ARI MELBER, MSNBC HOST: We`ll get into all of this, our special report, Mueller speaks, and I`ll be anchoring it 9:00 P.M. Eastern on Sunday night. I hope you consider joining us right here on MSNBC.
Don`t go anywhere right now though because "HARDBALL" is up next.
CHRIS MATTHEWS, MSNBC HOST: Good evening. I`m Chris Matthews in Washington with that horrific breaking news now out of Virginia Beach. There`s been a mass shooting at the municipal center there. 11 people are dead.
According to police, the suspect, a current city employee, was also killed. Police say they believe the suspect acted alone. And we`re going to keep an eye on that and any developments out of that news story out of Virginia Beach.
And now to tonight`s politics. The word tonight is that the Trump partisan allies on Capitol Hill want to rough up Robert Mueller. The reason is politics. The President`s allies wanted to discredit the Special Counsel and diminish his findings. They want him to testify before the Congress where they can assault him with hostile questions about the origins of his report, anything but the report itself.
The Daily Beast is reporting that this has become the mission ever since Mueller declared on Wednesday he did not want to testify. In the report, quote, President Trump`s close advisers are increasingly pining for Mueller to be dragged before Congress and subjected to conservative lawmakers` questions about the conduct and outcome of his investigation.
Well, this clashes, of course, with President Trump`s public call for Bob Mueller not to testify, a position the President repeated last Friday.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT: They want to do a redo, like even the fact that they`re asking Bob Mueller to come and testify. He just gave them a 434-page report. He just gave that report. Why does he have to testify? It`s ridiculous.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MATTHEWS: But according to The Daily Beast, the Special Counsel`s eight- minute statement on Wednesday encouraged Trump`s allies to support him testifying before the Congress. And now, Rudy Giuliani says if they allow republican congressman Meadows and Jordan and a few of the others there, they`ll eviscerate him more than they did Michael Cohen. In terms of the politics of it, I would love to have him testify. I think he`s afraid to. That`s Rudy Giuliani talking.
Meanwhile, democrats still remain adamant in their call that Mueller actually testify. They also want him to testify, even though Mueller made clear he won`t say anything beyond the contents of his report. Here`s the Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, New York Congressman Jerry Nadler.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. JERRY NADLER (D-NY): We will have Mr. Mueller`s testimony. I think it`s very important that he testify before the American people, even if he doesn`t say anything beyond what was said there.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MATTHEWS: Well, this comes as Attorney General William Barr tells CBS News that he didn`t agree with the legal analysis in Mueller`s report. Barr says that he intervened to apply what he called the right law when he decided to announce that the President had not obstructed justice.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
WILLIAM BARR, U.S. ATTORNEY GENERAL: We analyzed the law and the facts, and a group of us spent a lot of time doing that and determined that both as a matter of law, many of the instances would not amount to obstruction.
JAN CRAWFORD, CBS HOST: As a matter of law?
BARR: As a matter of law. In other words, we didn`t agree with the legal analysis, a lot of the legal analysis in the report. It did not reflect the views of the department. It was the views of a particular lawyer or lawyers. And so we applied what we thought was the right law.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MATTHEWS: That`s Bill Barr up in his mountain lodge somewhere. By the way, it`s about 90 degrees here in Washington.
I`m joined right now by Democratic Congresswoman Madeleine Dean of Pennsylvania, who`s on the House Judiciary Committee, Heidi Przybyla is Correspondent with NBC News, Asawin Suebsaeng is the White House Reporter for The Daily Beast that had this story, and historian, Jon Meacham, is the co-author of the new book with Tim McGraw, Songs of America, Patriotism, Protest and the Music That Made a Nation. Thank you all for joining us.
Congresswoman, I have to get to you on this point. This is a strange situation. Robert Mueller has been a hero for many people for the past two years. And now, the goal of the republican troublemakers is to get him up on the Hill, tear him apart on the origins of his probe and make him look awful.
REP. MADELEINE DEAN (D-PA): Well, thank you for having me on, and I am very mindful of the shooting that you are covering yet again in this country. We`ve had another mass shooting, at least 11 dead. It`s time this president focused on something like that instead of the sandstorm that he creates day after day.
