but today the n.r.a. has made it all but impossible for even the bare minimum to move forward in congress, and the other side is all too ready to bow in obeisance to the n.r.a. and service to their whims. madam president, these types of shootings used to be rare, so rare in fact that each occurrence stood apart as a singular event. but now these shootings happen so frequently that the nation can barely keep up, barely mourn the ten people shot in the grocery store in buffalo before being rocked to our collective core by the slaughter of 19 elementary school children in a predominantly latino community of uvalde, texas. these shootings happen everywhere -- movie theaters, grocery stores, colleges campuses, high schools, elementary schools, elementary schools with beautiful children getting ready to move out into the prime of life. honestly, i thought sandy hook ten years ago would be the breaking point. i thought that that would be the tragedy that forced republicans to examine their conscience and think o

every n.r.a. member and i know every decent american is mourning right now. 21 beautiful lives ruthlessly and indiscriminately extinguished by a criminal monster. we are with this community and all of america in prayer. n.r.a. members are parents. we have sons, daughters, and loved ones. these tragedies cause gut-wrenching, unimaginable pain that too many are being forced to go through right now. it's not right. it should never happen again. if we as a nation were capable of legislating evil out of the hearts and minds of criminals who commit these heinous acts, we would have done it a long time ago. we do not agree with president biden on the second amendment. but we share common ground on this. last week, the president said i'm not naive. i know tragedy will come again. it cannot be forever overcome. it cannot be fully understood, either. but there are certain things we can do. n.r.a. members know that to be true. there are absolutely certain things we can and must do. where we part ways with th

we know all too well the vice grip that the n.r.a. and the maga wing hold over the g.o.p., and we have been burned in the past, america has been burned in the past. after the shootings in el paso and dayton three years ago, the republican leader promised that red flag laws and background checks would be front and center in the senate debate. he didn't put them on the floor, and republicans did nothing. but that's not an excuse for democrats not to try. too many families have suffered. too many kids have been lost. too many communities have been destroyed. this is too important not to explore every option. i want to be clear -- this is not an invite to negotiate indefinitely. make no mistake about it. if these negotiations do not bear fruit in a short period of time, the senate will vote on gun legislation, gun safety legislation. let me repeat. if these negotiations do not bear any fruit, the senate will vote on gun safety legislation when we return. but our hope, even amidst our deep skepticism, is that during this week democrats and

though the n.r.a. has faced challenges in recent years, gun rights groups remain powerful, spending $15.8 million on lobbying last year, five times more than what gun-control groups spent. while former president trump and texas senator ted cruz did appear in person, texas governor greg abbott did not. he sent in a prerecorded video. other performers and speakers here, they decided to bow out. margaret. >> brennan: robert costa, thank you. congress is on its memorial day recess until june 6, but some lawmakers are working through the break to find a compromise on new gun safety legislation. cbs' adriana diaz takes a look at one option getting renewed attention: red flag laws. >> reporter: sheila hole's son, brandon, was troubled, so when he bought himself a gun, she used indiana's red flag law to alert police. >> if you're going to red flag anybody, that would be one person to red flag. >> reporter: police did take her son's gun away, but prosecutors did not pursue a red flag designation that would have

or the n.r.a. trying to make money. >> reporter: advocates for more gun laws have also expressed hope that bipartisan discussions in congress on red- red flag laws and background checks will begin to within support. but they know many republican lawmakers are weary of breaking with the n.r.a. so close to the mid-term election. >> brennan: robert costa, thank you. we turn now to governor asa hutchinson who joins us from little rock. good morning to you, governor. >> governor: good morning, margaret. >> brennan: we have spoken before about this before because after sandy hook, you ran a committee. there was an armed officer assigned to the elementary school in uvalde, and then you had a police force response where they did not confront the shooter who was carrying an ar-15. in buffalo, the armed guard who was at that grocery store confronted the shooter but was killed. in parkland, florida, there was an armed officer onsite who did not intervene. doesn't this show this is an insufficient solution to

