outside of the building is also a part of the crime scene, every single
vehicle in that lot. So it is going to be a long painstaking process. We
actually have three teams now, three major crime teams in the community,
our local partners are working with us, and we are going to move that as -
and expedite that along as quickly as possible. We had a meeting this
morning, and that was a delay with the superintendent of schools. She
will be hopefully in not too distant future up here to talk briefly about
some of the issues that she has encountered. The minute the medical
examiner is done, and I mean that sincerely, the minute he is done, he is
coming here, and we will again provide all of the detailed information or
as much detailed information that we can relative to the work that his
office did both overnight and continue to do as we speak.
Again, as far as actual specific questions, I will take a few, but I have
to tell you, all right, there are certain things that we just simply --
cards that we are holding close to our chest in this investigation until --
so nothing is taken out of context and we have continuity of all of the
information that we provide. Yes, sir.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There were reports that there were other guns, other
than the ones that he used in the school. Are those reports accurate?
VANCE: No, that is not accurate. The weaponry that was recovered by our
investigators, recovered in close proximity of the deceased. And again, we
are investigating the history of each and every weapon, and we will know
every single thing about those weapons, and I know follow-up questions, are
they legally registered, who is the owner, and so on, and so forth, that`s
all being done by the investigators assigned to that task.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Is the shooter Adam Lanza?
VANCE: Again, we are going to allow a medical examiner, we are going to
wait for the medical examiner to come in and provide the identities of the
shooter, of all the deceased in this investigation.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Lieutenant, have you found any writings, any emails,
any messages that would enlighten you as to what his motive was?
VANCE: That is a -- that`s a fairly good question. The answer I can give
you on that is that our investigators at the crime scene, the school and
secondarily at the secondary crime scene that we discussed where the female
was located deceased, did produce some very, very good evidence in this
investigation that our investigators will be able to use in hopefully
painting the complete picture as to how and more importantly why this
occurred.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Can you tell us ....
(CROSSTALK) --
VANCE: We don`t - we are not going to name the evidence, we are not going
to talk about the evidence, it`s simply - simply stated, it is part and
parcel of the investigation, and I don`t want to take it out of context of
what is being done.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: What about (ph) the building?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Can you tell us about the shattered glass that
witnesses have talked about at the school?
VANCE: We have established the point of entry. It was - I can tell you it
was -it`s believed he was not voluntarily let into the school at all. That
he forced his way into the school, but that is as far as we can go on that.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Are there any broken windows at the school?
VANCE: Are there what?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The broken windows. We were told --
VANCE: Well, quite frankly, that`s something again, if you take that out
of context, it sounds suspicious, but as the rescue crews arrived, the
active shooting teams entered the school. They entered the school from
several different points, and in necessitated forcing their way in to gain
access to perform the rescue and to save as many students in fact where
they possibly could. Hence law enforcement broke many windows.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And what about the other crime scene where one body
was found?
VANCE: What`s that?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: What about the other scene?
VANCE: The other crime scene - yeah, the secondary crime scene, as I told
you, was a crime scene that was discovered pursuant to the investigation.
Once we had a tentative identification on the suspect, we began doing a
great deal of work, again, peeling back the onion, everything we could find
out about that suspect, including and not limited to relatives, friends,
coworkers, former students, locations of residents, and all of those areas
had to be - people had to be interviewed and all of those areas had to be
examined, hence that causes to discover the secondary crime scene, which
was a private residence, where the sole female deceased.
(CROSSTALK)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Do you think that you will be able to provide a motive
or an explanation as to why he went to the school?
VANCE: To be determined. The detectives will certainly analyze everything
and put a complete picture together of the evidence that they - that they
did obtain, and we are hopeful -- we are hopeful that it will paint a
complete picture as to how and why this entire incident, unfortunate
incident occurred.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: At the crime scene, did you find the man or the
woman?
VANCE: I`m sorry?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There was one woman who was shot and survived, how is
she doing?
VANCE: She is doing fine. She has been treated, and she will be
instrumental in this investigation. I am sure you can understand.
(CROSSTALK)
VANCE: That I don`t know. That I don`t.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Is it accurate to say, Lieutenant, that the shooter
in this case appeared to break into the school?
VANCE: Forced - forcibly -- forced his way into the school, that would be
accurate according to the investigators, yes.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And does it appear he used weapons (inaudible)?
VANCE: I don`t - I don`t want to be too specific, because quite frankly, I
don`t know. So, I would simply - I have been informed it was a forcible
entry and was not allowed to enter, if you will.
What I`d like to do is, I`d like to get the next portion, if you will, of
today -- and I don`t want to keep you here all day, I want to try and do
this as expeditiously as I possibly can and get as much information out to
you. I would like to get the superintendent definitely wants to come up
with the town leaders to discuss certain areas of her responsibility, and
then we certainly want to get the medical examiner up here, and, again, we
will do that as quickly as we possibly can so they can get the list of
I.D.s and all of the information out to you. For any of you that are new
here today, the lieutenant and I have put together a written press release,
we will provide those to you, that might be (inaudible), please don`t rush
my vehicle. We should have enough for everyone, and if not, we will bring
more the next time we come up, and it just lays out the basic details of
everything leading up until today, all right? We will try, and I don`t
want to give you a time, but we will try to be back here, I`m going to say,
within the hour. I will make notification to some of you that I can that
we are on the way, right? Yes, sir, one question?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Did the mother of the shooter have any connection to
the school?
VANCE: You have to understand that after the shooting that we did a
complete and thorough search of about the entire area, the neighborhood,
with our local partners and everything - everything was examined, and if we
found anyone who was in the woods cutting wood, they would have been
detained, pending the investigation, so there were no other arrests that
were associated with this - with this investigation that occurred.
(CROSSTALK)
VANCE: I was - I would have you address that with the superintendent of
schools, OK? We can - she can give you that answer. We will be back. I
need to get, if I don`t get here, we are going to be here quite some time.
I know you have a lot of questions, I think that people that are coming
here, that I`m going to bring here to speak to you, can really answer these
questions and put a lot of - take a lot of the mystery out of what we have
been dealing with for the last 44 hours.
(CROSSTALK)
VANCE: We`ll be back.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Will the medical examiner will be here in an hour, as
we know?
Lieutenant, do you think the medical examiner will be here?
HARRIS-PERRY: That was Connecticut state police Lieutenant Paul Vance.
And we will continue to bring you updates as they develop throughout the
morning. But first, I want to bring my panel in. This morning, MSNBC
contributor Ari Melber, reporter for "The Nation," Michael Eric Dyson,
professor of Georgetown University, MSNBC`s Joy Reid, also managing editor
of the Grio, psychologist Dr. Jeff Gardere who is also our mental health
expert. Joy, I just - I want to start with you on this because, you know,
obviously, we are still getting reports, we are still learning what is
happening, but more than anything, we are not going to know the names of
the victims. And at this point, all we have known is the name of the
murderer.
JOY REID, MSNBC CONTRIBUTOR: Right.
HARRIS-PERRY: The name of the assailant. You heard the police officer
there asked media not to go invade their homes.
REID: Right.
HARRIS-PERRY: What are the kind of ethics of being media in a moment like
this?
REID: Yeah, I can tell you that when I saw initially the reports where
they interviewed these little kids, all right, it was heartbreaking to
watch, and it also felt wrong in a way. Although, I know when my kids were
registered in school in Florida, they were media released meaning you sign
a media release at the beginning of the year, so that if there was some
media event you are already sort of pre-cleared to allow your children to
talk. I don`t know what that means that reporters that have the right to
walk up to a child without their parent there and speak to them.
HARRIS-PERRY: I think in most cases the parents were actually standing
there.
REID: They were there.
HARRIS-PERRY: But - we`ve had this, we literally had this debate this
morning in Nerdland, about is - how do we feel about what happened in terms
of those conversations.
REID: Yeah, I mean I think as a parent, and just as a viewer, I think
there is something really wrong with asking a child to process such a
traumatic event so recently after it happened and asking them to explain
it. At the same time, obviously, everyone wants to understand what
happened, and those kids were in a position to know what happened. So,
there is really fine line, but I have to say that it was very
uncomfortable, and I think from the media ethics point of view, there was
nothing technically wrong with it, but it did not feel right sometimes.