As to Mr. Mueller coming before congress and coming before our committee, I am very confident that Mr. Mueller will testify credibly and that he will not have any problem handling the republicans on my committee. We`re talking about somebody who was FBI Director for more than ten years. He`s been up against some of the toughest legal minds and adversaries. I have no worries.
I actually think that reporting reveals something very different. I think it reveals a White House in panic. And so instead, I think they decided their message of the day would be, sure, let`s get Mueller out there. Let`s try to scare Mueller. Mueller is not to be scared. Mueller is not to be toyed with. He will come, he will testify honestly and credibly. This White House is in a panic.
MATTHEWS: So one of your sources that they want to get him, who are they? On the Hill or at the White House?
ASAWIN SUEBSAENG, WHITE HOUSE REPORTER, THE DAILY BEAST: Well, the people on the record for the story include Rudy Giuliani, John Dowd, Joe diGenova, Representative Matt Gaetz, so people who, even if they don`t work on the President`s legal team anymore or in the White House, have the President`s ear and speak to him regularly or fairly regularly.
And, again, there are both people within the administration and without it who are starting to form this consensus among Trump world that --
MATTHEWS: Talk about how they think they can get his scalp. Because the Congresswoman says she thinks he`s tough enough to stand up against it. But the motive they have in wanting him on the hill and wanting him under the lights, if you will.
SUEBSAENG: Exactly. They really do think that if you get him in front of Meadows, Gaetz, Jim Jordan, that they will be able to essentially fillet Robert Mueller and attempt to publicly, you know, perhaps even ritually humiliate him. At this point, it`s about getting him out there so they can enact some sort of Trumpian revenge fantasy.
MATTHEWS: Yes. Well, let me go to Heidi on this. You`re thinking about - - hold on, Congresswoman, I want to hear from Heidi Przybyla. What do you make of the fact -- they have made it pretty clear where they`re going to buzz in on him on. They`ll go in on him on Strzok, the FBI agent who shouldn`t have been talking and emailed with his girlfriend or whatever, Lisa Page. They`ll go with him on Christopher Steele and the dossier. They`ll go on everything that undercuts, undermines and sabotages his report.
HEIDI PRZYBYLA, MSNBC NATIONAL POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: I agree with the Congresswoman that Mueller is not going to be at all cowed by that. But here is what is going to happen, because we`ve seen it happen before, which is that they will create these made-for-TV moments that will be played in a certain way by Trump`s allies, specifically primetime hosts like Sean Hannity. They will ask questions that aren`t really questions, they`re statements. And they will preen for the cameras and they will be covered in a skewed way.
That is why when we see footage on this network of a Fox News viewer earlier today saying that she thought there was nothing bad for the President in the Mueller report, you understand how even if Mueller gets up, does a great job, knocks it out of the park, recites his whole report, simply giving his allies, like Jordan and Meadows, the air time that they would get on Fox News by the President`s adviser and friend, Sean Hannity, would serve the purpose for the MAGA crowd and further continue -- I mean, if they can defile an entire institution of the FBI, they can certainly hurt one individual.
MATTHEWS: Jon Meacham is on. Jon, I just watched that ten-part series on the O.J. trial, its beautiful dramatization, I assume it`s pretty much accurate. And what came across on that was that case, that trial wasn`t about evidence, it was about attitude. The jurists had an attitude, everybody had an attitude, everybody did. And attitude is what ruled in that case in terms of the verdict.
I get this on as the same day the MAGA people aren`t going to change their minds based on some little new -- I mean, incremental piece of evidence. They still have their attitude. We like Trump, we hate you guys. Your thoughts.
JON MEACHAM, PRESIDENTIAL HISTORIAN: Yes. I mean, American politics has always been defined, all human (ph) government has been defined by the tension between reason and passion. And the O.J. trial was a case where passion trumped reason.
