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NBC host David Gregory on Sunday confronted National Rifle Association CEO Wayne LaPierre for "thwarting the will" of the public by opposing universal background checks while a vast majority of the public supports them.

Following an interview where New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg said that he planned to use part of his personal fortune to defeat candidates who oppose gun control, Gregory asked LaPierre if he was "preparing to arm politically people" support gun rights?

"We have people sending us five, 10, 15 dollar checks, saying, 'Stand up to this guy that says we can only have three bullets,'" the NRA chief explained. "Stand up to this guy that says ridiculous things like the NRA wants firearms with nukes on them. I mean, it's insane the stuff he says."

"Ninety percent of people want background checks," Gregory pointed out. "Among people who own guns, 85 percent support [background checks]. Are you thwarting the will of the American people by standing in opposition to universal background checks?"

"No, not at all," LaPierre insisted. "Because here's the thing, the whole thing -- universal checks -- is a dishonest premise. There's not a bill on the Hill that provide a universal checks, criminals aren't going to be checked, they're not going to do this. The shooters in Tucson, in Aurora, in Newtown -- they're not going to be checked, they're unrecognizable."

The pro-gun lobbyist suggested that the NRA would even oppose the current background check system if Congress tried to pass it again today because "it's a speed bump for the law abiding."

"It slows down the law abiding and does nothing to anybody else," he insisted.

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Former Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich says that AR-15 military-style rifles should not be banned and that it is just "lovely propaganda" to call them "assault weapons."

Following the introduction on Thursday of Sen. Diane Feinstein's (D-CA) bill to ban assault weapons, CNN host Piers Morgan reminded Gingrich that Aurora shooter James Holmes used an AR-15 that could fire 100 bullets in a minute and it was legal under current law.

"How many more bullets do you need to fire, Mr. Speaker, before that qualifies as a dangerous killing machine by your criteria?" Morgan wondered.

"Well, by my criteria, and this goes back to the question of what you respect, Piers," Gingrich asserted. "I think the Second Amendment really matters."

"I put it to you that an AR-15 military-style assault weapon was used in the last five mass shootings," Morgan pointed out.

"It's not a military-style assault weapon," Gingrich insisted. "Look, this is a lovely propaganda."

"What else do you call then?" Morgan pressed. "A machine that can fire 100 bullets in a minute. What else do you call it?"

"I would simply say to you that millions of people, by your own definition, own an AR-15," the Georgia Republican explained. "They're law-abiding. They think it is their right under our Constitution to own it, and don't kid the rest of us."

"[T]he reason you find so many of us, and by the way, it's a substantial majority -- I think the last time I saw, 63 percent of the American people agree that the Second Amendment is actually there to protect us from tyranny," Gingrich continued. "The reason you find so many of us very reluctant to go down this road is we believe each step down this road leads to the next step and the next step and the next step."

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Lawrence O'Donnell read the entire op-ed which appeared in the L.A. Times in his rewrite segment this Thursday evening: Loughner’s Judge Makes Conservative Plea For Gun Control:

Larry Alan Burns, the federal district judge in San Diego who just last month sentenced Tuscon shooter Jared Lee Loughner to seven consecutive life terms plus 140 years in federal prison, is no darling of the gun control movement.

Burns is a self-described conservative, appointed to the bench by President George W. Bush, and he agrees with the Supreme Court’s decision in District of Columbia vs. Heller, which held that the 2nd Amendment gives Americans the right to own guns for self-defense. He is also a gun owner.

But while sentencing Loughner in November, Burns questioned the need for high-capacity magazines like the one Loughner had in his Glock, and said he regretted how the Federal Assault Weapons Ban was allowed to lapse in 2004. On Thursday, reacting to last week’s mass shooting in Newtown, Conn., Burns publicly called for a new assault weapons ban “with some teeth this time,” in an op-ed published by The Los Angeles Times.

A conservative case for an assault weapons ban:

If we can't draw a sensible line on guns, we may as well call the American experiment in democracy a failure.

