 |
|
|
|
Transcript of MSNBC Hardball with Chris Matthews on October 16, 2003 |
|
|
| CHRIS MATTHEW, HOST: This half hour, Washington, D.C.,
the reputed murder capital of the country. And now some Republicans in
Congress say the murder rate might drop if citizens here had better
access to guns. That’s the “HARDBALL Debate.” Plus, Laura Ingraham and Clarence Page with the “Political Buzz.” But, first, the latest headlines right now. (NEWSBREAK) MATTHEWS: The “HARDBALL Debate” tonight. Would lifting the ban on handguns here in Washington, D.C., lead to a lower murder rate? Some Republicans on Capitol Hill think so. Here’s HARDBALL correspondent David Shuster. (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) DAVID SHUSTER, NBC NEWS CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Thanks to a flurry of recent drive-by gang shootings, Washington, D.C., now has nearly as many homicides as it did this time last year. And last year the city finished with 262, the highest per capita murder rate of any big city in the nation. According to Republican Senator Orrin Hatch, the problem is the city’s restrictive firearm ownership laws. He says they are ineffective and deplorable. “We must act,” he says, “and put law abiding citizens in a position to exercise their right to self defense.” Hatch’s Bill would repeal D.C. registration requirements, allow gun ownership without a license, and make it easier to buy a semiautomatic weapon. MICHAEL BEARD, COALITION TO STOP GUN VIOLENCE: It’s a wonderful myth to think that somehow you could use a gun to protect yourself, but we all know what really happens in real life. People reaching for a gun are not going to solve the crime problem in the District of Columbia. SHUSTER: The D.C. police department, which opposes the bill, says most shootings are random or happen before a victim has time to respond. Furthermore, the police chief, city council and mayor all point out that not one gun used to commit a crime over the last 28 years was sold, manufactured, or purchased in the city legally. If Congress wants to make D.C. safer, they argue, lawmakers who don’t live here should fight for more gun control nationally and, specifically, in neighboring Virginia and Maryland. But the National Rifle Association and other gun rights groups say the residents of D.C. are being held hostage. They argue the Constitution gives citizens a right to fight back and deter gun-wielding criminals. GENE HEALY, CATO: If there is an individual right to keep and bear arms, a law that makes it illegal for someone to own a gun in their own home for self-defense, transgresses that protection. SHUSTER: Other gun backers add that since D.C.’s homicide rate is already the worst, the city has nothing to lose by trying something different. (on camera) So the question is, would easier access to firearms in Washington improve public safety, or would it turn the nation’s capital into a frightening version of the Wild West? I’m David Shuster for HARDBALL in Washington. (END VIDEOTAPE) MATTHEWS: Congressman Pat Toomey is a Republican from Pennsylvania, and a sponsor of the bill. And Democrat Eleanor Holmes Norton represents the District of Columbia in the U.S. Congress. Let me ask you, Congressman Toomey, why do you want to change the law to allow people to have shotguns in their house without registering them and also to allow them to keep them loaded? REP. PAT TOOMEY ®, PENNSYLVANIA: Well, first of all, Chris, if gun bans worked, Washington would be the safest city in America instead of the most deadly city in America. MATTHEWS: Why do you say that when we’re surrounded by Virginia and Maryland, who don’t have tough gun control. TOOMEY: Virginia doesn’t have the same kind of homicide rate as Washington does, so obviously, that’s not the cause of the problem in Virginia. MATTHEWS: You can drive across the bridge into Old Town, Virginia, or Alexandria and buy any rifle you want off the shelf. TOOMEY: I know. And Richmond and Alexandria don’t have the same kind of murder rates that we have in Washington. So obviously, it’s not the problem that guns are available in Virginia. The fact is all we do is systematically make sure that law-abiding citizens have no way to defend themselves. MATTHEWS: ... an endless supply. Let’s go. Let’s go. We have a heavy supply of weapons in this area, don’t we? REP. ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, WASHINGTON, D.C.: We sure do, and they all come from Maryland and Virginia. You notice in your clip there were drive-by shootings. That’s thugs shooting thugs. Most of the shootings in the city take place in the street. They’re - ” you know, they’re guys who are selling drugs against other guys who are selling drugs. Almost none of them take place... MATTHEWS: Turf war. NORTON: Right. Almost none of them take place in the home. And when they do, who gets shot? The children, people in domestic violence quarrels, suicides. We have all of that here. What we don’t have and what we would have is a whole lot more murder if you could have guns in your home, because those guns, Chris, would shortly make their way to the streets. MATTHEWS: You live on the Hill, right? NORTON: Right. MATTHEWS: You live on Capitol Hill, which is the neighborhood where they used to have a mixed neighborhood or whatever. It’s on the edge of some poor neighborhoods and some dangerous neighborhoods. Wouldn’t it be better if people who lived in those homes, those row houses on Capitol Hill, those nice red brick row houses, what’s wrong with the guy or woman having a shotgun in the house, just to make sure nobody invades the house? NORTON: Because there’s almost no record of somebody pulling his gun on somebody entering his house. First of all, our thugs are smarter than that. They don’t come in when you’re in the house. They come in when you’re not in the house. This notion about people in their house and getting the draw on people as they come in the door is absurd. They can’t cite instances where this happened. MATTHEWS: What do you do when you hear a noise downstairs? NORTON: Normally that noise downstairs is a cat. What you do is... MATTHEWS: Yes. But what if it turns out to be a cat burglar? NORTON: Yes, but what you do is you call the cops. You’ve got... MATTHEWS: Call them. There’s the question. Go ahead. What happens when you call the police? Are they there in time to save you? TOOMEY: You wait and half hour later... MATTHEWS: Drawing the line around the body on the floor. TOOMEY: Exactly. If the criminal says, you know what, “I’ll have a cup of coffee and wait a half hour for the police to get here and then I’ll just turn myself in.” It’s ridiculous. And, again, I think what people miss the point. Making guns available to law-abiding citizens doesn’t make them into criminals. If I’m able to defend myself by having a gun in my apartment in Washington, it doesn’t make me more any likely to go out and mug you or harm anybody else, but it makes me a little safer in my home. And the fact is criminals know this. What we’ve done is systematically disarm and create sitting victims, sitting ducks, of law-abiding citizens. NORTON: What it does, Chris, is to make everybody else in the home unsafe. It means children shooting children. It means that there’s an ordinary quarrel going on between-between friends and somebody grabs a gun and takes care of it. There are thousands upon thousands of instances of those every year in the United States. Almost no instances of the kind this person is talking about. TOOMEY: But there are thousands of times more instances where the possession of a firearm helped to prevent a crime from happening. NORTON: Almost no instances documented. TOOMEY: Who turned to the criminal and say-I know people who have been able to... NORTON: Sure, anecdotally. TOOMEY: But there’s a lot of statistics as well. The fact is, anecdotally as well as the empirical data, cities like your home city of Philadelphia or near to your home, guns are readily available, and it’s legal. In fact, it’s relatively easy to get a permit. MATTHEWS: Where’s the Second Amendment, Congresswoman? What role does the Second Amendment play in terms of the right to bear arms. Don’t people have the right to bear arms under the Constitution? NORTON: Of course. Except we can regulate how they bear those arms. MATTHEWS: In what way can they bear arms in the city? NORTON: Chris, there’s a 1987 Supreme Court decision that put this to rest. It said, look-it says individual rights are not implicated. You can, of course, regulate the right to bear arms. It says you can use the lowest test, the test that you do not use for constitutional rights. It’s called a rational test. And as long as the regulations are rationally related to safety and to the rights to have a militia, you’re fine. MATTHEWS: You have the right-first of all, the Supreme Court doesn’t say you have to join a militia to have a gun. Do you think you should be able to live in Washington D.C. and have a gun in your home? NORTON: Of course not. And the reason I don’t think you should be able to have a gun... MATTHEWS: Do you have a right to bear arms? NORTON: You have the right to have a rifle, as long as it’s registered in this town. TOOMEY: But it has to be disassembled and unloaded. And as soon as you assemble it... MATTHEWS: No, it has to be unloaded. TOOMEY: I think it has to be