n.r.a. annual meeting amid several large protests. alicia acuna live from houston. >> hi, griff. the houston police department has moved us away from where our live shot position was earlier on at the george r. brown convention center. the building is behind me where 55,000 attendees over the course of three days, starting yesterday, attending the n.r.a. annual convention. now, we will keep you updated on how things go. right now, protesters are slowly starting to gather in the area. we don't know if it's going to be as intense as it was yesterday, but we have seen a number of cancellations by musicians, a number of cancellations by politicians as well, but there have been notable attendees and of course, former president trump is one of them. he headlined yesterday's opening event. he did honor the victims of the uvalde, massacre, reading the name of each child and teacher killed on tuesday. he also spent time railing against calls for stricter gun control measures. >> the time to find comm

this week we got the n.r.a. and very powerful lobby, holding their annual conference here. that sums up how comfortable texas is when it comes to guns. michelle: our correspondent in uvalde for us. president biden has made an emotional call to americans to stand up to the gun lobby and tighten restrictions. but as our reporter reports, america is as devoted as ever about the so-called right bear arms. >> the problem which came to the awful conclusion that you fa here is a demon have to do more to fight. >> our natn is shocked and saddened by the news of the shootings at virginia tech today. >> since i have been president, this is the fourth time we have come together to comfort a grieving community torn apart by mass shootings. >> as a nation we have to ask, when in god's name are we going to stand up to the gun lobby? when, in god's name, will be do what we all know in our gut needs to be don reporter: in america, perhaps no phrase rings hollow as "never again," because mass shootings in schools keep happening routinely. each time it reignite the raw anger and emotion. >>

but they're the ones who for decades have tied themselves to the n.r.a.'s fanatical devotion to unrestricted, unyielding firearms ownership for political purposes at the expense of real lives. tying themselves to firearms ownership is unnecessary for law abiding citizens to own fir firearms. there are commonsense actions we can take to separate dangerous killers from firearms that are absolutely consistent with the second amendment, as judged by the supreme court, and absolutely consistent with gun ownership by law-abiding people. we know these actions won't save everyone, but there can be no doubt that each of them will save some lives. expanding background checks and closing glaring loopholes in our background check system. getting untraceable ghost guns and military style assault weapons off our streets. protecting domestic violence survivors from gun violence. keeping guns out of the happedzs of domestic -- hands of domestic terp i.r.s.es and violent -- terrorists and violent extremists and those who are a danger to themselves and others. preventing ki

the n.r.a. meeting continues through sunday. and back here at home, a group of young activists are saying enough is enough. this evening, they held a vigil for the mass shooting victims calling for meaningful action. abc7 news reporter at the at the has that -- terra campbell has that story. reporter: hand on heart and a hug in hopes of some healing. remembering the victims of three mass shootness just 10 -- mass shootings in just 10 days. buffalo, lacka woods and uvalde. -- laguna woods and uvalde. >> we're hiding under our desks for our lives. reporter: henry shane is one year out of high school. and says scenes like this are shaking. >> we're barricading ourselves with books and desks and chairs for a weapon of war to walk our halls. that's not ok. that's not normal. reporter: he's one of the young activists organizing this vigil at manny's, a civic engagement space in san francisco's mission district. >> this doesn't have to be this way. we don't need a -- continued to be ok with this suffering and this immense violence. rep

that's what the n.r.a. and other extremists want us to do. the vast majority of americans have made clear they want an end to gun violence. and i refuse to let republicans get away with this yet again, to dance around the real issues, to distract us with conversations about arming teachers or tripp wires, outside elementary schools, enough. enough. we need to force republicans to bear witness to the tragic consequences of their inaction. we need people and families across the country to do the same. no one gets to look away. no one gets to change the subject. i promise all of the students and parents, grandparents, teachers, everyone in washington state that despite the obstruction and silence from my republican colleagues, i will not stay quiet and i will keep pushing for change and i really hope the american people will do the same. using our voices and our votes, we can change things. we can hold republicans accountable and we can make progress to end gun violence. thank you, mr. president, i yield the floor. >> mr. president, it seems ver

