<i>FTN</i> Transcript - May 14

Bob Schieffer, CBS
News Chief Washington Correspondent: Today on Face The Nation, the Million Mom March and gun control. Today, hundreds of thousands of women are expected to march in Washington, to rally the nation against guns. What do they really want, and will it work?

We'll talk with the organizer of the march, Donna Dees-Thomases. Then we'll get the view of the National Rifle Association from executive vice president, Wayne LaPierre. Is there any real hope for gun legislation this year? We'll ask Senator Christopher Dodd, Democrat of Connecticut.

And then we'll shift gears and talk with Hamilton Jordan, the former White House chief of staff who is here to tell about how to survive cancer.

Gloria Borger will be here, too, and I'll have a final word on nudity.

But first, the Million Mom March on Face The Nation.

Announcer: Face The Nation, with Chief Washington Correspondent Bob Schieffer. And now, Bob Schieffer.

Schieffer: Good morning again, and we begin this morning at the White House, where Donna Dees-Thomases, who is the organizer of all this, along with the other organizers, has been meeting with the president this morning. Thank you for coming, Miss Dees. Tell me, first, what do you want?

Donna Dees-Thomases, organizer, Million Mom March: We want Congress to sit up, pay attention and know that we moms are serious about this. I'm embarrassed to say that before the August 10 shooting at a day care center last year, I really was not that aware of how bad the gun laws are in this country.

So we moms have organized across the country to say we want better laws on the books. We don't want these 20,000 after the fact laws that are on the books. We want preventive measures like licensing and registration, child-proofing guns, limiting handgun purchases to one a month, common sense solutions to the gun violence in this country.

Schieffer: How many people do you think you're going to have today?

Dees-Thomases: Well, when I applied for the permit August 17 almost nine months ago, I put down 10,000 people. I thought that we would be standing on a soap box and have a megaphone. Now we're expecting about 200,000 people today on the Mall, and we have 70 rallies across the country, and it's not too late. Anybody who wants to show up, we ask that you show up and support us to show that we really are the majority of Americans in this country who want stricter gun laws.

Gloria Borger, U.S. News & World Report: Miss Thomases, the NRA says that, in fact, you are - and your group is nothing more than a stocking horse for the Al Gore for president campaign. That, in fact, everything you're promoting is what Al Gore is promoting, and there you are standing in front of the White House and that this is just a big Clinton-Gore administration operation. How do you respond to that?

Dees-Thomases: Well, frst of all, I didn't even vote for Mr. Clinton in '92. But you know what, I think he has been a great president on this issue. And in fact, we moms are calling for tougher measures than even Mr. Gore has on his platform.

We believe the time for compromise is over, and these small baby steps that are always taken to get gun laws in place, the tide has changed. Today will be a turning point. We have to put serious policy in place and not just keep putting band aids on this problem. Licensing and registration is the first place to start.

You know, we have 20,000 traffic laws on the books. We have stop signs and red lights and speeding limits, but those laws would be ineffective if we didn't require drivers to have driver's licenses and their cars to be registered.

Schieffer: The NRA says education is the answer, and they've come out with this program to educate children about guns. What is your response to that?

Dees-Thomases: I really wouldn't trust anything to the leadership of NRA that has to do with the education of guns. It seems like a very brilliant marketing and recruiting tool to me. We moms are teaching our children about guns.

But you know, Bob, you should talk to some of these moms who have taught their kids that guns are dangerous, but the kids go next door and get shot because there's easy access to a gun because the owner has left the gun lying around loaded. We need to hold these parents accountable. We need to make sure that they know that their handguns are registered in their names, and they're going to be held accountable.

Borger: What is the follow-up going to be for you after today's march?

Dees-Thomases: You know, I get more questions now about what are we going to do May 15 rather than, you know, where do we park the buses or what metro stop do we take at the Mall?

These moms are ready to roll up their sleeves and go to work May 15. We are going to be a lobbying group, a grassroots lobbying group where we're going to meet with our elected officials. We're going to survey them. We're going to make sure that we all know where they stand on these issues. We're going to ask them how they feel about the licensing of handgun owners, the registration of their handguns.

Schieffer: One of the things that your opponents say is that if guns are licensed, as you advocate, it's just the first step to confiscating guns. Is that your eventual goal, to confiscate guns?