In most congressional hearings, Chris, you know this as well or better than I do, going back 70 years to Army-McCarthy or Senator Kefauver, through Watergate, remember the Chinese fundraising hearings, Iran-Contra hearings, they`ve always been since the advent of television, they have been theatrical productions.
And with all respect to the Congresswoman, I don`t think the White House is in a panic or any more than they tend to be perennially. I think because Bill Barr stepped in and functionally made the Mueller report the Barr Report, really, in terms of political narrative, a phrase that`s overused, but in this case, applies, because of that, oddly, and one of the many oddities of the era, a report that is to any sensible reader self-evidently damning has become in this carnival-like atmosphere in which we live, has become somehow exculpatory.
MATTHEWS: Let me go back to the Congresswoman. Thank you very much for coming on. What about the fact they just have to mess things up? They don`t have to win the argument. They just have to mess it up so there isn`t a clear cut national mandate to impeach.
DEAN: Well, you know what, I thought this week, the fact that Mueller on his way out the door chose to speak was very pivotal and important and powerful. Because what he said was read the report. America, you need to read the report so that you see the sweeping interference by Russia, the wallowing and welcoming of it by the Trump campaign and then the obstruction of justice evidence against this President. Read the report. I thought that was really powerful. And what he also said going out the door was that now it`s up to Congress.
So I don`t deny, it will be circus-like, it will be carnival-like. We have seen the lack of credibility of the questioning that comes from some of my colleagues on the republican side in judiciary. It will be a circus. They`ll get sound bites on Fox or whomever they like. But more importantly, what will come forward are facts that the American people need to know.
The American people don`t have the time to read a 448-page report. So we need Mr. Barr to come before us and paint the picture for America of the damning relationships between the minions in the Trump world and Trump campaign and Trump administration and the extraordinary bad conduct of this president in trying to obstruct the investigation into his behavior.
We need Mr. Mueller to come forward. He`ll come forward credibly. They`ll throw mud. But I am certain that between the questioning on our side of the aisle that will be robust and professional and based on fact and not based on foe, that the American people will begin to see this story. That`s what has to happen.
MATTHEWS: I just think -- Congresswoman, that`s well said. I just think, Asawin, I can just see Jim Jordan with his white shirt on, you know, he always rolls it up, I`m ready to go into action here. I`m here to be (INAUDIBLE), I`m going to after him. What do you think of this word? I read Peggy Noonan from The Wall Street Journal. I always read it on a Saturday morning, had an advance look at it. She`s calling for censure now, something short of impeachment. Something that might even pass muster with the republican senators.
SUEBSAENG: Well, either impeachment is something that democrats think is something that needs to be wielded. The first situation is where you have a corrupt and out of control president or they don`t, whether it`s politically palatable or not.
But that aside for a moment, one reason I think stories like this are important beyond the potential partisan theatrics that can come out of it is that it really does show and hugely underscore that the overriding principle and ideology of Trumpism in the Republican Party right now isn`t immigration, it`s not the border wall, it`s not family separation or anything like that, it`s fealty to Donald Trump.
They wouldn`t be doing this starting on Wednesday of this week if Mueller hadn`t come out and publicly cross the President. He did and so he must pay publicly and in a potentially humiliating way for it. That`s why they`re doing this.
MATTHEWS: Let me ask you these characters in the Hill, because you and the Congresswoman have made it clear, you believe -- you have some confidence, at least, that the majority in the House will be able to handle the drama. But these characters, Joe diGenova, Rudy Giuliani, these are street fighters. They have come out -- they have not been in public light for a long time but they came out for this particular kind of street fight. This is very gladiatorial, what`s going right now.
And they seem to delight in the chance to get out there and trash somebody who is dignified. In fact, they like that he`s dignified. They can mess him up, Robert Mueller.
PRZYBYLA: We do. But we have to remember, to the Congresswoman`s point, and here`s where I`m going to make the counterpoint to what I just said before. This has to be done. Because even though they will do what they`re going to do and that will get play to a certain percentage of the American public that, by the way, is not growing, it`s static.
