MSNBC "Hardball with Chris Matthews" - Transcript
Interview
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REP. EMANUEL CLEAVER (D), MISSOURI: Well, knowing how members of Congress misuse their tongues, I can imagine what would happen if they had guns.
(LAUGHTER)
(CROSSTALK)
REP. JIM MORAN (D), VIRGINIA: Nice one, Emanuel.
CLEAVER: Well, hey.
I don"t think that"s the smart thing to do. I think Congressman King has the right idea. There is no excuse, absolutely no excuse, for anyone to attend a political gathering with a gun. That sends a bad signal, and it could create some bad, bad things if things somehow got out of control.
MATTHEWS: You know, Congressman Moran, I just wonder about that. It seems to me you can be for the Second Amendment, you can be completely for the right of hunters and self-protection, even in the extreme case against your own government, if that"s what you believe. It"s in the Constitution.
But why do you--look at this. We have these guys. This guy"s walking around. At presidential events, they show up with guns. How"s the Secret Service going to keep track of all the guns? How do they know which nut is in the room or which the bad guys are? With all these guys walking around with guns, all they have to do is draw it. I"m not anti-gun per se, but guns at political meetings, I don"t get the idea.
MORAN: It"s insane.
MATTHEWS: Why not wear uniforms, go all the way?
MORAN: Chris, I agree with you. It"s insane.
Since Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King were assassinated, more than a million Americans in the United States have been killed by guns. Now, of course, that does include suicides and some accidental deaths and so on, but we live in a violent culture that no other industrial, civilized society experiences -- 150,000 gun deaths just in the last decade.
And, in fact, the Supreme Court, even though I disagree with the ruling, they said that you can have conditions on the sale and the commercial transactions of guns. And, certainly, what we at least ought to do is to reinstate the assault weapon ban.
Why somebody needs a gun with 30 rounds, I mean, it has nothing to do with hunting. It has nothing to do with self-defense.
MATTHEWS: Well, you know the argument.
(CROSSTALK)
MATTHEWS: Congressman, you know the argument. It"s the slippery slope argument. You know the argument. If you start taking away the right to own these magazines with all the bullets in them, if you take away the rights to own a semiautomatic, you will take away the right to own a shotgun. That"s the argument.
(CROSSTALK)
MORAN: It is about individual freedom.
But shouldn"t people have the freedom to live? Shouldn"t that little girl have had the freedom to go to a discussion with her congresswoman without getting killed?
This is crazy. And the NRA, I do think, bears responsibility, but it"s more than that. It"s largely the Congress, who won"t stand up to the gun lobby.
(CROSSTALK)
MATTHEWS: Let"s talk about the mix of vitriol. You were in that famous scene, or infamous scene, Congressman Cleaver. I don"t know you, sir, but I have seen you walk past that line of people.
And I don"t whether you call it spitting, or we used to call it, "Mad" magazine, ball (INAUDIBLE), but this guy spat all over you, basically. And this kind of anger coming from a man"s face right to you, there you are, a gentleman member of Congress, and you get this kind of abuse.
And there you are wiping your face off. Imagine if that guy"s got a gun on him and he"s got more attitude coming at you.
CLEAVER: Well, what has happened in Congress and around the nation for that matter is that we have forgotten how to have a civil discourse.
Right now, there is no way we can, in a very sane manner, have a discussion about guns, for example, because we have not established the rules for conduct. We can"t have a debate now, because all debates seem to be fact-free.
And if there are no rules, unwritten and unspoken rules, that would require the least amount of common decency, we can"t resolve any problems. And we are--we have an avalanche of problems falling in on us. And, right now, ideology trumps problem-solving.
MATTHEWS: Well said.
And if you"re really crazy politically, you can always find some blogger or a group of bloggers who will agree with you and support your craziest ideas, and you can enjoy their company.
MORAN: Absolutely. I wish we had more people like Emanuel Cleaver in public service, frankly, Chris.
But I should mention this legislation by Peter King. I was on a conference call with Mayor Bloomberg"s office this morning. And it seemed like a good idea at first. I don"t--
MATTHEWS: Is it constitutional?
MORAN: Well, I"m not going to support it.
MATTHEWS: OK.
MORAN: In the first place, whether it"s constitutional or not, it implies that we"re far more concerned about ourselves than our constituents.
MATTHEWS: Yes, I know.
MORAN: When we talk about the fact that there were a million people killed since Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King, what about those people? They should be our first consideration, not our own protection. So, I don"t think we ought to support --
MATTHEWS: Well, what about people riding the subway every night on their night shift?
MORAN: Well, I mean, that"s why Carolyn McCarthy is involved in this issue. Her husband was mowed down, along with a lot of other people, from an assault weapon. We should at least reinstate the assault weapon--
(CROSSTALK)
MATTHEWS: And I don"t think it"s about ideology. I think you can be far-right or far-left and still respect the point of view of the other person on the other end as an American who totally disagrees with you. It doesn"t mean he"s evil.
This fundamental problem we have today is a person disagrees with you, they"re evil. That is childish. It"s high school. And it"s perpetrated too much on the airwaves, that mentality. And it"s idiotic.
Thank you, Jim Moran.
And, thank you, Congressman Cleaver.
Thank you both, gentlemen, for joining us.
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