HARRIS-PERRY: Yeah, Jeff, as a psychologist?
JEFF GARDERE, PSYCHOLOGIST: Sure, well, the thing is that a lot of the
reporters were not trained to work with people who have been through
trauma, they may have that experience, and yes, we do want the kids to talk
about it as quickly as possible, that`s part of the debriefing, that
trained police officers and mental health experts are doing, but you can
actually re-traumatize the child if you are not asking the proper
questions, so I think perhaps we need to pull back on that a little bit.
HARRIS-PERRY: It is interesting that the debate that emerged around this
for us was the question of on the one hand, what feel, as you said, what
feels wrong what we may even know is potentially re-traumatizing, but on
the other hand not wanting to sanitize something this horrible, in part,
because this is, this is disgustingly horrible and if we make it - if we
make it just sort of the tears of adults then we miss what has happened
here.
ARI MELBER, MSNBC CONTRIBUTOR: I think we have countervailing values here.
HARRIS-PERRY: Yeah.
MELBER: So the press has a duty to get in there and try to figure out what
happened. The police have a duty, which doesn`t always mean releasing
everything as we just heard in the press conference you are reporting,
Melissa, and the families that are going through this mass murder, this
tragedy, they have their own duty. And we are not going to be all on the
same page. The press reports on these tragedies, but not always
proportionately, people do want to read and see and understand and that
goes to a longer conversation about action as well, but then we have to be
careful because there is a reason why people use violence, why crazy people
gravitate towards it, why militarism gravitates towards it, and why
terrorists gravitates towards it, and one reason is we as human beings find
violence so compelling.
HARRIS-PERRY: Yes.
MELBER: So there is something really difficult here if you watch much of
the coverage and we have been through this, of course, before, which is
figuring out well, how do we make sense of this, how do we not turn away,
because that is also a problem and that is a social change and political
problem, if you want, to do anything about anything.
HARRIS-PERRY: Yeah.
MELBER: But if we just gorge on it and without as you were saying, without
some sort of understanding of the people in it and what they are going
through in that trauma, then we do risk exacerbating certain dynamics.
HARRIS-PERRY: We are going to take a break now, but when we come back,
Michael, I`m going to bring you in, because I want to ask about that other
big ethics of media question, which is, is this the time to talk about gun
control. Certainly, we know the critique about it is not being the time.
I want to make a claim that it is the time to have that conversation. We
are going to continue to bring you the latest on developments in Newtown,
Connecticut, throughout the morning. Stay with us. When we come back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HARRIS-PERRY: As we watch the pictures from the scene of yesterday`s
horrific tragedy, it was almost unbelievable, but it was not unfamiliar.
We have been here before. We have been living with the consequences of
America`s love affair with guns for a long time now.
There have been at least 61 mass murders committed with firearms since 1982
according to "Mother Jones" magazine, and 2012 has been a record year for
casualties from mass shootings, beginning on February 22nd at the health
spa in Atlanta, Georgia. Four people killed with a 45 caliber
semiautomatic handgun.
On April 2nd at Oikos University in Oakland, California, seven people were
killed and three wounded with a 45 caliber semiautomatic handgun.
May 30th at a cafe in Seattle, Washington, five people killed and one
wounded again with a 45 caliber handgun.
On July 20th, a movie theater in Aurora, Colorado. 12 people killed and 58
wounded with a 12-gauge shotgun and AR-15 semiautomatic assault rifle, the
40-caliber semiautomatic pistol.
August 5th, the Sikh temple in Oak Creek, Wisconsin. Six people killed and
three wounded with a 9-millimeter semiautomatic handgun.
September 27, a factory in Minneapolis, five killed and three injured, also
with a 9-millimiter semiautomatic.
Just four days ago, December 11th, at a mall in Portland, Oregon, two
killed and one wounded with an AR-15 semiautomatic rifle.
Yesterday, December 14th, at an elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut,
20 children, and six adults killed, one person wounded. Two semiautomatic
handguns and a rifle - and rifle caliber shell casings were found at the
scene. And that is only a partial list for one year. Each time the sound
of gun fire followed by our nation`s silence about gun policy.
At the table with me this morning, MSNBC contributor Ari Melber, Michael
Eric Dyson, professor at Georgetown University, MSNBC`s Joy Reid and
psychologist Dr. Jeff Gardere, also a mental health expert. I want to
start with you, Michael, because we can have a broader conversation about
the general gun control, but in this case, it just seems obvious that
certain kinds of guns increase body counts full stop.
MICHAEL ERIC DYSON, GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY: I mean what do you need that
stuff for? You know, none of us are going to need the kind of highly
technical forms of weaponry that are available now, and distressingly so to
any person, especially a mentally ill person who does not have a thorough
background check. Can we get that on the books? Can we talk about the,
you know, this assault weapons ban that expired in 2004, can we speak about
high capacity magazines? What do you need that for? If you want a high
capacity magazine, read "The Nation," or "Vanity Fair," but I mean - but to
deal with, you know, the insane way, in which we have become attached to
the erotics of violence. There is - when Ari talked about the compelling
character of violence, you know how these - these all studies when you are
driving a car, when somebody walks into your view, the first thing is to
unconsciously veer towards them before you veer away from them, so we can
talk about the psychoneurobiology, if you will, the neural pathways that
are laid down, excuse me, when violence is erotically presented to us. It
is on video games, it`s in rap songs, it`s in television, it`s in film, so
my point is when it comes down to the erotic sheen that is around these
guns, the Glock 9 ...
HARRIS-PERRY: Sure.
DYSON: You know, the Glock, the 9 millimeter, and son on, we have to say
to ourselves, enough is enough, that stuff does not belong on the streets
of America.
HARRIS-PERRY: Yeah, and look. We live in a world where we are vulnerable,
because we live with other human beings. Things will happen.
DYSON: Right.
HARRIS-PERRY: But we saw - I mean yesterday it was like these things next
to each other. 20 children in China stabbed.
DYSON: Right.
HARRIS-PERRY: 20 children in the U.S. shot and killed. Of those 20
children in China who were stabbed, no fatalities. So it does not - it`s
not - it`s not the end of violence, and you can`t - you can`t walk around
and end violence, but a common sense gun law that addresses the issues of
these automatic weapons. I wanted to show quickly the president during the
second presidential debate, during the town hall meeting was asked about
gun control and he did at that moment say that he was interested in
thinking about the automatic weapons ban. Let`s take a quick listen.
Oh, sorry, maybe we don`t have that at this moment, but listen, he said at
this point "What I`m trying to do is get a broader conversation about how
do we reduce the violence generally. Part of it is seeing if can get an
assault weapons ban reintroduced." Ari, this feels like one place where
maybe we can come to an agreement, let`s leave aside everything else just
for a moment, an assault weapons ban reintroduced.
MELBER: Right. Well, the coalition for the assault weapons ban has
declined, this passed `94, with a ten-year sunset provision. Why did it
have a sunset provision? Because things that are hard to get through
Congress, regardless of which issue, often are negotiated that way. That
is why the Bush tax cuts expire, and then we debate over renewing them,
that`s part of what the fiscal cliff is about.
HARRIS-PERRY: Right.
MELBER: So the assault weapons ban was very hard to get through, passed
by less than ten votes in the House, but had the ten-year expiration. When
it expired, we saw the coalition decline - there were only about 68 co-
sponsors including Congresswoman McCarthy who has been on MSNBC today
talking about this issue, and who tragically lost her husband in gun
violence. So she has been leading that fight, she has 68 co-sponsors from
the last time this was introduced at the beginning of Obama`s first term.
It was not even reintroduced after that. So the first thing you have to
do from a coalition standpoint, if you think for all the reasons we`ve
discussed, this is the rational thing to do, is build on that coalition and
picking up on your point and something Chris Hayes also said earlier today,
We don`t have worthwhile national conversations very often.
HARRIS-PERRY: Yes.
MELBER: That is not how it works.
HARRIS-PERRY: No, you`ve go to get the ...
MELBER: We don`t need a conversation on this. We don`t need a
conversation on race, quote, unquote ...
HARRIS-PERRY: Yes.
MELBER: But we do have sometimes our good debates when there is
leadership. So we had a debate about health care in this country that went
somewhere because that was a bill on the table ...
HARRIS-PERRY: Yes.