Everyone else, the independents, if you look at the polling right now, independent voters need to hear this story because democrats now, if you look at the polling, are very supportive of impeachment. It`s not even close. That`s true. If you drill down into the numbers, democrats are supportive of impeachment but it`s the independents that need to hear the story. They need to hear not only the story about the obstruction but about the pervasive attack on our democracy that included hacking into voting systems in Florida and Illinois, stealing voter data, spearphishing, putting up American --
MATTHEWS: What poll are you looking at that says they impeachment or they want to begin --
PRZYBYLA: It`s a Harvard poll that came out today. If you Google thehill.com, you will see that they break it down bipartisan affiliation. And the reason why there`s a split right now over impeachment or why there isn`t as much support for it is because it`s partisan. Independents don`t support it. Democrats support it, republicans really don`t support it.
MATTHEWS: Congresswoman, what`s it like in Montgomery County up in your domain, up in Pennsylvania? What -- you are home all the time. What are people saying?
DEAN: Well, thanks for asking me. I had a town hall. You`ll recognize the venue. It`s at Montgomery County Community College this week.
MATTHEWS: Sure.
DEAN: And more than a hundred people were there in torrential rain, so I was very appreciative that they came. They wanted to know about substantive things. They want to know about health care social security and their student loan debt and many other things. Gun violence was premiere among them.
But within about ten minutes, I was asked the question about impeachment. The room burst in applause when I said I had asked for the beginning of an impeachment inquiry. So by that poll, it was 99 percent, believe that we need to begin an impeachment inquiry, if not impeachment. I believe in process. I believe in starting the inquiry.
The other thing I wanted to point out is not only do we want Mueller to come before us, but I was talking with our committee today. We`re planning to have some of the now more than 1,000 federal prosecutors who have signed onto the letter saying that Mr. Barr misrepresented the report.
And, you know, it will be very interesting to hear from them because, of course, they served in both republican and democratic presidents, for republican and democratic presidents. So it will be very important to hear from them.
The other thing that I notice in the list of people we talked about today, whether it`s Giuliani or it`s Barr or Mr. Trump himself, they lack something. They lack credibility. And I think the American people see that.
MATTHEWS: Wow, well said. Thank you, Congresswoman Madeline Dean of Montgomery County, Pennsylvania. Jon Meacham, I wish I had more time.
Jon, are you for the pro-censure approach or not with Peggy Noonan? Where are you, Jon?
MEACHAM: I`m not for it only because I think it`s barely a slap on the wrist. And I think if it were to fail, he would claim more exoneration.
MATTHEWS: Well said. I think you`re right.
MEACHAM: I think -- and -- you know what I mean? I mean --
MATTHEWS: I agree completely.
MEACHAM: -- if you`re going to go for the king, go to the king.
MATTHEWS: Yes, don`t hit me with a wet noodle. Thank you, Jon Meacham, Heidi Przybyla and Asawin Suebsaeng.
By the way, anybody normal, a normal president would be deeply hurt by a censure, this president. I think he wouldn`t even feel the welt. Anyway, thank you.
Let`s get the latest, by the way, on that horror story down in Virginia Beach. It was just broke this afternoon. The police chief said 11 people were killed. Another six were injured. The suspect was shot and killed by police. So we`re getting that word now.
Multiple sources tell WAVY, a local NBC affiliate, that the suspect was a disgruntled former city employee.
Jim Kavanaugh, MSNBC Law Enforcement Analyst, and Darrin Porcher, former NYPD Lieutenant, join me now by phone.
Jim Kavanaugh, what do we make of this -- it looks like totally domestic, one of those postal office kind of things, something to do with office attitudes and horrors or whatever they were. Your thoughts.
JIM KAVANAUGH, MSNBC LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: You`re right. You`re right, Chris. You know, it`s a man choking on an empty grudge. He`s going to die in his horrible suicide mission, this time at the hand of the officers. But he`s in there to kill everybody and be killed himself.
You know, it`s an old formula. He`s mad at his employer. You know, we call it workplace violence, but it`s, you know, a sickness that pervades in America. You know, the mad bomber of New York City, George Metesky, planted bombs all over New York City because he was mad at Con Edison, his employer, because he had hurt his back, so he decided to plant bombs across the city.