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Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX) on Sunday insisted that a tragic massacre at Sandy Forks Elementary School in Connecticut could have been prevented if Principal Dawn Hochsprung had been armed with an M4 carbine, an assault rifle designed by the U.S. military for urban warfare.

During an interview on Sunday, Fox News host Chris Wallace asked Gohmert if he still believed that the country would be safer if more people were armed as he had said after a mass shooting at a theater in Aurora, Colorado earlier this year.

"Every mass killing of more than three people in recent history has been in a place where guns were prohibited -- except for one," the Texas Republican explained. "They choose this place, they know no one will be armed."

Gohmert became emotional as he continued: "You know, having been and judge and having reviewed photographs of these horrific scenes and knowing that children have these defensive wounds -- gunshots through their arms and hands as they try to protect themselves -- and hearing the heroic stories the principal, lunging trying to protect -- Chris, I wish to God she had had an M4 in her office locked up. So, when she heard gunfire she pulls it out and she didn't have to lunge heroically with nothing in her hands, but she takes him out, takes his head off before he can kill those precious kids."

Wallace noted that when the Second Amendment was written, weapons like the AR-15 Adam Lanza used to kill 20 children last week -- which can shoot up to five rounds in a second -- did not exist.

"These were created for law enforcement, these were created for the military," Wallace observed. "Why does the average person -- I can understand a hunting rifle, I can understand and handgun -- why do they need these weapons of mass destruction?"

"Well, for the reason George Washington said: a free people should be an armed people," Gohmert replied. "It insures against the tyranny of the government if they know that the biggest army is the American people then you don't have the tyranny that came from King George."

"Once you start drawing the line, when do you stop?" he wondered. "You use your head and you look at the facts."

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Democratic Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper on Sunday suggested that assault weapons may be used in so many mass shootings because of their depiction in video games, but he stopped short of calling for reinstating a ban on those military-style, urban-warfare firearms.

CNN host Candy Crowley on Sunday reminded Hickenlooper that he had said there was very little that could be done to stop a determined mass killer after the theater massacre in Aurora, Colorado this year and asked him if he still felt that way after the shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut last week.

"That's true," the Colorado governor agreed. "What you can do is expand your capacity, your framework within a state or within the country to have more people paying attention and trying to detect folks that are unstable on the verge of real trouble, try to catch them at a certain level."

"But certainly the culture of violence -- and look at the level of violence in our media, video games," he added. "The depiction of assault weapons again and again. There might well be some direct connection between people who have mental instability and when they go over the edge, they transpose themselves, they become part of one of those videos games. And perhaps that's why all these assault weapons are used."

But Hickenlooper dodged Crowley's question when she asked if it was time for "a law banning either these high-capacity magazines or, again, re-instituting the ban on assault weapons."

"The access to guns is going to get discussed," he insisted. "Our country is based on -- that Second Amendment has been shown repeatedly, it does protect people's rights bear arms, to have guns. You know, my grandfather taught me how to shoot and clean a 12-gauge shotgun and showed me how to hunt and I've shown my son. I mean, that tradition is very powerful throughout this country."

"But, you know, discussion around assault weapons and high-capacity magazines, and what type of -- should there be wait? You know, one of the things we're doing in Colorado is looking at expanding the time if someone's had a mental-illness hold, expanding the time they have to wait before they can get access to a firearm. Those kinds of things, I think those discussions are going to happen, I mean, in real time over the next couple of months."

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Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) says there is no proof that gun control leads to less gun violence, but he is willing to "look at everything" following a massacre in Aurora, Colorado that left least 12 dead and 58 wounded.

"I don't know, to tell you the truth, what we can do, and this immediately leads to the issue of gun control," McCain told CNN's Candy Crowley. "The killer in Norway, which is a country that has very strict gun control laws, and yet he was still able to acquire the necessary means to initiate and carry out a mass slaughter."

"I think we need to look at everything, if that even should be looked at, but to think that somehow gun control is -- or increased gun control -- is the answer, in my view, that would have to be proved," he added.

