[Wayne Lapierre, Ceo, Nra:] We believe in absolutely gun-free, zero tolerance, totally safe schools.
[Lapierre:] That means no guns in America's schools, period. I call on Congress today to act immediately to appropriate whatever is necessary to put armed police officers in every single school in this nation.
[Morgan:] The NRA's Wayne LaPierre with a complete about-face on guns in classrooms. I want to bring in two people who couldn't disagree more about guns in schools. Joining me is Mary Cathryn Ricker, president of the St. Paul Federation for Teachers and vice president of the American Federation of Teachers. She works on school safety policies. Also CNN political commentator, Ben Ferguson, host of "The Ben Ferguson Show." They're both on the grill tonight. To Ben Ferguson, give me one good reason why arming 20 teachers and administrators is a sensible way to reduce gun violence in America?
[Ben Ferguson, Cnn Political Commentaor:] I've give you three. One, because these teachers are volunteering and they know their school better than any police officer will in their community. Two: you're training them with 50-plus hours in their school only. They're not doing police training like police do where their hours are diluted in all different scenarios. And the most important reason, in Arkansas specifically, they had one of the worst shootings early on in history when in Jonesboro, you had an 11- and 13-year-old take out a teacher, students and not only that, wound a bunch of their classmates and no one was there to stop them. So, from a teacher's perspective who's willing to go through the training, who's willing to go through the background check and willing to put their bodies in front of their students like we saw in Newtown, where there are always hero teachers who takes bullets for students, why not allow some of them who want to have this extensive training, which is more than police officers get, in this one situation? Instead of being shot to death, allow them to take out the shooter and save their kids' lives. That to me is common sense.
[Morgan:] And before I go to Mary Cathryn Ricker, you would presumably by extension of your argument, Ben, you would arm every single teacher in America if you could in every school?
[Ferguson:] No, absolutely not. I would only arm teachers that want to be armed and want to go through the training. I absolutely do not want every teacher in America to have a gun because there are a lot of teachers that would not feel comfortable having a gun on their body, in their possession, and I certainly would never want anyone to carry one in this situation who didn't want to.
[Morgan:] OK, let's go to Mary Cathryn Ricker. What is your reaction to that?
[Mary Cathryn Ricker, President, St. Paul Federation For Teachers:] My huge concern is this idea that for every problem you think you may be solving, there are going to be far more pervasive problems that you're actually creating. An this idea that you're creating an atmosphere in a school that is now an armory you know, where are teachers going to keep these guns? Are they carrying them home at night? Are they storing them somewhere in the school building? When you have students and families and other adults who have already had traumatic gun violence in their lives, are you now creating a classroom as a traumatic place for them where the classroom had that sanctuary
[Ferguson:] That question that question
[Ricker:] And finally no, I think you also have to look at the fact that, you know, in this perfect scenario you're talking about a teacher who in a split second is going to have access to a firearm that is not going to equal what these murders are bringing into schools, either.
[Ferguson:] Mary your option is this
[Ricker:] Are they keeping this on your person? Are they keeping it locked and loaded?
[Ferguson:] Mary, Mary
[Ricker:] Will they have time to go and unlock it?
[Ferguson:] You're this is where the fear-mongering is exhausting. You just asked a bunch of questions and obviously did not do any of the research because you want to terrify parents that are watching tonight. I can answer the question. First of all
[Ricker:] Ben, I am a parent. I thought of this
[Ferguson:] It has to be on the person. Let me finish. Let me finish. Let me finish. The gun, first of all, if you actually looked at what they are doing, has to be on the person. It is not locked up in the school overnight. It's not being left in a drawer. It is a concealed weapon on the person. That is the law of anyone who is a guard in this situation, which is the law in Arkansas. So let's not put out information that is not true
[Morgan:] Okay, Ben, Ben, Ben, Ben, let me ask you a question.
[Ferguson:] Sure.
[Morgan:] How would a teacher with just 50 hours of any kind of training with a gun be able to stop somebody like Adam Lanza with an AR-15 with perhaps 100-bullet magazine? Explain to me how you'll do that?
[Ferguson:] Well, you actually take the gun. You lift it up. You aim it at that person, and then you pull the trigger. It works. I had two guns pointed at me, both of them shooting at me, and I was able to protect myself. It's a lot better than putting your hands up like this or putting yourself in front of children and then taking them and having absolutely no way to defend yourself or the poor children
[Morgan:] Where do the teachers put the guns? Where do the teachers put their guns physically?
[Ferguson:] They wear it on their waist. This is not some new technology. It's the same thing
[Ricker:] There are a couple things about this really concerning
[Ferguson:] -or any police officer does.
[Morgan:] OK. Mary? Because Ben, they are police officers. Wait a moment!
[Ricker:] Ben
[Morgan:] They are police officers. That is their job.
[Ricker:] That's right.
[Morgan:] Like soldiers are soldiers. We're talking about teachers. Where do you end this? Do you then go and do the same with nurses, you do the same with priests?
[Ricker:] We're starting at the wrong place here.
[Morgan:] I mean, what I'm telling you is a logical argument.
[Ricker:] First of all, we started in the wrong place.
[Morgan:] Mary?
[Ricker:] Yes, so we're starting in the wrong place. If we are, as a country, come to the fact that these intruders come into our school and hunt our children down and and kill them and we're just reacting, then I you know, then then we're starting too late. We're reacting too much. The superintendent...
[Ferguson:] So what do you want to do?
[Ricker:] ...of the school district actually said that so so first of all, Ben, I actually don't appreciate being accused of not doing my research because I've spent quite a bit of time talking to the...
[Ferguson:] Well, but but the things you brought up had already been answered.
