CNN host Carol Costello showed a blatant double standard in her treatment of a pro-gun guest in contrast with a gun control advocate on Thursday's CNN Newsroom between two segments featuring gun expert John Lott of the Crime Prevention Research Center -- author of More Guns, Less Crime -- and Dan Gross of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence.
At about 9:51 a.m., Costello introduced the segment with Lott by hyping a BBC report characterizing the violence as "just another day" in America. She also cited a misleading claim that there have been 355 mass shootings in America so far this year as she claimed that there is "growing frequency" of such crime:
CAROL COSTELLO, CNN HOST: The growing frequency of the incidents highlighted during this report from the BBC.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE BBC ANCHOR: Just another day in the United States of America, another day of gunfire, panic and fear.
COSTELLO: That's how this incident is being reported overseas, the BBC calling it "just another day" of gun violence in the United States. And, according to at least one unofficial tally, the numbers support that claim. Shootingtracker.com, which defines mass shootings as incidents in which four or more people, including the gunman, are killed or injured by gunfire, says San Bernardino was the 355th -- the 355th mass shooting this year alone. It was also, according to Shootingtracker's definition, the second worst mass shooting in the United States.
Although the CNN host declared that "I guess I don't feel like having an argument with you this morning," she nevertheless was argumentative with Lott as she jumped in to interrupt him after just 20 seconds.
The pro-gun author began by trying to debunk some of the claims she made in her introduction. Lott:
Sure, I mean, if you have proposals you want to talk about, I'm happy to do so. I suppose part of it, though, is inflammatory claims such as the two you just went through from the BBC as well as the tracking numbers there. I mean, first of all, these occur-
Costello then pounced to cut him off:
COSTELLO: No, John, let's be serious. There are too-
LOTT: -at about the same rate in Europe-
COSTELLO: -many mass shootings in this country. John, let's be clear. There are too many mass shootings in this country.
LOTT: I know, but I'm just saying-
COSTELLO: We've seen several in just the last couple of weeks.
LOTT: -we should be accurate.
As Lott argued that the number of mass shootings in Europe is about the same as in the U.S. in spite of stricter gun laws, and objected to gang activity being lumped in with the statistics the CNN host had cited, Costello jumped in to interrupt him again:
John, let's just concentrate on the matter at hand -- gun violence in the United States and how we can stop it, and how we can prevent these mass shootings, how we can get mentally unbalanced people from getting a hold of guns. How can we do that? How can we all get on the same page?
As the gun rights advocate pointed out mass shootings in public places happen disproportionately where victims are unlikely to be armed for self-defense, Costello cut him off again to inject a liberal argument as she fretted about there too many guns in America. Costello:
But let's be honest about one thing, John. Two of the weapons that these suspects used were purchased legally. In fact, all the guns, as far as we know, were purchased legally. So, even though there are tight gun controls in the state of California, it's still easy to buy a high-powered weapon in the United States. And that's because there are so many guns out there. Over the Thanksgiving Day holiday, 185,000 firearms were purchased -- that's a record for the holiday season. Lots and lots of people have guns in this country, yet these mass shootings keep happening. So how can more guns be the answer?
By contrast, when Gross of the Brady Campaign was brought aboard at about 10:56 a.m., he was allowed to speak in two blocks of about one minute each without interruption from Costello, as she only mildly pushed back to raise the argument that the victims could have defended themselves if they had been armed.
Below are complete transcripts of the two segments from the Thursday, December 3, CNN Newsroom with Carol Costello:
9:51 a.m.
CAROL COSTELLO: This morning, the community of San Bernardino is absolutely reeling as the latest U.S. city to be affected by gun violence. The growing frequency of the incidents highlighted during this report from the BBC.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE BBC ANCHOR: Just another day in the United States of America, another day of gunfire, panic and fear.
COSTELLO: That's how this incident is being reported overseas, the BBC calling it "just another day" of gun violence in the United States. And, according to at least one unofficial tally, the numbers support that claim. Shootingtracker.com, which defines mass shootings as incidents in which four or more people, including the gunman, are killed or injured by gunfire, says San Bernardino was the 355th -- the 355th mass shooting this year alone. It was also, according to Shootingtracker's definition, the second worst mass shooting in the United States. The first took place early Wednesday morning in Savannah, Georgia, where a gunman killed one and wounded three others.
So let's talk about guns in America. John Lott is the founder and president of the Crime Prevention Research Center, and author of More Guns, Less Crime. Good morning, John.
JOHN LOTT, CRIME PREVENTION RESEARCH CENTER: Good morning.
COSTELLO: John, you know, gun rights advocates and those in favor of more gun laws, they always talk at cross purposes. They can't seem to get on the same page, and I guess I don't feel like having an argument with you this morning. I kind of just want to find out how can we stop these shootings together? How can both sides come up with a plan together?
LOTT: Sure, I mean, if you have proposals you want to talk about, I'm happy to do so. I suppose part of it, though, is inflammatory claims such as the two you just went through from the BBC as well as the tracking numbers there. I mean, first of all, these occur-
[Cross talk begins]
COSTELLO: No, John, let's be serious. There are too-
LOTT: -at about the same rate in Europe-
[Cross talk ends]
COSTELLO: -many mass shootings in this country. John, let's be clear. There are too many mass shootings in this country.
LOTT: I know, but I'm just saying-
[Cross talk begins again]
COSTELLO: We've seen several in just the last couple of weeks.
LOTT: We should be accurate.
[Cross talk ends end]
COSTELLO: So let's just concentrate on that.
