David Keene - President, US National Rifle Association, 2011-13 HARDtalk

It is now time for HARDtalk. Welcome to HARDtalk. I'm Stephen

Sackur. For many Americans, firearms are a symbol of freedom. The Right

to bear arms is treated with the same reverence as life, liberty, and

the pursuit of happiness. Guns kill extraordinary numbers of US

citizens. 30000 and more every year. Maybe it is time to better regulate

the firearms business. My guess is the recently retired president of

the National Rifle Association, David Keene. Does the gun lobby

really stand up for American values? David Keene, welcome to London and

welcome to tap -- HARDtalk. Thank you for 88 guns owned by every 100

citizens of your country? 40% of the world's civilian owned guns are in

America? Is that a reason to celebrate? We think it is a reason

to celebrate. 44%, 45% of all Americans have a firearm in a home.

300 million privately owned firearms, about a third of those are

pistols and the rest are a long guns. You think that that is a cause

for celebration because...? Their second amendment and their firearms

culture represents something in the US which goes to the heart of the

way the country was founded. It represents freedom. It represents in

the second amendment of the Constitution, the recognition of a

much older right, the right of self defence. A lot of the firearms owned

are owned for that reason. That is one reason that firearm ownership

has been increasing massively in recent years. Let me stop you there.

There are some extraordinary ideas behind what you just said. The gun

represents freedom. America was founded, as you know, by men and

women carving a country out of the wilderness. It was threatened. It

was founded by resistance to the British. They came over and of

course the shots were fired as British troops came to disarm the

colonists. If they had firearms, could they could stand up their own

right. In 1776, firearms were important for those fighting

colonial rule. I'm thinking about America in 2014. I'm thinking about

the way people live their lives. For example, you, David Keene, recently

retired president of the NRA, do you feel more free when you carry a gun?

I don't carry a gun all the time. I certainly feel freer because I have

that right and because I have the right to protect myself and my

family and my community. I am a hunter so I had firearms to hunt.

They shoot competitively occasionally as do a lot of

Americans. I have the freedom to own a firearm, to keep it and use it for

legitimate purposes as the millions of other Americans. They do, in

fact, feel free as a result of that. One of the fundamentals of feeling

free is surely feeling security in your own community and society. The

prevalence of guns in the US - more guns arraigned in the US than

anywhere else in the world, it certainly hasn't made America safer

place, has its? On contrary, it has. It is hard to get completely

accurate figures because our lot do not go reported but according to the

Justice Department, 1984 is the last set of figures of this kind which we

have bite some 495,000 times in that year, firearms were used to thwart

break-ins to homes. That doesn't mean that 495,000 people were shot

or that the firearms were used but merely showing those firearms are

scared off the intruder. Surely, the matter of security is the homicide

rate. The homicide rate in the US by firearms is so much higher,

proportionally, then in comparator countries such as where you are

right now. By firearms but the violent crime rate is not... The US

from 1984 until today... The homicide rate in the US compared

with Germany is vital six times higher? That is not necessarily

because of firearms. The homicide rate in the US all over since 1984

has been halved at a time when firearms ownership has increased

massively. It is hard to equate in a causal way the ownership of firearms

with a number of homicides which take place in society. The National

Academy of Sciences and the Journal of quantitative chronology have done

studies over the years and they have concluded separately that the US has

a rate of gun related deaths that is roughly eight times higher than

other comparable developed nations. That might be true although the

violent crime rate in the US is not anywhere near the highest in the

world... We are talking about comparable developed nations. You

could live in homes Uris which has pretty much the highest homicide

rate in the world but the US would not expect to be compared with and

Uris. It might expect to be compared with France, Germany or the UK or

Japan. Especially in the case of Japan, there are so many

differences. We can't demonstrate conclusively using empirical

evidence that the homicide rate drops because of gun ownership. We

can demonstrate with conclusive evidence that increase firearms

ownership does not increase at the homicide rate. Then give you

example. Today, over the course of the last 20 years, most states have

passed what we call concealed carry laws which allow a citizen to own a

SideArm and two in fact carry it as long as he has a permit. In every

state in which that law has been passed, the homicide rate and the

violent crime rate has dropped. Can we prove that that is causal? No.