[Ricker:] ...about this situation. They haven't been. We have not had the sort of comprehensive conversation we had to actually solve this problem. We haven't. And what we have to do, when when this superintendent said that lock your doors and shut your lights is not a plan, I actually agree with him because what we've done there is we've accepted...
[Ferguson:] So what do you want to do?
[Ricker:] ...that these just are going to happen. So...
[Morgan:] Well, hey hey, Ben Ben, let me jump in there because Ben...
[Ferguson:] Yes, OK.
[Morgan:] ...every single day, it seems, we read these awful stories of accidents. Put aside for a moment any threat of homicide or mass shooting or whatever. Let's just get down to the nuts and bolts of what happens when there are lots of guns around, right? A recent study in the Southern Medical Journal conclude and I quote, "The dangers of having a gun at home far outweigh the safety benefits." And we've seen a a load of young kids who have picked up guns and shot their siblings, shot their parents. Well, it's not funny, Ben, is it? It's happening on a daily basis.
[Ferguson:] It's not funny because there there are crime victims. But Piers, there are crime victims that I can bring before you that would say what you just said absolutely did not apply to their life. Go to any person who had a gun and protected and defend themselves, I'm one of them who actually was faced with a gun being point at them or their home was being it kicked their front was being kicked in or their back door was being kicked in. And it saved their life. And an accident didn't happen there. And without a gun, they would probably either be raped or dead or live a life of fear and terror because of the horrible crimes that are committed against people that cannot defend themselves. I also have to say one other thing about teachers. Why are we acting as if teachers are somehow incompetent to volunteer to then go through training? We trust them with our children's lives.
[Morgan:] But Ben Ben Ben...
[Ferguson:] We trust them with reading, writing and arithmetic. But we act like they're incompetent to carry a weapon.
[Ricker:] Knowing that, you're incompetent.
[Morgan:] ...there were of course, as you know...
[Ferguson:] They are.
[Morgan:] ...I do know, Ben. There were armed guns at Columbine, Virginia Tech, obviously at Fort Hood, the base was swimming in them.
[Ferguson:] Right.
[Morgan:] And there's no evidence that it makes any difference. When you have people in tears on mass killings...
[Ferguson:] And they're too far away.
[Morgan:] ...and so I come back to my point, which I think is' Mary's point she had it earlier is chicken and the egg. What you're going to try and do is make it far more difficult surely for these mass shooters to get their hands on these killing machines, bring in universal background checks, ban high-capacity magazines. Ban assault rifles, do something to try and make it more difficult.
[Ferguson:] And you and I look at this...
[Morgan:] Your answer is what you do after the event. It's like, well, they'll come anyway. So let's arm everybody else. It's the Wild West.
[Ferguson:] No, it's not the Wild West because because hold on, I have to I've got to respond to that, Piers.
[Ricker:] Piers, can I make another point about places where schools act truly been for...
[Morgan:] Hold on, let let Ben respond to me and then Mary, you have the last word.
[Ricker:] Absolutely, absolutely.
[Ferguson:] Let me let me say this. When you look at school shootings in America today, you brought the brilliant point. At some of these locations, there was a armed guard. And unfortunately, that armed guard was too far away or the police are too far away to take out the threat at that moment. We saw that in Newtown. It was too long before the police. And it's not their fault got there. When you have multiple people in a school who have volunteered and have been trained more in that situation, then the majority of police have been trained in that situation and they know that school. And they want to do it...
[Morgan:] OK.
[Ferguson:] ...and we trust them with our kids, why would we not trust them with this?
[Morgan:] OK, but Ben, very quickly, last point to you and then a final point to Mary, why did Wayne Lapierre as early as 1999 why was he so adamant that shouldn't, by his words, that we saw at the top of the segment, there should be no guns at any school in America. And now, he thinks the complete opposite?
[Ferguson:] Because because I think he saw that that idea which we tried coast to coast in this country with gun-free zones, they're posted every school in this country gun-free zones, it has been a failure. And the number of school shootings has risen since we've had gun-free zones.
[Morgan:] OK.
[Ferguson:] So when kids are getting killed, sometimes, you adapt and you change. It's called using the brilliant mind that god gave you to realize sometimes they don't work. And gun-free zones are a failure every time a shooter walks on campus.
[Morgan:] OK, all right. Yes, I will say that brilliant minds can also work out. The more guns you have, the more gun deaths you're going to get. Anyway, Mary Cathryn Ricker, last word to you.
[Ricker:] Yes yes, Piers, the final point I want to make is we we do learn a lot from studying tragedies like Newtown and Columbine. What what I don't think we pay enough attention to is how much we can learn from those potential school shootings that have been thwarted or prevented completely. And and really, the the two big lessons, one as I've studied, those thwarted or prevented school shootings are that one, the relationship someone had with the potential shooter that had got them to stop their behavior and two, the people who noticed changed behavior, saw something on social media and said something and actually got someone help before they've committed some horrific tragedy.
[Morgan:] Yes.
[Ferguson:] I'm in favor of that.
[Ricker:] And I really do think...
[Morgan:] OK.
[Ricker:] ....we need to do more...
[Morgan:] Good point.
[Ricker:] ...elevate that...
[Morgan:] Good point.
[Ricker:] And that's where solutions lie.
[Morgan:] Good point. Mary, I've got to I've got to leave it there. That's a very good point to end on.
[Ricker:] Absolutely.
[Morgan:] To Fen Ferguson, to Mary Cathryn Ricker, thank you, both, very much indeed. When we come back, reaction to today's Bradley Manning verdict not guilty of aiding the enemy but will he spend the rest of his life behind bars anyway?