Dees-Thomases: Absolutely not. You know, thank goodness the framers of the Constitution put in that phrase "well regulated." We're looking for regulation. And there is no reason why a person who feels like they need a gun for personal protection should object to applying for a license, taking a safety course, passing a background check, be fingerprinted and have a photo ID. It is just common sense. These are deadly weapons.

And the registration is important for secondary sales. Ever day what we have happening in this country is someone who buys a gun legally, takes that gun and hands it off to someone who has criminal intent. Registration makes sure that that person, that that gun is in that person's name and they will think twice before letting it fall in the wrong hands, particularly that of a child or a criminal.

Schieffer: Donna Dees-Thomases, thank you very much.

Dees-Thomases: Thank you.

Schieffer: Now, we continue this discussion now by turning to Senator Christopher Dodd, who is reporting in this morning from Los Angeles, where he's about to make a commencement address out there. And Wayne LaPierre, who is the executive vice president of the National Rifle Association. Donna Dees just said she wouldn't trust the officials of the NRA on anything to do with gun education. Do you trust Donna Dees?

Wayne LaPierre, National Rifle Association: I think she understands - needs to understand our education program, Bob. I mean, the fact is our child safety education program, Eddie Eagle, has been endorsed by the National Safety Council. It's won awards from the American Legion. The U.S. Department of Justice recommends it. We have 11,000 schools working with us.

It's a gun avoidance program for young children. It teaches them what to do if they see a gun - stop, don't touch it, leave the area, call an adult. And it has child access to the lowest level in U.S. history.

Schieffer: Do you have any empirical evidence, though, that it works? Because I know, for instance, that young man who caused the shooting in Arkansas at the school, he had an Eddie Eagle membership card in his truck, I believe.

LaPierre: Well, what this is it's for very young children who are too young to be around guns. We have studies by police department when they send the kids into a room where they hide guns and even right on the national news a study did. When they stumble across a gun, if they've been through our program, they don't touch it. They immediately go to find an adult.

If they haven't been through our program, they may do something irresponsible. I mean, the fact is licensing and registration doesn't stop criminals from driving cars. And what makes young children safe is teaching them to look both ways before they cross the street.

Borger: But why doesn't Eddie Eagle just come out and tell kids that gun can kill?

LaPierre: Child psychologists told us all you want to do if you're going to save the child's life is teach them what to do if they stumble across one. Don't try to put a lot of theory in their head. Make it fun. Use a coloring book. Use a shuffle. But drive into their head that if they see a gun, it's not a toy. Stop, don't touch it. Leave the area. Call an adult.

We're the only ones spending money in this area. Dees-Thomases, Susan Thomases' sister-in-law, hasn't spent a penny on this. We spent $20 million to get accidents o the lowest level ever.

Schieffer: Well, but what they would say in response is that what this is is just a marketing tool to get people set up recruiting for the NRA because, after all, the woman who is a manager of the program, Kathy Cassidy is quoted as saying this is aimed at getting more youth involved in NRA shooting sports.

LaPierre: No, Eddie Eagle is not that at all. It's a gun-avoidance program for young children. And - I mean, it's been endorsed by police all over the country, and it works.

Borger: Senator Dodd, let's bring you into this conversation. You've heard what Mr. LaPierre has said about their programs for children. Do you have any evidence that these things are working, that the NRA is really working to keep guns away from people as opposed to asking them to use the guns?

Sen. Christopher Dodd (D-Conn.): Well, I'd have - I'd feel a lot better about what they were trying to do if they were also supportive of safety locks - mandatory safety locks for kids and the gun show loophole and trying to make parents accountable, looking at licensing and registration.

I don't think we ought to be arguing about education. I think that has a valuable - could be a valuable ingredient here. But candidly, when you have the NRA as an organization calling the police 'jack-booted thugs,' suggesting the president of the United States somehow wants to see more killing so it will increase the political advantage for him and then attacking mothers because they're marching today in Washington and 70 other cities, then the credibility of their argument that somehow they're only interested in trying to teach children how to avoid guns just doesn't hold much water, doesn't seem to be credible to me.

So I appreciate education. I think it can be valuable. But I would hope that the NRA would look at these issues and say, look, these are very common sense - four points. The safety lock for kids. This is not a dramatic change. Closing the gun show loophole, stopping the high capacity ammunition and also saying that violent juveniles ought to be denied guns in the future.