MELBER: It wasn`t a perfect bill, people did not like it from the left and
the right, we need to come back out and get at least the assault weapons
ban reauthorization, with some of the mental health stuff, and we need to
build up that coalition, and that is on the Congress and the president.
HARRIS-PERRY: Absolutely. Now, I want to bring into the conversation
right now on exactly this issue. Colin Goddard, now Colin is the assistant
director of victims and youth advocacy in the federal legislation for the
Brady campaign to prevent gun violence. He is also a survivor of all-time
worst school mass shooting in the United States, having been shot four
times, in April 2007 during the massacre at Virginia Tech. Collin joins us
this morning from Washington D.C.. Good morning, Colin.
COLIN: Good morning. Thanks for having me.
HARRIS-PERRY: So, you have heard us just now sort of talking about this
question of the assault weapons ban. What is the legislation that you have
been working so hard to try to get passed?
COLIN GODDARD, BRADY CAMPAIGN TO PREVENT GUN VIOLENCE: I have been working
on this issue for three years once I realized that we actually do not
everything that we can to keep guns out of the hands of dangerous people,
and especially, particularly dangerous weapons. So, you know, the assault
weapons ban, background checks on all gun sales, these are all issues that
we have all been working on, and what really is more important is getting
the public outrage engaged. I mean that has been the missing piece. We
have expressed our sympathies, we`ve expressed our condolences and our
action has ended there. And because of that, we don`t have - we haven`t
created a space for politicians to be able to step up and lead. I mean
when I`m on the Hill, and I talk to officers, some officers I expect to get
a no, we are not going to support you, but what is worse than that is when
I hear, I am with you, I accept the idea, but I can`t support you now in
public. And don`t make me do this now.
HARRIS-PERRY: Colin, Colin I so appreciate your saying that, because as I
was watching the president yesterday during his press conference and the
emotion, certainly part of that was about the president being a father and
the emotion that all of us are feeling, but the other thing that it felt
like to me, because I`ve seen him when he is angry, and when he comes out
and he says I`m angry, and I`m going to - I have an action here, part of
those tears felt to me like - and there is nothing I can do, there is no
political coalition that is going to get behind me not having to stand at
this podium over and over again and talking about our children being
killed.
GODDARD: We have to make that coalition. We`ve even polled gun owners and
NRA members and found a broad support for things like background checks on
all gun sales, you know. So we are really focused on engaging the American
people, and anyone who is watching this and agrees that something needs to
be done, and who believes that we are better than this, that we deserve a
nation that is better and safer for everybody, please join us at
wearebetterthanthis.org. You have to keep talking about this, you have to
engage in this process. Otherwise, we are going to be having the same
conversation the next time a mass shooting happens and be back where we
are. We can no longer keep repeating this over and over again, we can`t
keep having this same conversations, we have to move forward from that, we
have to do it all together.
HARRIS-PERRY: Colin, you were shot in 2007, the fact that we are here in
2012, does it feel like we have failed you? Your fellow survivors and
those who did not survive that massacre?
GODDARD: That is a tough question. I feel good about what I am doing
today. I feel good about the people that I am connecting with, I feel good
about the progress that we are making on Capitol Hill and across state
legislatures across the country. You know, it has really been an
overwhelming experience, but it`s been one that I feel is very rewarding.
It`s I`m trying - we are trying to take this horrible situations and put it
towards something that is positive, so that these things don`t keep
happening to other people, you know, but it is key that we keep the public
outrage and the public engagement on this. And we cannot forget about this
and not talk about it anymore. I frankly get more upset on the days when
we don`t speak about this, because we lose 32 Americans every single day to
gun violence. Eight children every single day. And we need to talk about
this issue every single day and work on solutions that we can all support,
that will make us a safer place for everybody.
HARRIS-PERRY: Thank you, Colin Goddard and I apologize for how we have
failed as a nation over the past five years to move forward so that you
don`t have to sit here and continue to talk about the mass violence against
America`s children with guns.
We are going to be back with more lessons on tragedies like these.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HARRIS-PERRY: We`ve been talking about what a tragic year this has been
with the string of mass shootings, the latest in Newtown, Connecticut. But
just more than four months ago it was not a school, but a place of worship
that became a scene of carnage when the gunman opened fire in a Sikh temple
in Wisconsin killing six people. Joining us now from Milwaukee is the man
who had to deal with that tragedy, the police chief of Oak Creek,
Wisconsin, John Edwards who attended a week-long summit on mass shootings.
Chief Edwards, it`s very nice to have you hear this morning.
CHIEF JOHN EDWARDS, POLICE CHIEF, OAK CREEK, WI: Thank you for having me.
HARRIS-PERRY: You know, I wanted to talk to you immediately, as soon as we
heard this news, I said, you know, I`d really like to talk with Chief
Edward, because I think that your town, like Newtown, is a place where we
keep hearing the language this is where you don`t expect it to happen,
right, in a community that people think of as safe in a space, either
religious space or elementary school, we think of it safe, what is your
message to the people in Newtown this morning who are dealing with such a
similar circumstance?
EDWARDS: First of all the thoughts and prayers of everybody in the
Milwaukee area, Oak Creek, I go out to them, because our community had to
go through this, and it`s just horrible. I cannot imagine what they are
seeing and going through with the loss of the children like that. But it
is one of those things that in the community where you live in that you
feel safe, it`s a nice community, it`s a very similar community to ours as
far as size, population, everything is very similar. I think when
something happens in an area that is - what everybody deems a safe area,
whether it is a Temple or whether it`s a school, it`s very shocking to
everybody. And then it all depends on the community. The community has to
get together for support. The grieving process is a separate issue, I
think, it`s a different component, and everybody grieves differently, and
you cannot tell somebody how to grieve. And the grieving there is, I just
cannot imagine what is going on with that, but the community - it looks
like is coming together and they are doing things and that`s one of the
most important things, just immediately starting the healing process for
the community, and the community showing the support, it`s very important.
HARRIS-PERRY: Now, chief, obviously, the law enforcement officers are also
part of the community, also dealing with grief. As from your - from your
role, how is it that law enforcement officers find the way to manage their
own grief in moments like this?
EDWARDS: They are like everybody else. They are all parents, they are
brothers, sisters, grandparents some of them. And so, they deal with it,
they are trained in certain aspects of it, but I don`t think there is much
training to put you through what you see in that grade school, when they
walked into those rooms. Those first responders have something embedded in
the memory that`s going to be with them for the rest of their life. Our
officers who went through this, it`s a very traumatic incident when you see
and go through something that quickly, that fast , that traumatic and
violent. You have to bring in people for them for counseling, you have to
get people on the ground immediately and let them know that what they are
going through, whether everybody does it differently is normal, and what
they are feeling is normal, and then they are going through some phases,
and you`ll try to be there for them and offer them everything you can for
those first responders, because sometimes we forget about them, that they
were the first ones in the door, and then we focus on everything else and
we put them aside. And it`s very important, because it can end careers and
it has ended careers if we don`t take care for them.
HARRIS-PERRY: Chief Edwards, stay with us, don`t leave. But I do want to
bring in my guest here Jeff Gardere who is a psychologist on exactly this
issue, so I hear sort of three levels of talking about - of grief, of
potentially sort of PTSD, the law enforcement officials, particularly first
responders, the community at large, and of course, the young people who
have survived this and their families. Talk to me about what communities
should be thinking about in this moment?
GARDERE: Well, it really is about the debriefing, getting them to talk
about their feelings right now. All of the literature on PTSD stress
disorders tell us the quicker you get in, the quicker you get them to get
all of this information out, all of this damaging traumatic stuff that has
happened to them, the better the prognosis, we need to do the same thing
for the first responders. Careers have ended because they were not
debriefed, they were not getting the counseling. But we are seeing
something else: we`re seeing this whole idea of prayer, we are seeing the
spirituality, we are seeing people grieving. The chief is absolutely
correct, in their own way, whether it is through religion, whether it`s
through support groups, but being able to communicate with a higher power
or with someone else or just talking together. That is key right now.
HARRIS-PERRY: Feeling like you are not alone. Chief, let me also ask you
this, part of - one of the ways that we can sometimes feel somewhat better
in circumstances like this is feeling that we might have some control to
impact it happening again. You just attended a summit on these types of
mass shootings. Did you learn anything there that gives you some
confidence about what local law enforcement officials or what we need to do
nationally to impact the likelihood of this kind of mass shooting occurring
again?
