Parkland Students Rally to Demand Gun Reforms at State Capitol
BALDWIN: Welcome back. I'm Brooke Baldwin. As students in Florida are pleading with state lawmakers for stricter gun laws. We often hear from gun rights activists that it's better to enforce the laws we already have than pass new ones. And I just wanted to take a moment today to parse through some of those laws just to better understand where changes maybe introduced. And so, to do that I have the help of two great legal minds. CNN legal commentator, Ken Cuccinelli and Jennifer Taub, she is a professor at Vermont Law School. So, Ken Cuccinelli, let me begin with you here. You have Republicans facing all this pressure, to move in some sort of direction on gun control. Comes down to the second amendment, this guarantee to keep and bare arms. And so, I really wanted today to talk about the Heller decision. Right? This is the Supreme Court's 2008, landmark decision, which among other things essentially said that the right to keep and bear arms subject to reasonable regulations. So, let me just quote the late conservative Justice Antonin Scalia here. Who said, like most rights the right secured by the Second Amendment is not unlimited, the right was not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner, whatsoever and for whatever purpose. We think that limitation is fairly supported by the historical tradition of prohibiting the carrying of dangerous and unusual weapons. So, does that then leave the door open for any sort of legislation that we're seeing pushed in the wake of this school shooting?</s>KEN CUCCINELLI, CNN LEGAL COMMENTATOR: For some of it, sure. Like, banning bump stocks would not be impaired by Heller. The common discussion about bringing guns on to government places is explicitly addressed by Justice Scalia in the Heller decision as being allowable under the Second Amendment. States of course have their own constitutional protections in addition to that. But most states have more or less conformed themselves to the Second Amendment. And I would note, the critical element of that decision was the right to keep and bear arms it's a personal right. It's not some group right or militia matter. It is a personal right. As you noted Justice Scalia also said, like other rights, these just example being the first amendment, you can have some restrictions on it. The first amendment classic example is you can't yell fire in a crowded movie theater because of the danger imposed by it. Those opportunities exist. Obviously, people like me believe we ought to be very restrictive in how we go about restricting second amendment rights for law-abiding citizens. And you want to see more vigorous enforcement and following of the procedures we have in place, and we saw that failure by the FBI sadly in Florida.</s>BALDWIN: Jen Taub, to you, just again, and I hear Ken being on the more restrictive side. But just so everyone understands, with this Heller decision, the notion perhaps that some people are floating of banning let's say a semiautomatic weapon, that door is open, yes, respecting the second amendment but that door is open because of Heller.</s>JENNIFER TAUB, LAW PROFESSOR, VERMONT LAW SCHOOL: Absolutely. I think, I'll add on to what Ken said, I look at Heller as being slightly more narrow. He's absolutely right that it was the first time the Supreme Court recognized that the second amendment right is available to individuals, but it's not sort of -- it's not as broad as he would suggest. It's really about the individual right to own a handgun in one's home for personal protection. That's what Heller spoke to. And Heller leaves open the door to regulate and even restrict or ban for automatic weapons, such as AR-15s and similar types of weapons.</s>BALDWIN: Which is part of what is being discussed. I just wanted to get into Heller. Ken, to you, looking back to 1994, we find an example of Washington jumping in on this issue, that was when President Clinton signed into law the public safety and recreational firearms use protection act, outlawed more than a dozen types of semi automatic weapons similar to the one that was used last week that Douglas high school. But that expired in 2004. So, talk to me a little bit more about what happened then.</s>CUCCINELLI: They also, if I remember my history correctly, I'm going back 24 years, they also instructed state officials, sheriffs in particular, that they had to do certain things. And those pieces were found unconstitutional. Because the federal government can't tell state officials to do things even in the area of the gun control or I should say including in the area of gun control. And I really think you're going to see a more, if we're ever going to impact the particular problem, the tragedy we saw in Parkland, remember we had Virginia Tech and Virginia, we had similar failures in our mental health system. If we're ever going to address this, it's going to be a lot more comprehensive than any one single type of solution and no gun ban under the second amendment with the protection I should say of the second amendment, and with American society and history will ever be effective in doing this. All the people who have been calling for that are hard pressed to articulate a gun restriction, a gun law that would have stopped a tragedy like we saw in Florida, like we saw in Sandy Hook and even like we saw --</s>BALDWIN: I don't know if we know that. Your shaking your head. With all due respect, I don't know if we know that definitively. I mean go ahead, Ken.</s>CUCCINELLI: I mean only because you can't disprove a negative.</s>TAUB: Yes, so I mean, I want to say it, we have to be really careful to distinguish between legal arguments and policy arguments. So, I just want to break this apart and to say as a legal matter, the Supreme Court in November declined to -- to hear a challenge to Maryland's ban on assault weapons. And they made that choice similarly just yesterday, the Supreme Court also declined to hear a challenge to California's ten-day waiting period. So, I do think that the supreme -- by the way, several other states, in cases that have come up to the Supreme Court where the court can't get those four votes it needs to grant certiorari. So, I do think as a practical matter where the court is right now and also what Heller allows as a legal matter, an assault weapons ban would be permissible. As to the policy question as to whether it would be sufficient, I find it really odd that is seems to be only in the area of gun control that we demand a particular, perhaps incremental solution to solve everything. I can just give you a few examples. We do have nutrition labels on packaged foods even though that hasn't fully addressed the obesity epidemic. I'm required as I imagine you are to, to take off my shoes at the airport, although that does certainly not protect me from for example domestic terrorism when someone is shooting a semiautomatic weapon through a hotel window. I don't think that policy argument really holds water.</s>BALDWIN: OK.</s>CUCCINELLI: Brooke, if I could.</s>BALDWIN: Quickly, Ken.</s>CUCCINELLI: None of those examples touch on fundamental and I use that word intentionally, fundamental constitution rights. And the constitutional right of to keep and bear arms was found to be a fundamental right in Heller in addition to everything else that we have talked about. That's a major difference when we're addressing policy opportunities that might solve problems or at least make them less likely like the Parkland tragedy.</s>BALDWIN: OK, I wanted to start the discussion. I feel the disagreement on both sides, but we've got to leave it, Ken and Jennifer, thank you.</s>CUCCINELLI: Thank you, Brooke.</s>TAUB: Thank you.</s>BALDWIN: This debate continues this evening right here on CNN. The students of Stoneman Douglas High School speaking out to demand action and an end to the violence once and for all. It's a live town hall moderated by Jake Tapper. It is airing at 9:00 p.m. Eastern time right here. Also, today, can we talk about Syria, the U.N. Secretary General says, quote, hell on earth is unfolding. More than 300 people killed in just the last couple of days as the brutal Assad regime intentionally bombs hospitals and clinics in what was once a safe zone. The images that we should not ignore, amidst everything else. Next.