Now that's not complicated. That's in the bill. Why not endorse those points? Let's get this bill passed this year.

LaPierre: Senator, the truth is we supported safety locks on Capitol Hill. We supported checks at gun shows with a 24-hour wait. We supported forever prohibiting violent juveniles from owning guns, and the Republicans even threw in Dianne Feinstein's high-capacity magazines.

You folks on the Democratic side - and I have a letter right here from Mr. Gephardt, your colleague in the House - unless they get the more extreme stuff which is in Lautenberg, which is the unlimited ability of the federal government to impose fees on law-abiding people, unlimited authority to issue new regulations on the gun owners, a definition of gun shows so intrusive it could be the living room of your house, you're gointo kill everything. You're playing politics with us.

Dodd: Wayne, you always seem to find a reason why you're against these things.

LaPierre: No, I'll tell you what we're for.

Dodd: We need to have some people stand up for us. The American public want us to resolve this. We're losing - we lost 20,000 people in this countryÂ…

LaPierre: Yes, and you know why?

Dodd: Â…since that bill passed the Senate. We lost more than 300,000 in 11 years here, and we need to get together on this. This ought not to divide the nation.

LaPierre: It shouldn't.

Dodd: People are talking to you today, and you ought to listen to them.

LaPierre: Well, I'm listening. What we're saying is if you want to stop accidents among young people, education is the answer. If you want to stop gun crime on the street, prosecution and enforcement is the answer. You guys, you know, down in the White House, have given us a shameful level of enforcement of existing laws against violent felons.

Dodd: That is not true.

Borger: Well, let's talk about that. Mr. LaPierre, let's talk about enforcement because you say over and over againÂ…

LaPierre: Absolutely.

Borger: Â…that the Clinton administration needs to enforce the laws. But isn't that a bit disingenuous on the NRA's part since you - the NRA has tried to weaken these laws or has opposed these laws before they were even enacted in state after state. In VirginiaÂ…

LaPierre: No, Gloria, that's simply not true. The fact is I've been up on Capitol Hill for the last two years trying to get $100 million for additional prosecutors so we could enforce the existing law every time against violent felons with gunsÂ…

Borger: But you tried to weaken existing laws in the state of Illinois.

LaPierre: No, no, it's not true.

Borger: You did not support the Brady bill. So now you're talking about enforcing it?

LaPierre: Gloria, the instant check system that's in place right now is the NRA instant check system. You know the way it's being implemented by Gore and Clinton? Every time they catch a felon right under their nose committing a brand-new federal felony they do nothing to him at all except let him walk out the door. They have no prosecutions.

Dodd: No that's not true. Wayne, that is just wrong.

LaPierre: Senator, there's a new GAO studyÂ…

Dodd: John Justice, who is the president of the National Prosecuting Attorneys Association of the United States from South Carolina, says you're just dead wrong on this. It's a gross exaggeration.

LaPierre: Well, Senator, GAO says you're dead wrong. Eighty-one thousand studies, zero prosecutions.

Dodd: In fact, convictions were up 51 percent, Wayne.

LaPierre: It's not true.

Dodd: Up 51 percent between '93 and '98. Your facts just don't hold p. It's a gross exaggeration.

LaPierre: It's not, and the American public knows it.

Dodd: No, they don't.

LaPierre: Syracuse just came out with a big study in this town, Washington D.C., under all the federal gun laws, two prosecutions all last year, 14 in the entire state of New Jersey. Little Richmond, VirginiaÂ…

Dodd: Well, just listen - listen Wayne, for one second. Let me just read to you what John Justice, the president of the National District Attorneys, says: 'Contrary to political rhetoric, gun control laws are being enforced, prosecutors are increasing - prosecutors are steadily and sharply, local prosecutors handling many cases, sending more violators to jail.' That's the president of the National Prosecuting Attorneys.

LaPierre: And street cops all over America know that's not true.

Dodd: No, that's him talking. Every police officer, every police chief will tell youÂ…

LaPierre: No, they won't.

Dodd: Â…that these provisions we're talking about do make a difference. And we wish you'd change and get on board and support these ideas.

LaPierre: You need to enforce the law.

Schieffer: Could I just ask you something? You have said some fairly controversial things in recent weeks and months, talking about the president had blood on his hands and suggested that perhaps he wanted a certain level of violence to carry on his political agenda. Having thought about that, do you still stand by that?