the n.r.a. meeting continues through sunday. and back here at home, a group of young activists are saying enough is enough. this evening, they held a vigil for the mass shooting victims calling for meaningful action. abc7 news reporter at the at the has that -- terra campbell has that story. reporter: hand on heart and a hug in hopes of some healing. remembering the victims of three mass shootness just 10 -- mass shootings in just 10 days. buffalo, lacka woods and uvalde. -- laguna woods and uvalde. >> we're hiding under our desks for our lives. reporter: henry shane is one year out of high school. and says scenes like this are shaking. >> we're barricading ourselves with books and desks and chairs for a weapon of war to walk our halls. that's not ok. that's not normal. reporter: he's one of the young activists organizing this vigil at manny's, a civic engagement space in san francisco's mission district. >> this doesn't have to be this way. we don't need a -- continued to be ok with this suffering and this immense violence. rep

it is impossible to track the money flowing in and out of the n.r.a. because it is not properly disclosed, that there has been evidence that russian money has flowed into the n.r.a. and that has not been dispelled by any light of transparency shown by the n.r.a. we are obliged to talk about reasonable responses to these massacres and murders and there is absolutely nothing about the nra's position in these matters that is reasonable. it has an absolutist ideology about guns that is driven by economic motivation to keep the gun manufacturers making profits and they get their way because they enforce bad ideology driven by economic motivation with massive data money and political muscle. it is not the only place in which dark-money and political muscle has disabled the congress, but it is certainly one of the worst. and if we will put an end to it, we have to have a reckoning with the behavior of the n.r.a. and its absolutist positions and its refusal to disclose its donors and the whole mess it has created where we cannot have reasonable bipartisan disc

if we can make progress on this issue in virginia, headquarters of the n.r.a., we can make it in the united states senate. may not happen as quick as i want. may not happen while i'm still here to see it, but there's no reason to give up. if we can do this in virginia, we can do this in the united states senate and we ought to, because there's nothing we can do to bring back the lives of these young people, but if we can act to decrease the chance that this would ever happen again, they will at least have the ability to grab on and say, our advocacy made a difference. and kids who go to school will be safer in the future. last thing i'll say and i'll sit down. i was walking around the building this morning and because i'm fluent in spanish around here know it, a lot of the capitol staffers are latinos and they talk to me in spanish and i passed by a long time capitol worker who said, in spanish, what's going on in this country and i know what you're asking about and it's such a tragedy and she said this to me, she's from el salvador, she said my country is a mess, and the violence is

back in 1999, the columbine massacre happened on april 20th. 10 days later, the n.r.a. was set to hold its convention in denver. there were calls for them to cancel. they refused, however, they did shorten it from three days to one. neil. neil: i did not know that. alicia, thank you very, very much. alicia acuna. there's back and forth and how to correct this problem in the future, whether too many guns, whether you need more armed guard. i want to introduce you to andrew pollock and come to know him and he remembers what happened to his own daughter killed in a school shooting back in florida, parkland, among 17 victims taken out by a shooter with a past and the past was well-known. we don't know quite as much about what happened here in the case of salvador ramos whose past, whatever that was of it, wasn't well-chronicled or well-known at least in violations or anything else that would pop up in a background check. andrew joins us now, good to see you, thank you. >> oh, thanks for having me on, neil. neil: i always appreciate it. and i think of how much you honor your

he said i'm not afraid of the n.r.a. couple of days passed and it turns out he was afraid of the n.r.a. i think that it is impossible now to get any kind of meaningful gun control legislation passed. i think the country has gone crazy, drunk. we're hooked on weapons. more weapons now than there are americans out there. what surprises me isn't how frequent these incidents of mass killings are, it is how infrequent they are given the fact that there are so many weapons out there and the opportunity to put extended magazines and wear body armor and have a helmet, you know, ballistic head to toe. >> dana: i think, though, that emily gets to the point, that we have these processes and either the family or school alerts authorities. he goes to the hospital for a mental health evaluation. nothing is put in his file. we know that from -- during the covid lockdown he was increasingly isolated. he didn't even want to go to school when it opened. he decided to stay home and then he goes and buys a gun when the owner of the gun shop