EDWARDS: I - I did leave there very confident while we were in the summit,
and there were some of the most brilliant people I have ever met at this,
they were brought into this by Homeland Security, and John Hopkins is
facilitating it and basically it was a brainstorming on looking on the
prevention side, identification side. We had mental health professionals,
we got university officials, we had researchers, we had K through 12, we
had law enforcement. And what we did is look at some of the things and try
to come up with the ideas on the front end of this, because there are
models in place that people do identify things, and look at things, one of
the issues that we found was that the interdisciplinary issues that we
have, sometimes we are separated in our own world, and we look for things a
little different than Pentagon, what`s your expertise might be and we need
to share that. Now, that also comes into play, which was talked about a
great deal, civil liberties. There`s a gray area, but we have to as a
nation decide, what is more important, do we want to have a story about 20
children or do we want to have a story what someone felt that we
overstepped our bounds in sharing some information that might have saved
those 20 children. So, those are some of the things we talked about. I am
very confident after what we went through, some of the things we discussed
and recommendations that we made are going to go towards trying to identify
and intervene in these things prior to them happening.
HARRIS-PERRY: Let me also just ask you this, I know in the context of the
shooting at the Sikh temple, there was in a sort of so much conversation
about the motive of the shooter, of the killer. How do we make sure that
we have a focus on the survivors and on the victims and not just sort of
constantly talking about the perpetrators here?
EDWARDS: Well, everybody wants to know that, this seems to me the very
first thing, and in this situation, also. I saw some of the news reports,
everybody is asking, why, why, why? They don`t understand that they can`t
fathom it, they want an answer to that. Sometimes we may know, because it
goes to their grave. In our case, the individual left nothing. We can
speculate, we know he is part of hate groups. But we do need to focus on
why didn`t we see it more than why did they do it? Because every time one
of this happens, you hear somebody say, that was the person I thought might
do this, but they never came forward. So, I think we need to - I think
that is the culture we are in, we want to know all these answers so we can
explain it right away, and just from this incident alone, from what I`ve
seen, a lot of misinformation got out very early and it shouldn`t have.
And it`s because we want it, we want it right now, and in law enforcement
it takes time to get those answers, to get some of that stuff. But the
immediacy should be with the victims, the victims` families, the officers,
everyone there and explaining some things to them that we can. And I think
they are doing a fantastic job with explaining the minute we get something
we will give it to you. Anything that I have seen I only take from the law
enforcement perspective as gospel from that lieutenant from the state
police who is giving it. Anything else I see is an unnamed source and a
lot of those are changing, so until they give it to us, and they are trying
to give it to us at the pace they can. And - that`s just the culture that
we are in right now.
HARRIS-PERRY: Ari, I want to bring you in here, because I feel like, you
know, this is a moment when you are after the Sikh temple shooting, chief
Edwards, you know, comes to our (inaudible), learning about -- about state
trooper Vance and, of course, also in the Aurora, Colorado shootings. We
think of these first responders as heroic in this moment, but then we keep
making public policy that makes it harder for our first responders to
actually do their work. So not only on the question of tragedy, how do we
keep our first responders in mind, so that we are making policy that makes
their life easier, not harder?
MELBER: Well, the classic slogan, when you are on the subway, or you talk
about first responders and securities, if you see something, say something.
But what we need to do and going beyond that in the short term is once you
say something, do something. We have to figure out how we move forward on
the policy piece of this. I mean that really is what it all - is going to
come back to. I do sense a little bit of a tipping point, I mean when you
look at the numbers that we have been talking about. Aurora this year, 12
people dead, Columbine, a national tragedy: people remember the president,
you know, didn`t only speak the day of, he went down there and gave a very
big speech, which I was just rereading last night, thinking about all this.
And it was a beautiful speech in many ways, and it was a touching speech.
It was not a speech about action.
HARRIS-PERRY: Yeah.
MELBER: If you feel like it is getting worse as you watch, it is because
it is getting worse.
HARRIS-PERRY: It`s getting worse.
MELBER: Those I mentioned, 12 and 13, but here we are talking about 27
dead and children. And so what do we do about it? And to go back to the
discussion we`ve been having a little bit earlier, is if the NRA has a
stranglehold on everything, if the parties won`t do it, we do have other
models in this country.
HARRIS-PERRY: Yeah.
MELBER: And if you look during this Obama error, there were two big issues
that weren`t picked up. One was, frustration with the Wall Street and the
bailouts ...
HARRIS-PERRY: Yes.
MELBER: ... and the other was income inequality, and both of them sprung
network ...
HARRIS-PERRY: From ...
MELBER: Occupy and Tea Party outside of the mainstream political
discourse. This is not dead, just because the NRA stops Congress.
HARRIS-PERRY: Right, because the NRA is not controlling our pocketbooks.
Thank you so much, chief Edwards, thank you to my panel who is going to
stick around for a bit more. And coming up, we are going to go back live
to Newtown, Connecticut, with the latest on the school shooting.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
MELISSA HARRIS-PERRY, HOST: Welcome back. I`m Melissa Harris-Perry.
All morning we are following the events out of Newtown, Connecticut. Once
thought to be the safety places of the world by its residence, the town was
rocked to its core yesterday by the tragic and senseless shooting spree at
Sandy Hook Elementary School.
What we know now is this: 26 people were gunned down at the school while
the lives of countless others were irrevocably traumatized by what
unfolded. Twenty of those killed were schoolchildren ranging in age from 5
to 10 years old. Six of those killed were adults.
One person, the shooter`s mother, was killed in her home prior to the
rampage. And in tend, the gunman killed himself. That puts the total
number of dead at 28.
And while we are all overwhelmed by the number of people that were killed,
we must not lose sight of the most important fact that they weren`t just
numbers, they were victims. In the coming days, we are going to hear more
about each of them, and the memorial services and the funerals.
And that`s what happens when lives are senselessly cut short, because they
are more than numbers. They are people and those people mattered to the
people who loved them, and to their communities.
For the latest on what is happening on the ground, let`s go now to Newtown,
Connecticut, with MSNBC anchor Chris Jansing.
Good morning, Chris.
CHRIS JANSING, MSNBC`S "JANSING & CO.": Good morning, Melissa.
And I think you make an incredibly important point. I have spent a lot of
time with the people who were in the room when parents were told that their
children were not be coming home, and their stories are heartbreaking. We
are going to learn more. We did hear at the press conference that they are
hoping to release that list of victims and officially, although many of
them are already known to people in this community.
There were a few new things that we learned in the briefing that you saw
just a short time ago, to the question of why, the question of motive, the
investigators are learning things at both crime scenes, the home of the
mother of the shooter, as well as at the school, they are giving them
indications at least of how this all came to be.
We know that the school is still an active crime scene investigation, will
continue to be so for at least a day and a half, to two days, maybe longer,
very complicated there, and confirmation of what we first heard and saw
actually in some movement of vehicles overnight that the bodies have been
removed from the school scene.
Now, there are a lot of questions that the people have about the families,
and they have asked for privacy. In fact, it has been emphasized that each
family of these victims has been assigned a state trooper. Part of that is
to allow them their privacy, but the other part is to give them a sense of
protection, to give them a sense of security, and you can imagine how
shattered that has been over the last 24 hours, and it`s also to keep the
lines of communication open.
And part of the reason that we may not get a list of the names even though
they have them, and we may not be getting all of the details of their
investigation right now is that they want to make very sure that, that
information goes first to the families. I can tell you, Melissa, from
having covered these situations before, that what they don`t want to have
happen is to have a family member turn on the television or the radio or
get a phone call from someone who`s been listening to the media and learn
very troubling information that they should have been told in a more
sensitive way.
So I have to say as I have been watching how all of this has been handled,
they are doing a tremendous job of really trying to protect the families
who are going through something that none of us could even begin to
imagine. Now, the religious community here is coming together as well.
Just really quickly, I`ll say, there are a number of services today both
for the people of this community, and to be dedicated to the victims,
Melissa.
