Harris-Perry: Reduce the Number of Guns Owned by Americans to Make Police Safer

RUSH TRANSCRIPT: 

HARRIS-PERRY: "Jonathan, this question, which for me is part of the reason we wanted to start with the conversation about the officer being shot in Philadelphia, also a shootout in New York this past night. Would reducing the number of guns owned by American citizens make the work that police officers do safer?"
METZL: "Well, I think you can say in a factual way that places that have fewer guns have less gun crime. So the direct answer is yes. I think in a way I just want to repeat what President Obama said many times on CNN in his press conference. The answer here, given where we are as a society, is not taking away people’s guns. There are commonsense steps we can do. A simple way is do background checks. I think across the board, in states that have effective background checks in place, that you see about a 40% to 50% reduction or diminishment of everything that we kind of care about. So there’s less gun suicide. There’s less partner violence. There are lower rates of homicide. In that record, I think the question right now, given where we are as a society what can we do to lower those rates of gun crime? I think that system is what President Obama’s trying to strengthen."