But it has not increased. It has dropped. Guns make you and you would

argue they can Americans feel safer. I would suggest to you that a

proposition has been sorely tested in the last couple of years. Not

least during your tenure as president of the NRA. By one

particular event which struck a chord around the world, never mind

just America. The mass killing at Sandy Hook elementary school in

Newtown, Connecticut, where Adam Lanza, a young man went on a rampage

and killed 20 children and six teachers. You were the figurehead

boss of the NRA at the time. How did you feel when you heard what had

happened there? Tragedies of that sort or any sort where losing one

might chew and auto accident or a gun crime or whatever is a tragedy

and should be minimised. I happened to be in Israel and that happened

and the day that Sandy Hook shooting took place, I was in fact touring a

training facility with a school security guards being trained in

Israel because they require security guard that all schools. That is

police or the military. They have contracted guards at each school has

to make arrangements for. When we got back to this country, we have

been, at the NRA, warning for years that one of the problems we have,

one of the groups in the US which is prohibited from owning firearms are

those people who have been declared potentially dangerously mentally

ill. There are background checks when you go to a gun store to get a

firearm which we supported and we had to lobby for appropriation is to

make sure that the system was working correctly. 23 states have

never put those people in that category into that system. The

president of the US like to talk about gun violence but there are gun

crimes like Chicago and there is gun violence like what happened at Sandy

Hook. In almost every case of gun violence, gun mass shootings, we

aren't talking about criminals or career criminals or transactional

criminals. We are talking about people who are severely mentally ill

whether it takes place in the US or China or Europe or where ever. Get

to background checks in a minute but sticking with Adam Lanza, you know

that the weapon he was using was a bushmaster rifle, capable of firing

up to 45 rpm. A semiautomatic rifle can fire everytime you pull the

trigger. It takes magazines that have 30 bullets. It takes magazines

with however many. You can change those in one second. That is my

point. You will find that many in a minute and they have tested it.

Whether it is 20 or 30 or 40 is not relevant. Adam Lanza had a lethal

weapon capable of firing multiple rounds per minute. He kills many

young children without weapon. That weapon, under President Clinton's

ten year ban, was banned. You fought against that ban and in 20 04 when

the ban expired, you made certain that it was not renewed. You feel

remorse that? I do not feel remorseful I feel that the system

fails when you cannot deal with the kind of mental health issues that

resulted in what happened at Sandy Hook. Mental health issues are

important. Let's get back to that. Why did any American need a weapon

like that? The ARF 15, the semiautomatic version of the

military weapon is owned by about 4.5 million Americans. -- AR15. It

is the single platform that is useful long arm rifle training, for

competition, for fun at the range and is used for hunting. In the

Supreme Court decision which dealt with the individual right to keep

and bear Arms, there was a paragraph which said that any constitutional

right is subject to restriction but one thing you cannot ban is a

firearm which is widely used and widely owned for legal purposes.

That decision was about the right to have a gun. Defence in a home. You

do not need a bushmaster semiautomatic rifle firing multiple

rounds per minute to defend your home. That's your opinion but the

fact of the matter is that the decision deals with what kind of

firearms and one can own. Already as a result of that decision, it

doesn't apply... The Supreme Court did not say that you can earn any

gun however lethal, you can earn a bazooka... It did say that there are

certain kinds of firearms which you cannot ban. Let us also consider

background checks. You made a great point of saying that we need better

background checks. Why is it that after Sandy Hook when President

Obama and indeed senators in the US Congress tried to pass a bill which

used up background checks on all commercial gun sales across America

- you were posted. We had to fight for a progression to make sure...

Stick to the question. (CROSSTALK). That system they have does not work.

The system they have created millions of what are called false

positives because people with every right to buy a firearm denied that

right under the current system. They have not fixed it since the -- since

the 1990s. Because of your position -- opposition, it is thought that

40% of gun sales can continue in the US without any sort of background

check. That is not true. That is from a survey taken before the

background check was put into place. It was a telephone survey and

the fact is that most firearms are purchased, especially by first-time

gun buyers, from retail outlets. The biggest gun dealer in the US is

Walmart. Everyone who goes into those facilities undergoes a

background check. That background check does not work. You are so

proud of your relationship with the American people. You claim that they

are on your site. Clearly, when you opposed the bill and it was not back

in the Senate and you made it plain that you are not interested in

negotiating to get new gun controls, the American people were not with

you at all. One poll found that more than 70% of Americans believed that

tough background checks, controls on the size of magazines, was important

and should happen. That depended on the question you asked and where you

asked it. The background check sounds great. You don't believe that

the American people want tougher controls? When you are going to sell

or give to a member of your family, there should be a background check,

to a neighbour you have known all your life, the answer is no. Simply

asking a question that the respondent defines in a way he or

she wants to does not give real information on how people feel. That

debate went on... I will tell you how one particular person feels. The

call, whose son was killed at Sandy Hook elementary, she personally

campaigned very hard to get a nationwide and on magazines with

more than ten rounds. She believes, because what happens to her son and

the fact that Adam Lanza kill fewer people because he had to reload, she

believed her experience showed this was important. What you say to her?