HARRIS-PERRY: Chris, I just wanted to say that it`s such a good point that
I want to emphasize again what you were saying about the importance of
intimacy of the large family circles, of the friends, not just finding out
via television. You know, obviously, Newtown is very close to New York
City. There are members of our own NBC community who live there in
Newtown, who have friends and family who are part of the school. This is
not television news. This is people`s lives.
JANSING: It`s their lives. It`s their families and waking up for the
first time. There is a bed in that home without a child in it. Just the
thought of it makes you sick.
And so, one of the things that the police keep emphasizing to me is that
they are very careful, very sensitive, first of all, because we saw in the
opening 24 hours and Michael Isikoff was talking, too, about this earlier,
things change. Information we find out turns out not to be what they first
thought it was. So they are being careful. They want to make 100 percent
sure that the information they are giving out is indeed correct.
But there is a tremendous sensitivity to the impact that this can have on
any of the family members, any of those friends, and you want to give them
that information first, and you want to be able to give it to them in a
controlled situation. All of this, obviously, has caught everybody and
shocked them in such a deep way that you don`t want to blindside them if
you can possibly avoid that.
HARRIS-PERRY: Thank you so much, Chris Jansing in Newtown.
I do want to bring in now Michael Isikoff, who is NBC`s national
investigative correspondent, who is also in Newtown.
Michael, what is the latest of the investigation, because we know it is
ongoing. In fact, they`re still there in the school. Anything that we now
know about the suspect or about motive or any of those questions?
MICHAEL ISIKOFF, NBC NEWS NATIONAL INVESTIGATIVE CORRESPONDENT: Well,
actually probably the most interesting breakthrough this morning in terms
of motive is the response to Lester Holt`s question about whether there
have been any emails, or writings found from the suspect Adam Lanza that
would explain why he did this, and going into the question of motive. And
as you heard the police spokesman, Lieutenant Vance, did say that there was
evidence that they have collected, he wouldn`t detail it or describe it,
that would shed light on that question, suggesting they have found either
at home or in the school some writing or something that would shed light on
why Lanza would have done this horrific thing.
Now, a couple of things we are learning this morning, my colleague Anna
Rapparoy (ph),as I have mentioned earlier, had spoken to a friend of the
mother`s, Nancy Lanza, who talked about how disturbed and worried she was
about her son`s mental health. She was very protective of him, but that
there was a lot she was worried about, and she had expressed those concerns
about his mental stability. We don`t have a lot of specificity, but it is
confirmation that this was clearly a very troubled youngster.
And another aspect of this that is interesting is that the mother who owned
the guns and the guns was registered in her name, was an avid gun
collector. The friend described her as passionate about it, and even took
her sons to shooting ranges, and this was something that was very important
part of her life.
Now, she -- we believe -- had purchased the guns. And there is some
indication that Adam Lanza, the suspect, may have tried to get a gun,
himself, but the guns that we know about that were used in the shooting
were actually registered in the name of his mother, the avid gun collector.
HARRIS-PERRY: Who is also a victim of this crime. Thank you to Michael
Isikoff.
ISIKOFF: Who is also a victim of crime, yes.
HARRIS-PERRY: Yes, indeed. Thank you Michael Isikoff in Newtown,
Connecticut.
Joining me at the table this morning: Ari Melber, an MSNBC contributor,
attorney and correspondent for "The Nation."
Michael Eric Dyson, a Georgetown University professor and MSNBC
contributor.
Joy Reid, managing editor of thegrio.com.
And psychologist Jeffrey Gardere.
And I want to start with you, Jeff, because we heard particularly from my
colleague Chris Jansing there talking about sort of trying to protect the
mental health of the families, and I`m wondering about the peg of the
holidays here. There is no reasonable time to lose one`s child, but I`m
also wondering if for this community, for these families, if the peg of
Hanukkah and Christmas and the holiday season is now always going to be
marred for so many, not just those who lost their children, but so many in
the community.
JEFF GARDERE, PYSCHOLOGIST: Well, when you look at the spiritual
community, what they try to do is make sense of this and instead of being
eternal victims, actually change this into something that makes them
something that makes them much more powerful, and much more empowered.
And, of course, the whole idea that the Lord works in mysterious ways, we
don`t know what this is about or why it happened, that at some point, it
will be something that we can better understand, that we can process
through spirituality.
So, I would think that their number mission to use the holidays, use
Christmas, use Hanukkah, use these holidays, these spiritual holidays, to
get into the grieving process, and get through the grieving process and not
just the mental health techniques, but also the spirituality, which is all
that is left for many of these people, because we as psychologists and
psychiatrists, what can we go to listen and offer our support, because at
this point, it goes to a higher power to try to understand this depth of
tragedy.
HARRIS-PERRY: Jeff, I so appreciate that, because I recognize that because
I recognize that not everyone who is watching is a person who claims
religious faith or any of those sorts of things, but there is something
that I appreciate from you as a psychologist to talk about faith as a tool
of resiliency.
GARDERE: That`s right.
HARRIS-PERRY: And that as horrifying as this sort of loss might be at the
holidays for those who do claim some understanding of a higher being, and
it does not have to be organized religion, but there might actually be some
comfort in this moment?
GARDERE: Absolutely. And that is the comfort that we look for. Look, we
have people who go the Narcotics Anonymous, and they don`t necessarily
believe in a god, but they believe in a power that is greater than
themselves, because they can`t shoulder it by themselves anymore, so they
turn it over to the group, they turn it over to a congregation, they turn
it over to friend, and I think that`s what`s happening here. People who
may not even be into spirituality or religion are going to be at the
churches or the other houses of worship to mourn together. And that`s
what`s important.
HARRIS-PERRY: Right. And that collectivity, and, Joy, you and I were
talking about being parents yesterday, and that one of the sort of
traumatic stress impacts just for those of us who are parents and I was
late to work because I just couldn`t -- I couldn`t stop hugging my daughter
and playing with her and chatting with her and you were telling your son to
take the hoodie down like post-Trayvon Martin.
So, just to be able -- yes, it`s Newtown and yes, it is these families, but
it`s all of us impacted by idea of sending your kindergarten off to school
and not coming home.
JOY REID, THEGRIO.COM: Right. Because you are releasing your child from
your custody and care, you can`t see them. You`re not near them. You
know, from working parents, you`re having to travel to them, even if it`s
something God forbid were to happen, you had to be called, it`s not as if
they are right there.
So, it is very traumatizing. And each one of these events not only
traumatizes us as moms or as dads, but then our kids on their own are
talking about it. So, I find that by the time I get home, by the time I
got home yesterday, my kids already had had this conversation with their
friends, they already had it in school. They already had it with one
another.
So, they`ve already whipped up their own fears. I mean, I remember after
the Aurora shooting, my kids would not go to the movies.
HARRIS-PERRY: And they were like, and now we are watching movies at home.
REID: And they have still not seen that Batman movie, because they refuse
to go. And these are kids who are also in a new environment, a bigger
city. And what`s really frightening I think the most about this particular
tragedy, you know, Connecticut is a safe state.
You know, this didn`t happen somewhere in intercity, you know, Chicago.
This happened in the fifth toughest gun law state in the nation. It`s
happened in a state I think is the third or the second or the third safest
state in terms of gun crime. People move there so that these things won`t
happen and you can feel safe.
HARRIS-PERRY: Joy, you have brought us exactly where -- we are going to
take a break and come back to Ari and Michael on exactly this issue,
because as much as I appreciate the psychology of that, I also keep
thinking, so why do we think it`s OK for it to happen on the street corners
of Chicago and New York and New Orleans.
So, when we come back, we`re going to talk about all the gun violence that
is not making headlines, but is killing all our children all the same.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HARRIS-PERRY: When the conversation in our nation turns to gun violence,
it most often stems from the headline-making incidents. They are the
stories of mass shootings like the horror that was visited on Newtown,
Connecticut, yesterday, as well as Aurora, Colorado, and Old Creek,
Wisconsin, earlier this year, the other places involving celebrities that
make up professional sports world stands up and take notice. There is no
impact and the tragedy of these experiences.
They need to be part of our understanding as we undertake the difficult
work about violence and society and gun policy of both the local and
federal level. But so, too, should we be discussing the losses that come
and go on our city street on a daily and nightly basis. The gun violence
that rarely warns the national media`s eye, that decimates innocent lives
all the same.