Crowley noted that James Holmes, the suspected Colorado shooter, had, over short period of time, purchased an arsenal of weapons and equipment, including an AR-15 semi-automatic assault rifle with a 100-round magazine, two Glock handguns, a Remington 12-gauge shotgun and various types of body armor.

"You get to this point, you don't want the government spying on what people are buying," she explained. "On the other hand, what's the price? The price is all these things we just read off."

"Let's remember it's a constitutional right," McCain replied. "Second of all, if you could prove the case that it, indeed, has a positive effect -- we had a ban on assault weapons that expired some years ago, it didn't change the situation at all in my view."

"So, I think the strongest Second Amendment rights people would be glad to have an conversation, but the conclusion that this was somehow caused by the fact that we don't have more gun control legislation, I don't think has been proved."

According to a 1997 study (PDF) published in the International Journal of Epidemiology, the U.S. had a firearm homicide rate 23 times higher than Norway, which McCain cited in his remarks.

More recent 2009 data showed that the U.S. had a firearm homicide rate that was about 15 times higher than "populous, high-income countries," and 10 times higher than the "western countries" belonging to NATO.

(h/t: Talking Points Memo)

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Weekly Standard editor Bill Kristol on Sunday broke with fellow conservatives and backed restrictions the sales of "assault weapons" like the AR-15 that was allegedly used to kill at least 12 people and wound 58 others in Aurora, Colorado last week.

"People have a right to handguns and hunting rifles," Kristol told Fox News host Chris Wallace. "I don't think they have a right to semi-automatic, quasi-machine guns that can be used to shoot a hundred bullets at a time."

"And I actually think the Democrats are being foolish as they're being cowardly," he added. "I think there is more support for some moderate forms of gun control if they separated clearly from a desire to take away everyone's handguns or rifles."

"And you could put more pressure on moderate Republicans than people think. It's not as if Republicans from New York and Illinois and California couldn't -- that President Obama couldn't do what President Clinton did and put pressure on them [to pass an assault weapons ban]. President Obama on this one is just unwilling to take a strong stance."

But tea-party backed Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) on Sunday argued that 100-round ammunition magazines and AR-15 assault rifles like the ones used in Aurora are "basic freedoms" that are protected by the Constitution.

“The left always uses the term ‘assault rifle,’ and they’re really talking about semi-automatic weapons that are used in hunting,” Johnson explained. "These are rifles that are used in hunting. Just the fact of the matter is this is really not an issue of guns. This is about sick people doing things you simply can’t prevent. It’s really an issue of freedom.”

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Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper (D) says that there is no doubt in his mind that last week's shooting at a theater in Aurora was an example of domestic terrorism.

"You know, in a funny way this guy is a terrorist," Hickenlooper said of James Holmes, the man who is suspected of killing at least 12 and wounding 58 others.

"He wasn't a terrorist in the sense of politics, but for whatever twisted reasons we can barely even imagine, he wanted to create terror. He wanted to put fear in people's lives."

But the governor told CNN's Candy Crowley that he couldn't think of "any way in a free society" to have determined that the shooter was amassing an arsenal, which included an AR-15 semi-automatic assault rifle with a 100-round magazine, two Glock handguns, a Remington 12-gauge shotgun and various types of body armor.

"He was buying things in different places," he explained. "Certainly we can try -- and I'm sure we will try -- to create some checks and balances on these things. But this is a case of evil, right? Of somebody who was an aberration of nature and, you know, if it wasn't one weapon it would have been another. I mean, he was diabolical."

"What I hear from you is that you would be open to people who want to suggest a gun law or something that might prevent this sort of thing, but at the moment you can't imagine what that would be?" Crowley asked.

"I'm happy to look at anything," Hickenlooper agreed. "Again, this person -- if there were no assault weapons, there were no this or no that, this guy's going to find something, right? He's going to know how to create a bomb, he's -- I mean, who knows where his mind would have gone."