the most depraved people in our politics who would rather do the bidding of powerful forces like the n.r.a. than do anything to stop these massacres from happening in fact, cruz and donald trump, among others, are still scheduled to address an n.r.a. event in texas on friday these people would rather talk about door control than the obvious answers that have worked in other peer nations across the world, from australia to the u.k. to norway to new zealand, and that's to regulate guns. and by the way, when we've done it here, like the 1994 assault weapons ban, it worked, too. we have too many guns and they're too easy to get, and it's as simple as that and it's sickening and rage-inducing that people in positions of power just ignore those obvious truths, no matter how loud we say them, which might be why beto o'rourke, the democratic candidate for governor in texas, interrupted a press conference yesterday to tell texas governor greg abbott directly in a way that abbott could not ignore that something must be done now to stop these horrific events from happening again. and cruz, who was th

in the shadow of the shooting, the n.r.a.'s annual convention. protesters and major republican speakers rally to join the gun lobby in houston, just 300 miles away from one of the dead

later we'll show you speeches from friday's n.r.a. convention in houston, former president donald trump is among those addressing attendees. that's this saturday on c-span. and a reminder, all these programs and more are available for you to watch on the go any time with c-span now, our free video app. congressional sessions, hearings, speeches and ar kiefl footage all yours with c-span now. jeff moore doc is here, he is with the washington times reporter. here to talk about the durham investigation. let's begin with, what is this investigation, who is the special clout -- special counsel leading it? guest: the former u.s. attorney in connecticut, the top federal prosecutor in that state. he has a reputation for doing big cases, heated cases where he loed

in the shadow of the shooting, the n.r.a.'s annual convention. protesters and major republican speakers rally to join the gun lobby in houston, just 300 miles away from one of th

speeches from friday's n.r.a. convention in houston, former president donald trump is among those addressing attendees. that's this saturday on c-span. and a reminder, all these programs and more are available for you to watch on the go any time with c-span now, our free video app. congressional sessions, hearings, speeches and ar kiefl footage all yours with c-span now. jeff moore doc is here, he is with the washington times reporter. here to talk about the durham investigation. let's begin with, what is this investigation, who is the special clout -- special counsel leading it? guest: the former u.s. attorney in connecticut, the top federal prosecutor in that state. he has a reputation for doing big cases, heated cases where he looked into the mafia in connecticut. he has worked with the fbi in a lot of investigations he has a lot of expense. former attorney general william barr appointed him. we had the three year anniversary of this probe this month. what is interesting about this probe, he has gone -- it has

and yet the n.r.a., the politicians that they've bought and paid for, stand in the way and continue to fail this country, our children, and future generations. i cannot believe how many times i have read things at this board regarding gun violence. i've been shaken to my core once again. as supervisor melgar saw on her way here, as i was when i heard about the buffalo shooting. and i will not stay silent. i will not sit here and shake and be sad and be fearful. i will continue to push back and demand change. and i know all of you will do that with me, because i know it is something that we all agree on. we have to demand better. to think that it can't happen in san francisco, you're absolutely wrong. it can happen here. we're only as safe as the weakest gun laws in the next state over as we saw in the gilroy garlic shooting. -- the festival shooting where a little boy was bouncing in a bounce house at 6 years old and was shot. it has to stop. anyway, i did not want to let this moment go by without saying something and acknowledging the horror once again of what has been inflicted upon

the president within hours comes out and says it's because republicans don't want to stand up to the n.r.a. that's the problem and we should get assault weapons off the streets and everything was dramatically better in that brief period of time when we didn't have assault weapons. and lastly, people are talking about expanding background checks and raising the age from 18 to 21 to buy a firearm. where does herschel walker stand on that? that will be an issue when you try to get that senate seat. >> it's always an issue. they want to score political points. let's be honest. what we need to do is look into the person that did the shooting. the same thing that's happened whether it was in texas, in new york, in chicago, thing happening in buffalo. you know, people will see that it's the person that are yielding that weapon, that's the problem that we have. and i said what we need to do is look into how we can stop those things. what about getting a department that can look at young men, looking at young women and social media. what about doing that? looking at things like that? and we can sto