Take the epic number of gunshot deaths in Chicago which surpassed 400
homicides in September. To date, Chicago has suffered at least 425
homicides in this year alone, and though are just the ones that are gun-
related -- including most recently the shooting death last Sunday of 16-
year-old Jeffrey Stewart. Like Jeffrey, 117 of those gun victims, 117 this
year alone were under 21, and now they are gone.
It`s not just Chicago. In my home, in New Orleans, 174 murders so far this
year as of last night. Most of which are gunshot deaths, 512 homicides
have been recorded in Los Angeles for the year, as of earlier this month,
75 percent of those resulted from gunshot wounds. These are the gun-
related homicides that get treated as routine -- tragic, but expected. And
yet, they need to be included when we talk about the Newtown, Connecticut,
because their victims are just as real.
Joining me again, Ari Melber, Michael Eric Dyson, Joy Reid, and Dr. Jeff
Gardere.
Ari, I want to come to you, first, on this one.
ARI MELBER, MSNBC CONTRIBUTOR: Yes. Well, I wanted to pick up on
something that Joy was just saying and what you just introduced, it`s such
an important topic. You know, if you look at the research on childhood
development, one of the things we see is the exposure that children have to
what we would consider adult themes and particular notions of instability,
and insecurity, risk, violence and sex.
HARRIS-PERRY: Yes.
MELBER: And throughout our history, and many different cultures, we`ve
always had this line between children and adults. And one of the lines is
exposure. And in the research what you will see is if they have had
overexposure through life experience, which is unavoidable violence in
their life or through media, which is why we get back to the conversation
about journalism, and entertainment.
HARRIS-PERRY: Yes.
MELBER: That can dramatically change how children feel. So, that`s part
of the trauma here, and obviously, the hearts go out to what all of these
children and families are dealing with. But that bridges to, I think, part
of the point that you wanted to introduce, which is that there are many
other places in this country where the cat has long been out of the bag,
because violence is a part of the daily routine.
And I would not try to go on television and quantify the pain. I don`t
think anyone is trying to do that. But it is a fact that the country right
now is looking at this tragedy and this murder of 27 people. It is also a
simultaneous fact that 32 people are killed everyday by guns everyday in
this country.
So while we understand exactly how terrible this is and why the story of it
and the way it happened is so dramatic, and we are rushing to it, and the
president is speaking to it, it`s also true as a policy matter that if 27
people dying is something that connotes the president`s attention, or
should demand our attention and action, then well then everyday is this
day, as you were saying all around the country.
HARRIS-PERRY: Yes. And we heard the president, I want to listen to this
again, just in case as people were watching, particularly the emotion of
the president, you may have missed that when he spoke yesterday, he did in
fact include some of this chronic violence. So, let`s listen for just a
moment.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: As a country, we have been
through this too many times, whether it`s an elementary school in Newtown
or shopping mall in Oregon, or a temple in Wisconsin, or a movie theater in
Aurora, or a street corner in Chicago, these neighborhoods are our
neighborhoods, and these children are our children.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HARRIS-PERRY: Michael, or a street corner in Chicago. So if 26 people die
in one day, full stop, it`s a tragedy.
MICHAEL ERIC DYSON, MSNBC CONTRIBUTOR: Right.
HARRIS-PERRY: If 26 people die in a month, it is a tragedy, full stop.
DYSON: Right. Right.
The reality is that a lot of work went into getting that sentence into that
president`s mouth on that particular day. The existential anxiety he felt
as a former member of the Chicago community came full force, but also the
strategic intervention of people who said, hey, what about us? Because it
doesn`t deny the legitimacy, as you`ve just indicated, of the horrific evil
that we have seen unspooled before us.
The threads of our common chaos just displayed before the world to see.
But the reality is that we have become accustomed to believing that little
black and brown kids and poor white kids in various spots across our
landscape are due this kind of violence. You know, we are surprised it
happened here.
It is not supposed to happen here, which means by implication that it is
supposed to happen there in Detroit or Oakland or California and in L.A.
and the like. I think that`s the tragedy here.
And when Ari talked about adolescence, and the loss of adolescence, and
what childhood do these young people have? We spend more time worried
about a rapper speaking about a gun than the guns to which they make
reference. We are more concerned about the metaphoric and symbolic
intensity than the actual existing violence.
And then, finally, what`s interesting here is that some of the authority
figures who rush to help our brothers and the sisters in Newtown, you know,
the police who are seen as helpers, in those communities about which we
speak, much of the violence, a significant portion of that violence is
executed at the behest of a state authority whether a police person or the
like against those vulnerable people, and there is the lack of cultural
empathy, there is a lack of saying what did Michael Isikoff say, you know,
he was a troubled child.
Well, there are no troubled children named Jamal or Janiqua (ph), it seems
to be, so we don`t have that kind of empathy to understand what they are
dealing, of lead poisoning in their schools, lack of economic sufficiency
for their mothers and fathers. The excitatory effects of concentrated
poverty, which means you live in a poor house and poor neighborhood, poor
community. And that means that you are altogether, 24/7, exposed to things
that we see episodically and exceptionally happened to others.
HARRIS-PERRY: I want to pose right there, because I do -- I do want to
miss this, and I don`t want to miss in part because, you know, the policy
conversations we`re going to have now are going to be about gun control.
DYSON: Right.
HARRIS-PERRY: Which is fine, and I think we should.
DYSON: But I don`t want to miss that what you just laid, what it means to
be a child who is hungry, who has lead exposure, who in my city, who is a
small child who lives through Katrina, and then as a teenager is living in
the chronic violence in our streets, it seems to me that the kind of trauma
that young people are facing, and yet we don`t see them as victims so
often, because it does not happen in a kind of concentrated way.
We think of them as both perpetrators and as somehow -- I mean, every time
we say this should not have happened here, it is as though we are saying it
is not such a big deal that it happens there. I just want the same level
of outrage. That`s all.
DYSON: You know what? That`s a great point, because -- and not only that,
think about what you said brilliantly summarizing that, but think about
those young people who get the cues from the society, and they go like, you
know, I don`t make that much of a difference.
So, it`s easier to transmit the virus of violence to somebody else near me,
because if you look like me and I have seen that the television tells me
that I don`t look like you, the president doesn`t come to my defense, the
mayor doesn`t come to my defense, the governor doesn`t come to my defense,
they don`t lower my flag, they talk about my lowered genes as a symptom of
my essential moral inferiority, let`s raise the flag but let`s also raise
our vision to understand that everybody flies under that flag and everybody
deserves equal amounts of attention.
HARRIS-PERRY: More on this when we come back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HARRIS-PERRY: We are back and discussing the tragedy in Newtown,
Connecticut, and also trying to broaden out a little bit to this
conversation of how traumatized young people are around questions of
violence general in our country. Jeff, it feels to me like we can -- we
should have some expectations for what these young people over the course
of the next year are going to be experiencing.
GARDERE: Yes.
HARRIS-PERRY: Let me ask you what we ought to expect from these 5 to 10-
year-olds, what should their parents and the families and the communities
been looking for?
GARDERE: Well, first and foremost, very quickly, they have to look at
issues of sleep, issues of appetite, very poor appetite. Some will overeat
in order to self-medicate themselves. But they will have, and this is
where we make the mistakes ourselves, because we say that our children are
resilient.
Therefore, if they`re not talking about what they are thinking or what
they`re experiencing -- well, then they are OK, and that is why it`s so
important that we will have to get them treatment to get them to talk about
and get them to draw, to get them to act out in play therapy, what it is
that they are feeling which is the fear, the anxiety, the fact of losing
all normalcy. You talk about the dying of innocence there. There is no
innocence for them.
And so, as these children become afraid of going back to school, which will
happen, this is why it`s important that we show and give as much stability
as possible to these children, not just the ones in the schools, but the
ones in the town, not just the ones in the town, but those in surrounding
communities, or anyone else that has been affected, because this will
forever change how children look at school.
HARRIS-PERRY: So, Joy, take what Jeff is telling us there, and expend it
out to the conversation that Mike and Ari and I were just having, if this
is what we can expect, for kids who`ve had this single trauma,
sleeplessness and eating disorder, and fear of going into public places --
GARDERE: And nightmares.
HARRIS-PERRY: Nightmares. What if this is your normal? What if -- what
if that kind of violence has become your expectation?