[Cross talk begins again]
LOTT: No, but I'm just saying-
COSTELLO: There's a lot of gun violence in this country-
[Cross talk ends again]
COSTELLO: -we can all agree on that.
LOTT: Excuse -- right, but the point was, I was just saying, in order, there's a reason why you started with those two things. I'm just saying, just to be accurate, Europe has about the same rate of mass public shootings as we have here in the United States. France this year has had 508 people killed or wounded in mass public shootings. In the entire Obama presidency, there's been a total of 424. And this tracking number that you just had, the vast majority of those are gang fights. Which are bad. Gang fights over drug turf are bad things, but it's misleading to-
COSTELLO: John, let's just concentrate on the matter at hand -- gun violence in the United States and how we can stop it, and how we can prevent these mass shootings, how we can get mentally unbalanced people from getting a hold of guns. How can we do that? How can we all get on the same page?
LOTT: Right, well, I think you're going to have a hard time stopping terrorists or others from getting a hold of weapons. I mean, if you really believe somebody is dangerous to others, you should lock them up. But simply going and telling them they're not going to be able to legally buy a gun when these individuals such as the ones in San Bernardino, I wouldn't be surprised if they were planning this a year or more in advance. It's very common for these types of mass public shootings to be planned at least six months and sometimes even a couple of years in advance
You know, if somebody is planning that long in advance, they're going to make the pipe bombs, they're going to go and get a hold of the other weapons, and it's very difficult to stop them. The question is, what's your backup plan? What do you do when you can't stop these individuals from making these types of weapons? And I hope we're beginning to get to the place where we allow individuals to go and defend themselves. California, it's extremely difficult for anybody to go and get a concealed carry permit to be able to go and defend themselves against these types of attacks. The type of attack that occurred at Planned Parenthood on Friday, or this, or at the Oregon school or in all places where-
COSTELLO: But let's be honest about one thing, John. Two of the weapons that these suspects used were purchased legally. In fact, all the guns, as far as we know, were purchased legally. So, even though there are tight gun controls in the state of California, it's still easy to buy a high-powered weapon in the United States. And that's because there are so many guns out there. Over the Thanksgiving Day holiday, 185,000 firearms were purchased -- that's a record for the holiday season. Lots and lots of people have guns in this country, yet these mass shootings keep happening. So how can more guns be the answer?LOTT: Well, the question is where people are allowed to have guns. If you ban guns from certain areas, people like these killers don't -- aren't stopped by the bans. The people who obey the laws -- law-abiding, good citizens -- who are no longer able to defend themselves, who are essentially sitting ducks. You make it safer for the attackers to go and commit these crimes because they don't have to worry about law-abiding citizens being able to stop them.
COSTELLO: Right, I have to leave it there, John. Thanks for joining me this morning, John Lott.
LOTT: Thank you very much
COSTELLO: The next hour of CNN Newsroom, after a break.
(...)
10:56 a.m.
CAROL COSTELLO: Good morning. I'm Carol Costello live in San Bernardino, California. Of course, after this tragic incident yesterday, more calls for gun control. Let's talk about that. I'm joined by Dan Gross. He's the president of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence. Welcome.DAN GROSS, BRADY CAMPAIGN TO PREVENT GUN VIOLENCE: Thanks, Carol.
COSTELLO: Okay, we seem to have the same argument every time these incidents happen, and nothing really changes. So, you know, I wish I had more time to talk to you, but we only have a couple of minutes. So give me your best answer, Dan.
GROSS: First of all, things are changing. There's change sweeping across this country. State by state, we're expanding Brady background checks on all gun sales. It seems the last to wake up is almost always Congress. And it's a question of the American public making its voice heard; 93 percent of the American public supports expanding Brady background checks to all gun sales. This helps keep guns out of the hands of only the people that we all agree shouldn't have them -- convicted violent criminals, domestic abusers, would-be terrorists.
The American people supports these solutions, keeping guns out of the hands of people intent on doing harm. It seems that the only place where there isn't a significant percentage of support is in Congress, and we need to change that. We need to close this disgraceful disconnect that exists between what the American public wants, what's in our best interests in terms of our safety, and what our elected leaders are doing about it. And that voice is rising. You know, just the last 12 hours plus, we put more than 4,000 calls into the Senate. You can text "enough" to 877877, and we'll connect you directly to the Senate. This comes down to the American public making its voice heard and calling out these craven politicians who are putting the interests of the corporate gun lobby ahead of the interests of the American public.
COSTELLO: Okay, so give me some pushback to the argument that, you know, had someone had a gun inside that county office building that 14 people wouldn't have died.
GROSS: It's nonsense. First of all, these people were heavily, they were wearing armor, so that right there dismisses it. My brother was shot in a terrorist attack that was a mass shooting. Anybody on top of the Empire State Building, anybody who was close to that situation, anybody who's been close to the mass confusion associated with one of these tragedies knows that the addition of more untrained people carrying weapons only increases the possibility of somebody dying.
The big problem, though, is this is not the conversation that the American public wants to have. We don't believe that the only answer to violence is more violence, that the only answer to guns is more guns. We believe this is about keeping guns out of the hands of people who are intent on doing harm. And the bottom line is we can do so much better in doing that -- 93 percent of the American people, 90 percent of Republicans, 80 percent of gun owners, 70 percent of NRA members support this solution. This is the conversation that we need to have, not kind of resorting back to this primal notion that our only answer to violence is more violence and our only answer to guns is more guns.
COSTELLO: All right, Dan Gross, thanks for joining me.