So it`s an old formula for violence, it`s not new, but it keeps happening and happening and happening. And the country getting a grip on this thing, mental health, firearms, suicide prevention, all those things come into play and security at these buildings.
MATTHEWS: And, Jim, I have to ask you about this. It`s like domestic violence. Is that one of the sort of the sins at heart (ph) that we just live within any society where people have access to guns and they have emotional situations and some people commit horror?
KAVANAUGH: Well, that`s true. I don`t think you can ever be free from it totally in a country as large as ours, but I think you can certainly reduce the amounts. There will probably be some warning signs, Chris, that came out. We`ll learn days later. But there was --
MATTHEWS: How do you reduce it? How do you thwart something like this? Thwart it?
KAVANAUGH: Yes. You reduce it one way with better gun laws. Let`s see what access he had and the prohibitions where in place and how easy it was to get. Unfortunately, it`s the first formula for the mass killer. Hey, I`ll just get some guns, big guns, many guns, lots of ammo, I`ll just kill everybody. It`s so, so easy. So we need to start there.
But there`re political leaders that understand that. It doesn`t mean any of these violations of the second amendment. That`s just a card that`s thrown out there to scare everybody. Listen, it`s not going to reduce anybody`s legal gun ownership, it`s going to stop these people. That`s the first thing.
The second thing is suicide always plays a role here. Suicide is endemic. Psychologists know it. They`ve been (INAUDIBLE). We as police negotiators always look at suicide because suicide really drives people to do these things. They`re suicidal and become homicidal-suicidal. Instead of going out in the field and killing themselves, they`re going to go to the workplace and seek revenge on all the people that ever looked at them wrong at work or that fired them or didn`t give them a raise or the empty grudge, I like to call it. They`re choking on that empty grudge. They`re collecting it for years, and all of a sudden, they`re going to go in now because they come to the ending of their rope and they`re suicidal, they`re going to kill everybody.
MATTHEWS: Yes.
CAVANAUGH: And, of course, the other thing is, recognizing the slight signs, what does the community have to do that in the mental health arena?
And building security. I can tell you, Chris, when I heard about this, I said, unfortunately, municipal building, courthouses, hospitals, places of high human emotion. And when you go in those places, unfortunately -- I have been in some this week -- you know what? The security really is not that great. It`s like lackadaisical, in my view.
If a man can walk across the parking lot of your building and your facility carrying a rifle, you don`t have any security.
MATTHEWS: Yes.
CAVANAUGH: And so churches, municipal buildings, I hate to see these kind of things, but this is probably going to get down to workplace violence, though, because he was an employee there.
But there`s going to be signs that were seen before, and nobody acted appropriately on them. And now we have 11 people dead. Think of the pain in that -- in Virginia Beach now from this.
(CROSSTALK)
MATTHEWS: Jim, we have got a report now. Hold on, Jim.
We have got a report now from the mayor and police chief. They have briefed reporters. Let`s listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BOBBY DYER, MAYOR OF VIRGINIA BEACH, VIRGINIA: This is the most devastating day in the history of Virginia Beach.
JAMES CERVERA, VIRGINIA BEACH POLICE CHIEF: Right now, I can tell you we have multiple casualties and multiple fatalities.
We have 11 deceased victims there at the scene. We had six more victims who were transported to area hospitals. We do know that, shortly after 4:00 p.m. this afternoon, the suspect entered building two.
He was a longtime employee of public utilities. I will not release his name at this time. And he immediately began to indiscriminately fire upon all the victims.
Officers entered once the call went out. The officers were at headquarters. They were responded to building two. They secured as much of the victims as they could and then they engaged with the suspect.
The suspect did shoot a police officer. Officers returned fire. The suspect is deceased.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MATTHEWS: Well, there it is.
Darrin Porcher with the New York -- formerly with the New York Police Department.
Darrin, thank you for joining us.
What can we make of this, as this story breaks, this horror breaks?