REID: Yes, I mean, I was thinking, as you were talking about a case in
Miami of a shooting that took place outside of an inner city school in
Miami, so that there was a body right outside, and that in this community,
this is something that these children were seeing on a constant and
continual basis, people they know dying and people who will tell you as a
matter of fact tell you that a cousin was murdered, children will matter of
factually -- matter of fact tell you that someone in their family killed
someone. Children who are dealing with the same drama, but not a flash
trauma, a continual drone of violence.
And then we look at the school performance. We look at their inability to
perform on tests. We look at their inability to function in society or to
become successful or to become lawyers or go to college --
GARDERE: Or act out sexuality.
REID: Right. And in this community, and this inner city Miami community,
you had every pathology you could think of, higher incidents of HIV/AIDS,
higher incidents of incarceration, and you have to ask yourself, did nobody
ever wonder whether or not there needed to be this intervention for them,
and when there was a first flash, that nothing happened and the school
didn`t close, the community came together for a minute, but then another
shooting next week.
HARRIS-PERRY: I will never forget that my husband was running for office
in New Orleans and, then, I attended with him, you know, just a meeting of
kids in an auditorium, and these were elementary school kids, and he asked
the question, how many of you in this room know someone or are related to
someone who have been shot? And more than 3/4 of the hands went up. And
then he said, how many of you know people or related to people who are in
prison, and basically, every hand went up, and I thought, in our
conversation about education reform, like how do we miss the answer to that
question has such an enormous impact on who these young people are.
MELBER: Exactly. And it goes to the fact that it does not match about the
story that we like to tell about ourselves.
HARRIS-PERRY: Yes.
MELBER: You know, 69 percent of Americans have personally held and shot a
gun, myself included. We are highly militarized society. But we`re not a
highly trained society.
If you look at societies that have for example universal military
conscription like Israel, you have a lot of guns, but you have 2 1/2 years
of training, men and women, and everyone together.
HARRIS-PERRY: Yes.
MELBER: And what you see there, although that society has a lot of other
problems and they have foreign policy violence, but they actually have far,
far lower rates of domestic crime and gun-related violence.
REID: By the way, they don`t have guns at home. That`s the other issue
with Israel. Most of the guns are not in homes.
MELBER: No, but a lot of the soldiers are on reserves, and a lot of this -
-
REID: Right.
MELBER: I would say they don`t have a lot of semiautomatics, or, you know,
a whole range of guns and handguns, and the antique guns, and they don`t
have all the gun culture we have here. But a lot of the reserve soldiers
have some kind of weapon, but they have been trained.
What we have from the inner city to the rural area is this explosion of
guns for some of the policy reasons we discussed earlier in this show, and
no kind of format of how to train and how to the safely deal with it, and
where to put it. And then, all of the cultural problems that you are
touching on and inequity.
HARRIS-PERRY: Michael, I`m going to give you the first voice when we come
back.
Thank you, Joy, for being here.
The rest are back for more, because when we come back, I do want to talk
about these issues of how do we begin to protect our children. And, Mike,
I want to talk to you about sort of what our impulses here are, versus what
might actually make us safer when we come back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HARRIS-PERRY: Often the first reaction to a tragedy like what occurred in
Newtown yesterday is to barricade ourselves in from future harm, like a
terrorist attack and forces us to take off our shoes and abandon liquids at
the airports, a school shooting prompts, metal detectors and lock gates.
But there are no locks strong enough or security checks detailed enough to
keep us safe from all violence, only systemic and wide ranging policy
changes can have the kind of change impact that we hope to have.
Joining our panel now is Gregory Thomas, who is the former director of
security for New York City schools. He`s also the deputy director of
planning and response in the National Center for National Preparedness at
Columbia University School Health.
Gregory, I want to come to you first, because you know I got an email from
my daughter`s school in New Orleans, nowhere near Newtown, Connecticut,
right after all this, saying, "Just wanted to reassure you that our gates
work and our locks work and," you know -- and I felt, OK, good, but I also
know that you can`t just build a moat. There`s something bigger here.
What is the common sense strategy for school safety?
GREGORY THOMAS, FMR. SECURITY DIR., NYC SCHOOLS: Well, I`ll tell you, the
first thing hardest for me to do as a parent, as a practitioner in the
field to come on national TV and tell parents that it`s going to be OK on
Monday morning. The best place for children to be during the day, hours of
the week when you are at wok or wherever you are is in schools, school is
the safest place to be.
So, looking at that, we have to make sure we look at the lessons learned
from this incident and others prior to that, and then make some robust
lesson plans, and that goes to looking at your safety plans in schools and
making sure that they are up-to-date, because these events are not static,
they`re dynamic.
So, if you think that this may never happen again, it never happens to you
and your area, again, that`s not the case. And there`s been some studies
that shown that again by these shootings that have been perpetrated in
schools where they have had targeted violence, where the perpetrator chose
the school. There are 10 warning signs that tell you it`s going to happen.
And as I watched the coverage over the last few days, I was able to check
the box for these warning signs that show that this young man was troubled.
They said he was socially awkward. He also had a challenge at home
recently with the parents divorced, and may have been some kind of
indication. But more importantly, it`s not just a one-off event, it was
not impulsive. It`s probably planned.
And unless the -- and unfortunately, most of these cases, too, law
enforcement does not play a major role in calling the event.
HARRIS-PERRY: Yes, in respond.
THOMAS: In respond, but it seems to be at that point, too late, because
they`ve already perpetrated some suicide.
HARRIS-PERRY: So, I worry about this, Michael, because I feel like, I
mean, I remember when we started putting the metal detectors in schools --
DYSON: Right.
HARRIS-PERRY: -- and on one hand, I think, OK, now maybe we feel safer,
but we`ve also criminalized, I mean, it`s almost the point about social
awkwardness.
DYSON: Right.
HARRIS-PERRY: And, yet, you don`t want to take every socially awkward kid
and say, you look like a potential serial murder.
DYSON: That`s a great point because what has happened, if, you know, poor
people and people of color are the canaries in the coal mines, because
that`s really what`s happening here. This stuff has been going on in the
hood for so long.
Now, it`s metastasizing across the body politic, and the cancer cells are
being spotted because the social oncologist, or the other pointed out,
sorry for all that medal stuff -- but the point is what ends up happening,
though, is that you look at, you know, demonizing people themselves, and
then it`s multi-evidential, because socially awkward could just be that you
are socially awkward and you`re going to grow up and be somebody who is a
nerd and somebody who is a physicist.
HARRIS-PERRY: Right.
DYSON: So I think that it`s hard to tell, only in the aftermath that this
particular to predict the fact that out of thousands of awkward kids, one
of them is going to be a mass murderer, which is very difficult to predict.
MELBER: That`s a great point. I want to ask a local question for you,
Gregory. You know, I went to a high school, and, Melissa, and I were
talking about this yesterday, I went to a high school in the city when I
was about 15, we had a kid in school hours shoot two other student, and
nobody was killed, but we went through -- and it was Garfield High School
in Seattle -- and we went through the incredible trauma.
And that level that you have worked at, as an administrator --
THOMAS: Yes?
MELBER: -- we`re not talking about the NRA and Congress. Those are
important issues that are at different levels of governance. But we had a
lot of conversations about metal detectors, about whether there should be
more armed guards in the school.
What we came out to in that decision -- I`m condensing -- was not to make
the change, because the nature of the school was 1,700 students, we weren`t
going to metal detect everybody, because it was not viable. What do you
when you`re dealing in that regard and new schools that you worked in, and
you get those requests, and people want to be safe, but you have to make
policy decisions.
THOMAS: I mean, to that point, I mean, we know that the metal detectors or
other kinds of technologies, can serve as pacifiers but not panaceas. And
if you just default right away to giving metal detectors, you`re not
especially solving the problem. We know for example also, and other
studies, that many times students are carrying weapons to school, not
because a school is unsafe, because they`re way too informed that the
school was unsafe.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Right.
THOMAS: So, you have to make sure you don`t just do this in a vacuum. You
have to really analyze the data that`s given to you from local law
enforcement about what`s happening in the school in general, because again,
these knee-jerk reactions that tend to happen, sometime, again, they put a
salve on it, but there`s a bigger problem.
