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With the Senate just voting down the Manchin-Toomey amendment to the gun safety bill, while the media continues to focus on the Boston bombing attacks, MSNBC's Chris Hayes discussed the difference between the way crimes are handled once they're "put in the terrorism bucket" as compared to the "gun bucket" and the differences between what Americans are willing to accept in each instance.

Violence and terror: What’s the difference?:

On Wednesday night, host Chris Hayes asks the question: What happens when someone is apprehended? Will the identity of the bomber(s) impact the way we describe and govern the incident?

Incidents like the Boston Marathon bombings, that appear to be driven by unfettered hatred, shake us to our collective core. They make us think twice about entering public spaces: going out for a meal, taking public transportation, taking a dog for a walk. There is no doubt that the intended consequence of an act like the bombings at the Boston Marathon is to scare. But how should we characterize and define that fear? And what does this fear drive us to do? Does it drive us to suspend rule of law?

What exactly is the distinction between an ordinary crime and what we call terrorism?

After showing some of President Obama's speech following the filibuster, Hayes wrapped things up with this:

HAYES: And so, as we follow the developments out of Boston, as we leave no stone unturned attempting to find the perpetrator, another eighty eight or so people will lose their life to a bullet tomorrow, and the day after that and the day after that. And meanwhile, all worry that if the suspect who blew up the finish line isn't caught, we can't be sure that we're safe.

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After watching the better part of a couple of days of coverage on this tragic school shooting at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in CT, I was glad to see at least one show on television where there was a discussion about the fact that what happened there, and the trauma that those children and their families are going through right now, is an all but too common occurrence which is sadly all too familiar to Americans living in our inner cities across the country.

Whether it's Chicago, or New Orleans or the other big cities across the country facing high crime rates, far too often the violence has been glossed over and ignored to the point by our national media, that it's just considered acceptable or something we're expected to live with.

As Melissa noted, to date Chicago has suffered at least 425 gun-related homicides in 2012 as of Dec. 14. The Huffington Post has more on that story here: Chicago Homicides Reach 400 This Year, City Turns To Twitter For Ideas To End Violence. And 117 of those victims this year alone were under the age of 21.

And in her home town of New Orleans, we've had 174 murders, most of which are gunshot deaths and in Los Angeles, there have been 512 homicides recorded for the year, and 75 percent of those deaths resulted from gunshot wounds.

HARRIS-PERRY: 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 Newtown, CT, because their victims are just as real.

The Nation's Ari Melber followed with this:

MELBER: 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're rushing to it and the President's 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 our attention and action, well then every day is this day, as you were saying and all around the country.

As Michael Eric Dyson noted, President Obama did bring up those in Chicago during his statement following this most recent shooting and made this important point:

DYSON: The reality is, we've become accustomed to believing that little black and brown kids and poor white kids in various spots across our landscape are doomed to this kind of violence by this... we are surprised it happened here. It's not supposed to happen here.

Which means by implication, that it's supposed to happen there, in Detroit, or Oakland, or California, in LA and the like. And I think that's the tragedy here.

As Harris-Perry rightfully noted a bit later in the segment, she just wants the same level of outrage when you're seeing these kids in our inner cities having their childhoods taken away from them with the violence that they are growing up around as a part of their daily lives as we've seen from these mass shootings that garner so much national attention in the media.

I hope if there is an ounce of good that comes out of this shooting, it's that conversations like this one are more common where we're talking about what we can do to put a stop to gun violence along with a host of other topics that are all interwoven with the same subject and those are not just gun control and gun violence, but mental health, providing adequate health care for all of our citizens, education, poverty, our social safety nets and just what kind of country we're allowing way too many of our children to grow up in.

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Rachel Maddow points out for us that despite Representatives Louie Gohmert and Trent Franks' fantasies about more guns equaling there being any less crime, in the states where we have more lenient gun laws, the opposite is true.

These idiots want to take us back to some version of the Wild Wild West and pretend that if everyone has the ability to shoot each other, somehow fewer people would end up being shot.

Rep. Gohmert apparently thinks that having guns on the House floor is a good idea as well.

Texas Republican Louie Gohmert Drafting Legislation To Let Guns on House Floor:

To Louie Gohmert, the answer to violence is more guns, and allowing members of congress to carry them on the House floor.“It’d be a good thing for members of Congress who want to carry a weapon in the District,” he said. “I know friends that walk home from the Capitol. There’s no security for us,” he said, adding that the measure would deter people from attacking members. “There is some protection in having protection.”He said there were times during the health care debate last year that he felt afraid, including when a stranger approached him on the street and started screaming at him.

Gohmert’s staff is preparing a bill that would allow guns. Of course, what do you expect from a man who believes women come to the United States to have “terror babies” and to whom comparing Obama to Hitler is “brilliant.”

And Rep. Trent Franks thinks if we'd just had one more shooter during that tragedy in Arizona, all would have been well.

Trent Franks: 'I Wish There Had Been One More Gun' In Tucson -- There was, and he almost shot the wrong person.

Here's more from Rachel Maddow's blog on why more guns in the hands of citizens doesn't ever equal less people being killed with guns with some stats on states and gun ownership.

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After being asked by Jake Tapper why President Obama is bringing up the issue of immigration reform now even though it doesn't appear there's any chance that something is going to get passed in the Senate, Al Hunt takes John McCain to task for his fear mongering interview earlier in the show where he lied about the crime rate in Arizona.

HUNT: I must say, John McCain, in his interview with you, Jake, that was extraordinary to say that crime is up there. He's talking about Mexico. Crime is down in Arizona. Every single academic study that's been done shows that immigrants commit fewer crimes.

RAMOS: That's right.

HUNT: We have a system where there are now three-and-a-half-fold more illegal immigrants than there were 20 years ago. It's a system that's broke. And for John McCain to say that there's been a dramatic change just simply is not the case.

It's too bad Al Hunt is the one bringing this up instead of Jake Tapper calling out McCain while he had him on the air.

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You can always count on Bill O'Reilly to take up for the poor downtrodden white man and this is no exception. During a discussion with Geraldo Rivera about the changing racial demographics of the population of the United States and what it's going to mean for our country he throws this tidbit out there.

O'Reilly: Alright let me throw some stats at you and see how this is going to play out okay? Crime... this is an amazing stat, 28% of those incarcerated are black but... arrested, arrested I should say are black, 69% are white. So whites dominate the arrest sheets far more than their population. You always hear the cops are picking on African-Americans, but whites are arrested way higher than African-Americans.

First of all, I believe O'Reilly is reading from this table from the FBI which does not separate white Hispanics or any other race from whites. I've got to wonder how different those statistics would look if they did. And second, what he completely ignores that if you're going to have any sort of serious discussion about crime and punishment in the United States (which I don't expect from O'Reilly, believe me) you cannot just talk about arrest rates and ignore incarceration statistics.

Here's the big elephant in the room O'Reilly is ignoring during this discussion: Crime: Prison Population: Prison Population by Race (larger chart available there).

h/t Media Matters and some of their commenters for the links to the stats. And as another commenter over there pointed out, O'Reilly also does not account for how many people are pulled over for the crime of DWBNC (Driving while black in a nice car) and not actually arrested and the stats explain nothing about the severity of the charges and how they're treated later by our criminal justice system.