DARRIN PORCHER, FORMER NEW YORK POLICE LIEUTENANT: Well, as a practitioner, this is something that really causes my heart to jump out of my chest, because one of the first things that we have to take in consideration is, this is a case of workplace violence.
More and more organizations, particularly municipalities or municipal organizations, practice active shooter protocols. When we have a current employee, he or she will be responsible for participating in these active shooter protocols. Therefore, this -- the shooter in this particular case would have known what the protocol would have been, be it shelter in place or evacuate, the response locations, how police were coming, et cetera.
So just from my experience in responding to workplace violence situations, it was always one that was troubling, because the shooter -- or I want to say the perpetrator in these particular cases -- would have a greater understanding of the schematic of the structure than we as responding police officers.
MATTHEWS: Yes.
PORCHER: Therefore, you -- my heart goes out to the officers that responded.
I believe one of the officers was shot in the process. Generally speaking, when you respond to these active shooter cases, you have one of two options. You either evacuate or shelter in place.
I believe, in this particular instance, they sheltered in place. You shelter in place when the possibility -- when the people -- I should say, the people in the building won`t incur a greater amount of danger when leave -- if they -- when they were leaving the building...
MATTHEWS: Right.
PORCHER: ... such as a shooter or an assailant firing from the windows, et cetera. So, in a case like this, it`s probably best to shelter in place.
MATTHEWS: Darrin, let me ask you about the officer.
Is the protocol -- is it protocol for the officer to basically have a showdown or to cover himself or herself? Is it to take on the shooter, like in "High Noon," gun to gun, or is it to seek shelter yourself?
PORCHER: Well, over the last few years, that`s changed.
In the past, we had an operational plan whereas the officer kind of waiting for special operations troops to come in, like SWAT, and then converge on the shooting. That has since changed.
Now the first officer on the scene, the responding officer is responsible for and they train to confront the shooter directly. And that`s what I believe happened in this particular case.
Granted, we`re speaking from a place of conjecture, because a lot of the details haven`t fully been introduced to us as the public. So we have to just -- based on what have, we do know that they were required to shelter in place.
So, going back to what you mentioned earlier, Chris, the officers are now trained to confront the -- confront technique. And I believe that`s what - - that`s what happened here.
MATTHEWS: Do you have to assume that the shooter, when you arrive at a situation like this from headquarters, that the shooter is in a suicidal mode?
In other words, they`re expecting to sacrifice their lives as part of this rite of whatever, of revenge or whatever you want to call it, that they know they`re going to die, so they`re going to shoot it out?
PORCHER: Well, Chris, these are the worst-case scenarios, when you have a shooter that feel as if they have nothing to live for, and this is a suicide mission, because these are the individuals that will take out as many people as they possibly can and attempt to shoot the police as well.
From my understanding, it was a methodical search. He went from floor to floor, shooting and killing innocent civilians. So, when we have someone like that, unfortunately, this is something where we just have to neutralize the assailant as quick as possible.
And, believe it or not, a large number of these mass shootings result in people that basically feel as if they have nothing to live for and they`re on a suicide mission. So, that`s when police really need to -- quote, unquote -- "have their heads on a swivel," and bring as much resources as they can.
MATTHEWS: Yes.
PORCHER: Granted, like I mentioned, the first responding officer is now trained to effectively combat the shooter, or I will just say attempt to neutralize the shooter initially.
However, the additional resources that we bring in must be capable of stopping the rounds that this particular assailant was using. And the one of the things we have learned is, we have three zones.
MATTHEWS: Hold on there, Darrin. Hold on. Hold on. Hold on.
I want to bring back Jim Cavanaugh.
Jim, what do you make of this? What we`re learning here that the -- well, he`s not a suspect. He`s dead, basically, as part of the situation. They have got -- the shooter, if you will, is dead, shot by police in a shoot- out, basically, after they had protected the other people from being shot.
What are we looking at? What are we looking at now?
CAVANAUGH: We`re looking at -- just like the lieutenant said, we`re looking at hero cops.
The first few officers, they moved quickly in. That`s the protocol. We train -- all trained on these active killer drills. You`re moving quickly. You absolutely are deciding when you get the call on your radio that he`s a suicidal-homicidal guy.