GARDERE: I agree with you, when we look at this whole idea of metal
detectors, sometimes it becomes just like corporal punishment, child acts
out, child has an issue, we resort -- we resort to hitting the child
instead of looking at the bigger issue. And so, just throwing the metal
detectors at this problem is not the answer by itself. That`s just the tip
of the iceberg.
What do you need to do to make kids safe? If there`s a child who`s
awkward, it`s OK to be awkward.
HARRIS-PERRY: Yes, we celebrate nerdiness.
GARDERE: That`s the new sexy, OK?
(CROSSTALK)
GARDERE: I was the nerd for the long time and still am obviously.
But bottom line, if we are looking at a child that`s awkward, OK, let`s
take it to the next step -- what else do we see? Is the child awkward,
because the child -- that`s who the child is or is the child awkward
because there are some strange thoughts running in that child`s mind?
DYSON: Right.
GARDERE: The child can`t get along with other.
HARRIS-PERRY: Are they being bullied?
GARDERE: Are they being bullied? The beginning of some sort of a
personality disorder.
So we don`t want to stigmatize any child, but we want to educate parents
and educate teachers, how do you begin to address the issue?
HARRIS-PERRY: I want to follow up on this idea that school is still the
safest place to be, because, you know, obviously, this is part of the
conversation in the Chicago teacher`s strike, and part of it was
conversation of longer days and the mental health services in the schools.
And at this point, that there might be a kid trying to do the right thing,
trying to go to school, but is walking through or getting on the bus in
dangerous neighborhoods and feels because we have said as a culture, if you
feel like you`re in danger, then carry a weapon, carry a sidearm. And so,
they may not be coming to school to do violence with their gun, they may --
and I think that level of complications at beginning, as you pointed out,
Ari, not to imagine ourselves as living in this little happily valley
world, but really to see the world in which our kids live.
DYSON: Well, see, the point that you`re making is so important because
what it says is that we are trying to do everything except for the thing
that we know what to do, which is the guns and their proliferation have had
a lethal impact on our society, because what we are worried about here --
you know, all of the panaceas that we come up here, or all the moats that
you say that we try to build up so we can keep the violence out, it doesn`t
work. The stuff just does not work ultimately, because somebody with
malicious intent is going to find a way to do it.
But we don`t have to enable them. We are a nation of enablers. We are
enabling through the gun policies that are so lax.
And the NRA lobby which is so powerful, we have refused to do what is
common sense to us, that is this stuff is wrong, it`s lethal, it has a
horrible effect on us -- so why can`t we as a nation come together and say,
look, we`re not going to repeal the Second Amendment, but goddammit, can`t
we put some curbs on people`s access to guns that will have a great and
powerful effect on our community.
HARRIS-PERRY: And we have to take break on that. We`re going to come back
with more on this issue, and more on the shooting in Connecticut, next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HARRIS-PERRY: We are back and discussing the issue of safety.
Gregory, I think that -- you know, obviously, Jeff, all parents are going
to be asking, how should I talk to my kids?
GARDERE: Yes.
HARRIS-PERRY: And, Gregory, I think all parents are also going to be
asking, what should I say to my schools, right? What should I as a parent
now, in the aftermath of this, go in and say, here`s what I would like to
see, with the recognition that we live in the vulnerable world, and what
are some of the answers to how we do that?
ROBERTS: Well, first of all, we need to make sure that parents are
involved in the safety planning because they are a key stakeholder.
GARDERE: Right.
ROBERTS: And studies have shown, for example at Columbia University, we
did a study. We asked parents every year, are you aware of your child`s
safety plan at school? And many said no.
We asked them, for example, if you were at work or in another place, and
were told by government to go north, because north is safer than south for
some event, would you go north? They said, no. We asked them why. They
said, because I`m going south to my child`s school first to pick them up.
Now, that`s going counter to what we just told you. We told you that going
south is not safe. That clearly shows you that parents don`t know much
about the safety plan. They have to make sure they go to school, learn
about the safety plan, learn about what lockdown means.
I heard a parent, unfortunately, asked the question about how she was
notified. She said she was robo-called. OK, she was told that it was a
lockdown and they asked her if she know what that means, she said no.
We have to know what lockdown means, because lockdown may mean don`t go to
the school, because you want to make sure we can have local enforcement,
the responders get to school safely with no gridlock. But you`re going to
the school to do a wrong thing.
So, in some really, it`s a matter of engaging the school, and making sure
that you are a key partner this safety planning.
HARRIS-PERRY: I was extremely impressed -- I just want to say this -- with
the teachers in this community. I mean, as much as we were saying, OK,
this is a place where nobody thought this would happen, apparently, some
preparedness people thought it could.
ROBERTS: Sure.
HARRIS-PERRY: And I don`t think we know enough yet to know how many lives
may or may not have been saved, but just the stories and images we do have
of teachers and the way that they acted and behaved. And it was sort of
like the question I asked you before about first line responders, for all
of the attacks on teachers that we have seen over the course of the past
year, this is such a reminder that teachers are the people keeping our kids
safe when we are not there full stop.
And I am just, what so many teachers clearly did in this circumstance is
amazing.
ROBERTS: I got to tell you one thing I also know personally again from
9/11 which happened here under my watch, a teacher on that day, we had
eight schools near the former World Trade Center towers, and two high
schools about 350 yards south of the South Tower. And they were evacuated,
9,000 students and staff evacuated not because of anything I did or my
colleagues did, but because of the teachers and very smart-thinking
principals.
One teacher was quoted as saying she learned a very important lesson on
that day. She could only go as fast as her slowest child.
HARRIS-PERRY: Yes.
Jeff, I want to ask you our last moments here before we take a quick break.
But -- so this is what we`ll have to say to our schools. What do we say to
our kids tonight? People living everywhere, their kids are starting to
hear it, they`re starting to talk about it.
What do we talk to our children about?
GARDERE: One of the most important things we do before we even speak is to
hug our kids. Show them that we love them. Show them that there is safety
at home and they will be safe. Of course, there are no guarantees in going
back to school. But we will try to keep them as safe as possible.
More than anything else, find out what they know, what their questions are,
what it is that they`re experiencing. And then begin there.
And make it a series of conversations. And it`s not just the sit down let
me talk to you, but it`s doing other activities where they can be much more
comfortable in speaking with you.
HARRIS-PERRY: Yes.
GARDERE: So begin that series of conversations right now. And keep that
conversation going always, because there will be other tragedies and other
issues in their lives that we should know about.
HARRIS-PERRY: This is a great lesson I learned having grown up in a family
of girls where you just can sit down and talk, but then when my nephew came
along, it turns with boys, you know, you got to go -- you play basketball
while you talk to them. There`s a way of doing the work while you`re
talking to them.
Thank you to everyone, to Ari Melber, to Michael Eric Dyson, to Gregory
Thomas, and to Dr. Jeff Gardere.
Up next, don`t go away. We`ve got a poem about our children.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HARRIS-PERRY: We expect that our parents will leave us someday, perhaps
too soon and before we are ready. Surely there will be grief.
But it`s within the nature of things that we will someday lay our parents
to rest. But no parent should ever bury a child. We should hold them, we
should dry their tears, we should laugh at their antics, guide their
decisions, but we should not ever have to bury them.
1923, the poet Kahlil Gibran wrote, "Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of life`s longing for itself. They come
through you but not from you. And though they are with you, yet they
belong not to you.
You may give them your love but not their thoughts, for they have their own
thoughts. You may house their bodies but not their souls, for their souls
dwell in the house of tomorrow which you cannot visit. Not even in your
dreams.
You may strive to be like them but seek not to make them like you. For
life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday. You are the bows from
which your children as living arrows are sent forth."
We should be sending them forth. But far too many parents, parents in
Colorado, in Chicago, in New Orleans, and now in Connecticut have buried
those dreams, those futures and those children who should have dwelled in
tomorrow.
We can do better than this. We must.
And that is our show for today. Thanks to you at home for watching and to
the people in Newtown, Connecticut, as well as those affected by gun
violence everywhere -- our thoughts and prayers remain with you.
I`ll be back tomorrow morning at 10:00 a.m. Eastern.
Coverage of the tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary School continues on
"WEEKENDS WITH ALEX WITT", next.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY
BE UPDATED.
END
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