On Thursday's MTP Daily on MSNBC, during the show's regular "The Lid" segment, substitute host Katy Tur and her three guests fretted over the failure of gun control advocates to pass any new gun laws in the aftermath of high-profile mass shootings in 2017. Even the lone Republican-leaning panel member -- MSNBC contributor Susan Del Percio -- was coming down on the left-leaning side of the issue as she also seemed unhappy with Congress moving ahead with expanding concealed carry rights nationwide.
Tur began the segment by asking if there were any stories that should have received more media attention in 2017, leading frequent MSNBC guest Eddie Glaude of Princeton University to argue that the recent shootings at Aztec High School in New Mexico should have gotten more coverage to help spur the passage of more gun control. Tur then commented:
Even the mass shootings that did get a lot of focus -- Las Vegas and the one down in Texas -- they were here and then they were gone, and we kept hearing from lawmakers about how now is not the time to talk about gun control and talk about guns. Chuck (Todd) had a, you know, his take on that that went viral, as it should have. When is the time to talk about it if it's not right after it happens? Are we ever really going to talk seriously about gun control?
It did not occur to the MSNBC host that there is typically a reluctance to discuss the gun control issue by Republicans within the first 24 hours after a mass shooting, but more discussion tends to come in the days ahead. NRA officials made public statements advocating for the regulation of bump stocks several days after the Las Vegas shootings while the issue was still a topic of conversation -- but not in the immediate aftermath of the attack.
Republican strategist Del Percio then jumped in to insert more left-leaning commentary:
SUSAN DEL PERCIO, MSNBC CONTRIBUTOR: The only gun legislation that went through was reciprocity for -- to go (across) state lines with concealed weapons. I mean not one thing was done after all that.
GLAUDE: Couldn't even get the bump --
DEL PERCIO: Exactly
GLAUDE: -- stocks.
TUR: Bump stocks.
No one mentioned that the issue of bump stock regulation has been getting some movement in Congress, and has not been taken off the table. There is also an effort being discussed to get the U.S. military to do a better job of entering criminal record data into the instant background check database -- a move that comes in response to the Texas church shootings. None of the panel members made any mention that these issues were still being considered.
Del Percio and Tur ended the segment by complaining about single-issue voters who vote against politicians who want more gun laws:
DEL PERCIO: Until the voters start holding their elected officials accountable on it, then it's really not -- we can cover it as we should cover it, but it won't change until --
TUR: Until the voters who are single-issue voters -- single-issue voters for gun control -- single-issue voters for changing the gun laws and doing something about them, rather than the voters who are single-issue voters for not touching guns, period.
DEL PERCIO: And also because, you know, big gun safety lobbies, if you will, or PACs who get involved -- they're not focusing on moderate Republicans, They're actually not going after the districts that can make a difference -- they're more or less building up support where they have it, but they need to learn how to communicate with voters in a different way.
They need to reach out across party lines and not just keep going back to their traditional base of support, and hold accountable and spend the tens of millions of dollars that people do unto political campaigns and doing superpacs for or against candidates on this issue against a particular member of the House or Senate.
Below is a transcript of relevant portions of the Thursday, December 28, MTP Daily on MSNBC:
5:50 p.m. ET
EDDIE GLAUDE, PRINCETON UNIVERSITY: And it's at a time when we were having -- we needed to have a discussion about gun control -- a time when we needed to have a discussion about mass shootings. The data that you put up earlier about what was on voters' minds, right? Here we have these babies in a high school, and they were just killed. And then this extraordinarily heroic substitute teacher who had the presence of mind to put a sofa in front of the door. ... And we had no discussion about it. Why? Because we were paying attention to the P.T. Barnam of American politics, Donald Trump,
KATY TUR: I mean, even the mass shootings that did get a lot of focus -- Las Vegas and the one down in Texas -- they were here and then they were gone, and we kept hearing from lawmakers about how now is not the time to talk about gun control and talk about guns. Chuck (Todd) had a, you know, his take on that that went viral, as it should have. When is the time to talk about it if it's not right after it happens? Are we ever really going to talk seriously about gun control?
SUSAN DEL PERCIO, MSNBC CONTRIBUTOR: The only gun legislation that went through was reciprocity for -- to go (across) state lines with concealed weapons. I mean not one thing was done after all that.
GLAUDE: Couldn't even get the bump --
DEL PERCIO: Exactly
GLAUDE: -- stocks.
TUR: Bump stocks.
GABE DEBENEDETTI, POLITICO: To your point I don't know what has to happen in this country for people to talk about this.
TUR: I don't know -- I mean, we had 22 kindergarteners killed.
DEBENEDETTI: But we keep breaking the record for the biggest mass shooting in American history over and over and over, and it's not just that it happens So frequently at this point that we've become totally numb to it.
TUR: So is that the way to cover it, is not cover it? Because we've just decided as a country that it's not important to us? We're not going to change things -- we're not going to change our legislation because we're not doing that? Is it a story that's worthy of the coverage? Is that a discussion that needs to be had? If we're going to accept it as a society -- which we clearly are -- because nothing's changing, do you cover that?
DEBENEDETTI: You should not accept that we're accepting it as a society to begin with, like you think of few things more newsworthy than the murder of innocent Americans.
TUR: More disgusting than the murder of innocent Americans.
DEL PERCIO: Until the voters start holding their elected officials accountable on it, then it's really not -- we can cover it as we should cover it, but it won't change until --
TUR: Until the voters who are single-issue voters -- single-issue voters for gun control -- single-issue voters for changing the gun laws and doing something about them, rather than the voters who are single-issue voters for not touching guns, period.
DEL PERCIO: And also because, you know, big gun safety lobbies, if you will, or PACs who get involved -- they're not focusing on moderate Republicans, They're actually not going after the districts that can make a difference -- they're more or less building up support where they have it, but they need to learn how to communicate with voters in a different way.
They need to reach out across party lines and not just keep going back to their traditional base of support, and hold accountable and spend the tens of millions of dollars that people do unto political campaigns and doing superpacs for or against candidates on this issue against a particular member of the House or Senate.