LaPierre: Bob, I wish I had said it five years ago. We cut murder with guns by 65 percent in Richmond, Virginia, with not one new law 100 percent of the time. And I put hundreds of thousands of dollars of NRA money into this Richmond program.

LaPierre: When they catch a violent felon, when they catch a drug dealer, when they catch a violent gang member, they hold him without bail. They send him to the federal pen. And yet we can't get this program expanded. The president is the one person, along with Al Gore, that can walk down the hall at the Justice Department and change this policy.

If we can cut gun death by 65 percent in Richmond, why don't we do it in Washington, D.C.? Why don't we do it in Miami? Registration and licensing is nothing but a controlled burn of the Second Amendment.

Schieffer: Do you really...

LaPierre: That's not the answer. I mean, you don't want to set aside or set on fire our freedoms. What you want to do is you want to enforce the laws against the bad guys we already have.

Schieffer: Well, that reminds me of something. I was looking at a column that you wrote, I think, in American Rifleman last April. That was the month of the Columbine shooting. And I believe you said there are many politicians willing to sacrifice the Second Amendment as the first step in a homogenization of American culture. What does that mean?

LaPierre: I think I was riticizing the people that said that. I mean, I think that's been way taken out of context.

Schieffer: Well, it sounds to have like racial overtones. You're saying it doesn't.

LaPierre: No, it doesn't. Absolutely. I deeply resent that you would say that. The NRA has a proud relationship with the African-American community. Before they broke the color line in major league sports, before they broke the color line on the networks, we have always had African-American members of the NRA.

And if you go down into Richmond, Virginia, the one program making the African-American community safe is Project Exile. One out of every three nights before that program was adopted in Richmond, an African-American was dying on the street. The Clinton-Gore folks, by not enforcing existing gun laws against violent felons with guns, drug dealers with guns, gangs with guns, are doing benign neglect against many of these neighborhoods where people are getting killed.

Schieffer: Let's give the Senator Dodd a quick response.

Dodd: That's - again, you keep on saying this, Mr. LaPierre.

LaPierre: Well, it's true.

Dodd: No, it's not. Just be quiet for a minute, will you? Listen, you just keep talking about it, and you're wrong about it.

LaPierre: I'm not.

Dodd: In fact, the prosecutions are up. We need to do a better job on that. This is not a debate about whether or not we need to prosecute under existing laws and not do anything new. We happen to agree that we ought to do a better job in prosecuting those who violate the laws today, but we also believe we ought to try and prevent these crimes from happening in the first place.

And if by putting safety locks for kids on guns, if by banning these high-capacity ammunition clips, if by banning the gun show loophole or at least having a waiting period to check people out, and if could put violent juveniles, keep guns out of their hands, those are common sense approaches to trying to reduce the violence.

On Monday, there will be 12 more kids who are going to die in this country from gun violence. And on Tuesday and Wednesday at Columbine High School, every day, how many more weeks do we have to go before trying to do some things? I'm not suggesting to you that we're going to solve all of this problem. But if I can save five lives on Monday, and five on Tuesday, isn't that worth trying to enforce the law?

Schieffer: OK, Senator Dodd, let's give Mr. LaPierre just a quick response.

LaPierre: Senator, I just say that those aren't young children, though. They're violent juveniles - 14, 15, 16, 17.

Dodd: Tell that to a mother of a 14 or 15 year old.

LaPierre: Enforce the laws, and you'll save their lives is what I'm saying. Existing gun laws on the books - if you enforce them, you'll prevent these crimes from occurring.

Schieffer: And that's where we have to end. Thanyou so much to both of you. I hope we enlightened the situation here in some way.

We'll be back in a moment to talk about something entirely different with Hamilton Jordan.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

Schieffer: We're on a different subject now. Joining us, Hamilton Jordan. Many of you will remember him as the former White House chief of staff. He served under President Carter.

And what a life he has had since those days. He has had three battles with three separate kinds of cancer. First lymphoma, then a growth removed from your arm and, finally, prostate cancer, and yet you have written a book called No Such Thing as a Bad Day. And I must say it is a remarkable book, Hamilton.

Hamilton Jordan, author: Thank you, Bob.

