Gun Advocacy Group Gives Out Shotguns
BLACKWELL: A gun advocacy group is putting one of the National Rifle Association's most persistent arguments to the test. I want to you hear it from the NRA chief Wayne Lapierre himself. This is days after last year's shooting in Connecticut.</s>WAYNE LAPIERRE, NRA CHIEF: The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.</s>KOSIK: And what's happening now is the Armed Citizen Project is actually giving away shotguns for free to people who pass a background check and get safety and legal training. The group has already armed a handful of single women in Houston and now taking its mission to all places to Tucson, Arizona, because that's where six people died and a dozen more including then Congressman Gabrielle Giffords who was hurt in a mass shooting in 2011.</s>BLACKWELL: We're joined now by Kyle Coplen, he is the founder and executive director of the Armed Citizen Project. First, it's good to have you on the show.</s>KYLE COPLEN, FOUNDER AND EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, ARMED CITIZEN PROJECT: Thanks for having me on.</s>BLACKWELL: So here's my question, first, what are you trying to accomplish here and second, why take it to Gabby Giffords' former district?</s>COPLEN: You know, I honestly didn't even think about that until about four days ago when a reporter from "The Huffington Post" called me and asked me about the insensitivity of what we were doing. It didn't even occur to me because in my mind the only thing related with that is geography. What we're doing is we are training and arming residents in high crime areas as a crime deterrent and we are looking to analyze the crime data that comes out of this and to see if there really is a correlation or a causal link between armed citizenry and crime.</s>KOSIK: Well, why not go ahead since you just learned about this, why not pull back on this gun giveaway? Are you considering that?</s>COPLEN: No, absolutely not. I'm not going to stop doing what I'm doing because others, you know, have a false impression of my organization. Tucson, Arizona, has a crime problem. They are currently short 150 officers, and we would like to go ahead and move into Tucson, help the folks out there.</s>KOSIK: OK. So you're doing background checks, you're doing training programs. It's all very responsible. You're going about it apparently in a very responsible way, but you are headed to Tucson then, knowingly, now that you know the background behind it, and it's a city that's become known for gun violence since the 2011 shooting. Doesn't that choice undermine your credibility? Aren't you kind of stirring the pot especially at a time when you're trying to win over Americans to be more accepting of gun ownership?</s>COPLEN: Absolutely not. Like I said the Gabby Giffords' shooting had nothing to do with us deciding to go into Tucson. I'm not going to be bullied to inaction by the anti-gun crowd. We've made the decision to go there and I'm not going to change my mind because some people choose to misinterpret what we're doing.</s>BLACKWELL: You know, the rest of the week I'm reporting out in parts of the country and we speak with police chiefs and they will tell you and they've told me that many of the gun crimes occur using stolen guns, so if you increase the number of guns in a community, do you not also increase the potential for those guns to be stolen and then increase the possibility of gun crimes in these communities you're trying to protect?</s>COPLEN: So we are training and arming responsible new gun owners. So if you're going to operate on the premise what we're doing is inherently a bad thing because these guns can be stolen then you're just anti-gun to begin with. I mean, a lot of the people that come out and use that as our criticism, it's obvious they just don't believe in personal use of firearms for protection, and that's completely counter to the American history of the firearms and the American right of self-defense so I don't listen to that criticism.</s>BLACKWELL: What is the definition of success for you here?</s>COPLEN: The definition of success is to empower citizens and decrease crime. We want to give folks the tools to be able to defend themselves against those that would do them harm.</s>KOSIK: What kind of turnout are you expecting at this point?</s>COPLEN: We've had a lot of support. I've had as many as, probably around 1,000 folks who have contacted me, wanted to take part, maybe gotten 15, 20 contacts that have been negative. Folks are really coming out in support and we appreciate all the support we're getting. We plan on expanding into at least 15 cities by the end of the year, and we're on track to do that.</s>BLACKWELL: Well, you know, the gun debate and the conversation is going to continue. I appreciate you Kyle Coplen for joining this conversation this morning.</s>COPLEN: Thank you. And you can check us out at armedcitizenproject.org, we're taking donations and raffling off a brand new shotgun right now.</s>BLACKWELL: OK. Thank you, Kyle.</s>KOSIK: All right. Some controversy at Boston College, officials are blocking students from handing out condoms on campus. Find out why, next.