disassembled. MATTHEWS: I understand the law says it has to be unloaded. (CROSSTALK) NORTON: ... shoot, Chris. And we don’t want you to shoot people, and if it was loaded, that’s what would end up happening. TOOMEY: The citizens of Washington, D.C., are being treated as second-class citizens, because they’re being denied this constitutional right. NORTON: You’re the last person who should talk. You keep voting... TOOMEY: The Constitution gives Congress the authority to legislate. (CROSSTALK) TOOMEY: I believe that the Congress-ask the Congress to support it, Eleanor... NORTON: If you want to talk second-class citizenship, you want to talk-you tell me why my... (CROSSTALK) NORTON: ... when it’s my money. MATTHEWS: Congresswoman, you made a very good point in the beginning. I know it’s tough talk and it’s hard language, but it’s true. Most of the murders in this city are committed by people who are competitive for turf, usually in drug situations, and they know exactly who they’re shooting, the other guy who they want to take the turf away from. This is out of the “Godfather,” only it’s local. OK? Those people know how to get a hold of a gun, don’t they? NORTON: That’s for sure. MATTHEWS: There’s no-there’s no law you can pass in D.C. that’s going to keep those people who are doing it for a living from going down to Virginia, going down to North Carolina or going to Florida or a guy coming in with a suitcase in the middle of the night... NORTON: Even if I could have one in my home, nothing would keep them from swarming in with guns. MATTHEWS: Well, isn’t that the problem with gun control, Congressman? You’re telling the people who do worry about breaking the law they can’t do it, and people who aren’t worrying about breaking the law laugh at it. TOOMEY: They’re criminals. And by definition that’s the guy who doesn’t follow the law. That’s why we call them criminals. If he’s willing to kill people and commit the kind of crimes we’re talking about, why is he going to follow a gun ban? MATTHEWS: You know those signs all over Capitol Hill where you live? You live in a nice neighborhood. I used to live up there. But it’s a little tricky living up there. I used to walk home late at night. You made sure how you walked. I used to walk in zigzags, just to make sure nobody was following me. You’ve got to be very careful about how you operate late at night up on Capitol Hill. But they have these signs out along the homes. This house is protected by this protection system. NORTON: That’s the way to do it. MATTHEWS: Suppose you knew which houses had-the guy had a shotgun in. You’d never burglarize that House. NORTON: And of course, they don’t know that. MATTHEWS: You’d never rob the house. NORTON: They wouldn’t care, because they have no respect for human life. TOOMEY: They respect their own lives. They don’t want to die. Criminals are not completely irrational. They’re bad people. They break the laws. NORTON: They are completely irrational. They shoot drive-by shootings in a completely irrational way. TOOMEY: No, they’re concerned about their own lives. MATTHEWS: You live way out in the country in Pennsylvania, way out in the country. TOOMEY: Yes, I do. MATTHEWS: And you live in a place where there’s no police really around. They could never-You could dial 911 there, you’d die 40 times. They’re not going to get there in time. Is that a different situation than living in a city? TOOMEY: It’s a different situation, but it doesn’t mean the Second Amendment applies in some places and not in others. MATTHEWS: Aren’t you allowed to have a shotgun in your house if you live out in-No policeman is going to come and stop you. (CROSSTALK) NORTON: You say the... MATTHEWS: People have less rights here. NORTON: I think that the District of Columbia we have a right to control our own city. What you do in Pennsylvania-this is D.C. MATTHEWS: But the person from Pennsylvania who moves to Washington, does that person have less of a right of the Second Amendment? NORTON: Absolutely because guns are controlled on a local jurisdictional basis. TOOMEY: No. Absolutely not. You have a Second Amendment right regardless of where you live in America. NORTON: Not according to the Supreme Court. MATTHEWS: You know what I think? I think you’re going to be arguing this 100 years from now, as well as arguing D.C. statehood and all the other good causes. Eleanor, it’s great having you on. Great woman. Thank you. Good luck in that race against Specter, that primary fight up there. You have a man of the right, a conservative against a man of somewhere vaguely in the center. Anyway, thank you, Congressman Pat Toomey and Representative Eleanor Holmes Norton of Washington, D.C. |