In Sunday's comments, the Colorado governor seemed to be backing away from a statement he made as Denver mayor in 2008 when he promised to consider tougher gun laws.

"Hickenlooper will look at Denver's gun laws to ensure they are as effective as they can be in keeping firearms out of the hands of criminals and young people," The Denver Post reported at the time.

"Let me be clear: This community will not accept violence — not a day of it, not a week of it, not a month of it — and certainly not a summer of it," he said following a series of shootings in Denver. "There are a number of other cities addressing gun laws. .... We want to look at the matrix of our existing laws and see if some of these other laws are able to help."

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Tea party-backed Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) says that the right to own high-capacity ammunitions magazines like the 100-round drum that was used to kill at least a dozen people in Colorado last week is a "basic freedom" that is protected by the U.S. Constitution.

Fox News host Chris Wallace on Sunday asked Johnson why people needed military-grade weapons like the AR-15 semi-automatic rifle and large ammunition clips used by the shooter in Aurora, Colorado where at least 12 were killed and 58 were wounded.

"The left always uses the term 'assault rifle,' and they're really talking about semi-automatic weapons that are used in hunting," Johnson explained. "That's what happens in Wisconsin. These are rifles that are used in hunting. Just the fact of the matter is this is really not an issue of guns. This is about sick people doing things you simply can't prevent. It's really an issue of freedom."

"Does something that would limit magazines that can carry 100 rounds, would that infringe on the constitutional right?" Wallace wondered.

"I believe so," Johnson insisted. "There are magazines -- 30-round magazines -- that are just common all over the place. You simply can't keep these weapons out of the hands of sick, demented individuals that want to do harm."

"I would be very surprised if hunters in your state hunted with a 100-round ammunition feeding device," Sen. Diane Feinstein (D-CA) disagreed. "In the bill I did, we exempted 375 rifles and shotguns by name so that no weapon used for hunting was effected at all. It's just the military-style assault weapons."

"But the result of that ban, it didn't solve any problems," Johnson insisted. "I look at the statistics and say it has no measurable effect. You can actually argue that it made matters worse. But I don't want to get into statistics. We are talking about basic freedoms."

In fact, Johnson would have likes to have seen more people armed in that Aurora theater.

"It's certainly one of the rationales behind concealed carry, where criminals actually had to be a little concerned before they commit a criminal act that maybe somebody could stop them," Johnson told Wallace. "And I think that is the truth, that if somebody -- a responsible individual -- had been carrying a weapon that maybe, maybe it could have prevented some of those deaths, some of those injuries. I mean, that's just the truth."

"And maybe you could have had a fire fight and killed many more people," Feinstein pointed out.

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I don't watch Piers Morgan's show too often since it's generally just a bunch of celebrity gossip that makes his predecessor, Larry King, look like he practiced serious journalism in comparison, but I caught some of his show following the tragic shooting in Aurora, Colorado this weekend. And I have to admit I'm really glad I heard someone say what Morgan did this Friday evening about when it's acceptable to talk about gun control.

If we don't talk about gun control after a tragedy like this one, it won't get talked about at all... period. And even if we do have a discussion now, both political parties are so beholden to or scared to death of the NRA, that neither of them are going to act unless there's finally enough pressure from enough voters that siding with the NRA is finally a losing proposition and is going to cost some politicians their seats. Given their huge war chest, that's a big hurdle to overcome. I'm not sure how many more people have to die by gun violence for that to finally become a reality.

Anyway, as I said, I'm no big fan of Piers Morgan, but it was nice to see for once the hypocrisy of not being allowed to talk about the root causes of this many deaths when we don't treat any other issue that way. People die and we want to know why and how to prevent it from happening. Sadly it seems even a Democratic member of Congress being shot wasn't enough to wake these people up that the laws need to be changed. Makes me wonder how many nut jobs out there have to be killing one of their own before enough is enough and Congress is willing to act. Apparently just one wasn't, which still just astounds me.

Transcript of Morgan going after the Cato hack below the fold.

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