Somebody who is involved in a tragedy, I do not mean to disagree

or argue in the sense of her feelings, but the fact... If you

think she has misguided opinions then they just say it. You have to

say is too a woman who has just lost her child. I can say that based on

the evidence, based on the empirical evidence over time in the country,

that that will not solve the problem. The question we asked

during the Senate debates: if they had been in effect would that have

stopped what happened? The 18 each case was no. A liberal blogger asked

when it was all over: how is that when these things happen that in the

end fewer people want gun-control then wanted it in the beginning? The

Ansett is simple, once you get past the as, you have a debate. -- the

Ansett is simple. People say does not make sense. It will not solve

the problem. You are willing man at the NRA, the executive vice

presidents, after Sandy Hook, just days afterwards, he said this: the

only way to stop a bad guy with a garden is a good guy with a garden.

Congress should do whatever is necessary to put armed police

officers in every school in this nation. Were you proud of that? Yes.

What we did as we went on, we found a high-level... Ansett to be problem

is more guns? The President immediately made fun of that, as did

several newspapers. Until they realise that thousands of American

schools already have security. Let us talk NRA tactics. This is from a

lifelong member of the NRA she took a stand against one of your

policies, which was to support the idea that people in Tennessee could

conceal weapons in their cars, the cars can be part and it would be

perfectly legal to have a gun concealed in the car, she voted

against it. An organisation took against her. She said afterwards,

after hundreds of thousands of dollars had been spent against to

destroy her campaign, "the NRA will lay about you, they will use

intimidation tactics, because of that people are afraid. The message

is that if you do do do what we want, we will dilate you." She is

not minded to be an opponent of yours. -- we will annihilate you.

Politicians are scared of you. Politicians are not scared of us.

They are aware of the fact that we speak for a lot of their citizens.

We have 5 million members. We represent, formerly, about 1/10 of

the people in that state who will vote on the second Amendment issues

if they know what is at stake. That is a lot of voters. A lot of people.

Politicians are correctly sensitive to the feelings, the believes, and

the proclivities of their constituents. Politicians respond to

that support. Let us get back to the idea of freedom. From the beginning

of this interview, you have framed everything in terms of the second

Amendment and guns being a crucial part of every American's liberty --

Americans' liberty. The second Amendment does not give you the

right to hold any weapon whatsoever. It does not. Why do you not try to

find a middle ground is? And middle ground where greater control can be

brought into your country and people can still have the right to bear and

keep arms? We have taken the position, by the way, we do work

with people who are looking for reasonable kinds of things to

protect... You clearly do not. They describe President Obama as a fake

president. Before he ever ran for office, he was an active anti-

second Amendment activists. Is not a fake president, as your successor

called him at last year. I do not know that. He is the president, he

is hostile to the second Amendment. One journalist said we were

clinically insane during the elections of 2012 to suggest that

Barack Obama would ever do anything to constrict second Amendment

rights. He ran ads in rural states particularly, saying I will never

take your rifle, I will never take your pistol, I will never take your

shotgun, IMA believe in the second Amendment. Those with statements he

did not believe at the time. The second Amendment does not mean it

now compromise. When Labour peer said there were no shades of grey in

American freedom, surely that is doing a disservice. -- where not

weigh-in we will not compromise on the second

American right of the American people. We keep talking about the

second Amendment. It says a well regulated militia, being necessary

to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear

arms shall not be infringed. Clearly in the context of 1791, for a well

regulated militia. It has been meekly that does not give a blanket

permission for a Americans to carry arms wherever they want -- been made

clear up. Where is the compromise? For example, fully automatic weapons

are highly regulated. There is no need for those in private hands.

They will put under significant controls. URA lifelong Conservative,

you began your career in the Nixon Administration. -- you are a eight.

America is changing on all sorts of things. America's social attitude

changes, its culture changes, there is real evidence that they are

changing their minds on guns. I think the real evidence is the

opposite. The firearms community, the sales have increased

exponentially. Last year 38% were purchased by women... Because of

scare tactics. Not because of scare tactics. Much of our membership is

law enforcement. We represent a lot of law enforcement. The enforcement

is changing its attitude. I do know if you saw the comments from the

police chief in Detroit he said that if he wanted to get things under

control that they needed citizens with concealed weapons. When the NRA

are at approach by police chiefs, they only have one attitude, they

want nothing of it. We do not want gun control. One day you will have

to change. Acting the country is changing. I think the world is

changing. There was a speech in Colombia, this is a man who was the

first American head of Interpol, he was Bill Clinton's enforcement chief

who oversaw the gun control laws. He said that he believes every Western

country has to rethink its gun control laws because the way

Terrorism Act changing, the police and the security forces cannot

protect the citizens. -- the way terrorism are changing. If your wife

and children are in a maul taken over by jihadists, would you prefer

to be in a jurisdiction where private ownership is prohibited or

would you prefer to be in Texas? That makes the case. We have to end

there. Thank you very much for being here.

Sunday was a pretty wet day for many parts of the British Isles. Not

quite done without rain. Still lurking with intent across the

eastern side of Scotland. Elsewhere, a cold start to the day, as

specially so across the western side of Scotland. Through because of the

night skies will