Schieffer: Thank you for coming. I was really struck, as I read this book, which is a little bit of inside politics, a little bit of how to take control of a disease, a little bit of just how to live your life, and I want to talk to you first about this part. It is remarkable to me the way you took control. You found out the first time you had cancer. What happened after that?

Jordan: Well, I believe you can be an active partner in your own medical affairs, and I believe you have the best chance of being cured of any disease, particularly of cancer, if you understand the facts, the treatment options. And as a friend told me earlier with my first cancer, you take charge of your own medical affairs.

It's funny in life, we wouldn't marry the first person we dated or buy the first car we saw. We'd shop around. Often times people with cancer accept the first thing that's offered to them. Usually that's the correct thing. But sometimes it's not. If I had done what had first been offered me with my three cancers, I would have been dead with two of them.

Schieffer: Tell me what a person who suddenly goes to the doctor and the doctor says, "Hey, buddy, you've got it." What's the first thing they ought to do?

Jordan: Well, today, I would suggest they buy my book.

(LAUGHTER)

But beyond that, people are devastated when they get this diagnosis. And some very remarkable and otherwise strong people go into kind of an emotional free fall. So you have to gather yourself up and gather your resources and not wonder why you've got the disease but focus all your time and attention on making good decisions.

And there are so many resources out there today. There are so many things on the Internet. There's junk out there, too. You have to be a discerning consumer. But my suggestion to people would be to understand your illness, understand your prospects, the stats, and understand your options, treatment options.

Schieffer: Get a second opinion, I guess, would be one of the first things you would tell them to do.

Jordan: Right. Right, right.

Schieffer: Your book is also filled with some kind of behind-the-scens things. I thought one of the great ironies of the book, as many people will remember, you were accused at one point of using cocaine, and there was a special prosecutor, an independent counsel.

Jordan: I remember that very, very well.

Schieffer: And yet you recall that in your book that while you were getting your chemo, you learned that there was somebody else at the hospital, Roy Cohn, who you believe and reveal in this book was behind those charges, which, as we should report, turned out to be absolutely nothing and totally false.

Jordan: Right, it was funny. Mr. Cohn, who made his reputation as Senator McCarthy's kind of henchman back in the '50s, brought these charges against me. When I was at the National Cancer Institute in a clinical trial there, I found out that he was there. And so I said I'm going to go down there and give this fellow a piece of my mind.

I walked in, and he was laying in bed with tubes in him, and he died shortly afterwards. I didn't say anything to him. I felt pity for him.

Schieffer: Tell me quickly, one of the interesting stories is the first time you met young Bill Clinton back in those days or the early days.

Jordan: When Governor Carter was running to be president, a friend of mine said you've got to meet this young guy. He's going to be president some day. I wasn't very interested. But I had lunch with him, and this kid came in who was younger than I was. And he was smart, bright, as I told somebody, he charmed my pants off - and that's not maybe a good phrase to use.

But he was very ambitious, and he made no - didn't make no attempt to hide his own political ambitions. And he was obviously running. He had what I call the student council syndrome, but very, very impressive. And 20 years later, he is president.

Schieffer: Hamilton Jordan, thank you for coming by. This is a wonderful book from all standpoints - from politics, from how to take control of disease. We wish you the very best with it.

Jordan: Thank you.

Schieffer: I'll be back with the final word in just a second.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

Schieffer: Finally today, have you noticed how many people are going naked lately? Hollywood star Kathleen Turner has been taking it all off on the London stage. Rock bands routinely drop trousers to boost crowd attendance. And they say that Darva woman who wanted to marry a millionaire will soon show her stuff in Playboy.

Well, now comes Paula Jones ready to peel for Penthouse. Her friend, Susan Carpenter-MacMillan, a bit player in that soap opera we all remember so well, has been begging her not to. She told Paula her kids' friends would tell her kids their daddy saw her naked. But Paula's agent was right in there in the same story telling Mrs. Carpenter-MacMillan to bug off before she queered the deal, which he said he had been working on with Penthouse for months.

In a story we all thought couldn't get worse, surely this is worse. After a scandal that nearly brought down a presidency, Paula Jones in her birthday suit, even if she did have a nose job. The way things are going these days, I guess we shouldn't be surprised, but I wonder. Will it be tasteful, or will she just be "necked," as we used to say in Texas?

That's it from us. We'll see you next week on FACE THE NATION.

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