and yet the n.r.a., the politicians that they've bought and paid for, stand in the way and continue to fail this country, our children, and future generations. i cannot believe how many times i have read things at this board regarding gun violence. i've been shaken to my core once again. as supervisor melgar saw on her way here, as i was when i heard about the buffalo shooting. and i will not stay silent. i will not sit here and shake and be sad and be fearful. i will continue to push back and demand change. and i know all of you will do that with me, because i know it is something that we all agree on. we have to demand better. to think that it can't happen in san francisco, you're absolutely wrong. it can happen here. we're only as safe as the weakest gun laws in the next state over as we saw in the gilroy garlic shooting. -- the festival shooting where a little boy was bouncing in a bounce house at 6 years old and was shot. it has to stop. anyway, i did not want to let this moment go by without saying something and acknowledging the horror once again of what has been inflicted upon

but today the n.r.a. has made it all but impossible for even the bare minimum to move forward in congress, and the other side is all too ready to bow in obeisance to the n.r.a. and service to their whims. madam president, these types of shootings used to be rare, so rare in fact that each occurrence stood apart as a singular event. but now these shootings happen so frequently that the nation can barely keep up, barely mourn the ten people shot in the grocery store in buffalo before being rocked to our collective core by the slaughter of 19 elementary school children in a predominantly latino community of uvalde, texas. these shootings happen everywhere -- movie theaters, grocery stores, colleges campuses, high schools, elementary schools, elementary schools with beautiful children getting ready to move out into the prime of life. honestly, i thought sandy hook ten years ago would be the breaking point. i thought that that would be the tragedy that forced republicans to examine their conscience and think o

the session begins with remarks from n.r.a. c.e.o. wayn

we know all too well the vice grip that the n.r.a. and the maga wing hold over the g.o.p., and we have been burned in the past, america has been burned in the past. after the shootings in el paso and dayton three years ago, the republican leader promised that red flag laws and background checks would be front and center in the senate debate. he didn't put them on the floor, and republicans did nothing. but that's not an excuse for democrats not to try. too many families have suffered. too many kids have been lost. too many communities have been destroyed. this is too important not to explore every option. i want to be clear -- this is not an invite to negotiate indefinitely. make no mistake about it. if these negotiations do not bear fruit in a short period of time, the senate will vote on gun legislation, gun safety legislation. let me repeat. if these negotiations do not bear any fruit, the senate will vote on gun safety legislation when we return. but our hope, even amidst our deep skepticism, is that during this week democrats and

that's what the n.r.a. and other extremists want us to do. the vast majority of americans have made clear they want an end to gun violence. and i refuse to let republicans get away with this yet again, to dance around the real issue, to distract us with conversations about arming teachers or tripwires outside elementary schools. enough. enough. we need to force republicans to bear witness to the tragic consequences of their inaction. we need people and families across the country to do the same. no one gets to look away. no one gets to change the subject. i promise all of the students and parents, grandparents, teachers, everyone in washington state that despite the obstruction and silence from my republican colleagues, i will not stay quiet and i will keep pushing for change and i really hope the american people will do the same. using our voices and our votes, we can change things. we can hold republicans accountable and we can make progress to end gun violence. thank you, mr. president. i yield the floor. mr. wyden: mr. president -- the pr

but they're the ones who for decades have tied themselves to the n.r.a.'s fanatical devotion to unrestricted, unyielding firearms ownership for political purposes at the expense of real lives. tying themselves to firearms ownership is unnecessary for law abiding citizens to own fir firearms. there are commonsense actions we can take to separate dangerous killers from firearms that are absolutely consistent with the second amendment, as judged by the supreme court, and absolutely consistent with gun ownership by law-abiding people. we know these actions won't save everyone, but there can be no doubt that each of them will save some lives. expanding background checks and closing glaring loopholes in our background check system. getting untraceable ghost guns and military style assault weapons off our streets. protecting domestic violence survivors from gun violence. keeping guns out of the happedzs of domestic -- hands of domestic terp i.r.s.es and violent -- terrorists and violent extremists and those who are a danger to themselves and others. preventing ki