You know that. And you`re going to -- your question of do you go like "High Noon," Chris, you do a tactical movement. You are moving quickly from cover to cover.
The first thing I think about in a gun fight is cover. The first thing I think about is get behind a tree, a wall, something, but you have got to move fast in these situations.
A Virginia Beach P.D. officer took some rounds, was wounded, apparently. I don`t think they have said he was killed. He was wounded. And the other officers, well-trained, all police, to shoot, and they took this loser killer out.
Now, these guys often are out for infamy. And I think it`s a good thing that, in the news business, his name is going to be reported.
MATTHEWS: Yes, unfortunately.
CAVANAUGH: And his picture is going to be up.
That has to happen in journalism, but the point being that it`s not just hyped and hyped for weeks on end. I mean, it`s going to be in the news today, and it can be relegated to the bottom of the page, because what we have seen, Chris, recently in shootings like in Colorado and stuff where they heroes who tackled the guy, the students and the coaches, their names are up, their pictures are up. They`re the heroes.
That`s what you would like to see.
MATTHEWS: I agree.
CAVANAUGH: Don`t give these guys the infamy they want.
MATTHEWS: I love the fact we don`t use their names. I hope we don`t have to.
Let me go to David Jolly, who was already scheduled to be on the program.
David, as a former congressman, you have been involved in this debate over gun violence. This case -- all cases are a little different. This is about apparently a workplace situation where the anger was and the shooting was addressed at the fellow workers, perhaps the employer.
And this is something I remember. We all grew up with the post office situations, where there`s a lot of pressure at work, a lot of unhappiness of many people in their jobs. And here we go.
DAVID JOLLY, MSNBC POLITICAL CONTRIBUTOR: Sure.
And, look, the national reaction typically follows a traditional narrative of heartbreak for the victims. We mourn as a nation for the lives lost and for their surviving families. We reflect on the valor of the first- responders.
And the chief was very specific to recognize the valor of those who went in the building, the police officer who it appears has been -- who survived the shoot-out because of a bulletproof vest, I believe he said.
But then the next step in the national conversation is always the public policy debate, the political debate, if you will.
I was in the House after the Pulse nightclub, when, frankly, nothing happened. We know after Vegas what happened on bump stocks, took a year. And, frankly, that does very little to address the mass violence caused by access to firearms, high-powered firearms.
We have seen Parkland. We have seen Pittsburgh. Tonight, it`s Virginia Beach.
Chris, we are a nation with broken gun laws, not just easy access to guns, but our laws are broken. We see violence in the United States at a rate that we do not see anywhere else in the civilized world.
And to deny the fact that our laws are broken is simply pure ignorance on behalf of politicians who would say such. We can debate the solutions. But what we know tonight, once again, we`re reminded coming out of Virginia, is firearm laws in the United States of America are deeply broken.
MATTHEWS: Hold on, David.
Let me go to Clint Van Zandt. It`s important to have Clint on tonight.
Clint, again, we call you in at the worst nights, but here we are again.
CLINT VAN ZANDT, MSNBC ANALYST: Yes.
And, Chris, you have covered these so many times, and me with you. And what your guest is saying, that`s part of the equation. Part of the equation is that we have got more guns than people in this country.
But if we passed a law today and said, no more manufacture, no more sales of guns, we`d still have guns around 500 years from now. So part of the equation is the mental health aspect of it. For someone to commit one more senseless act of workplace violence suggests that one more person has not developed any type of conflict resolution skills, other than mirroring what he`s seen someone else do, which is go in and commit the ultimate crime against anybody and everybody.
You blame one person, you blame the whole, the whole workplace itself, and so many of these individuals go in fully expecting to die. And the question we ask sometimes is, well, if you`re that bad off, why don`t you just go out in the woods and do it, or go in your backyard and do it?
But it`s always the individual -- and I have spoken to some people who have survived these things, Chris, who are the shooters. And they have this imagined picture of their getting even, not just for themselves, but for everybody like themselves who have been in a similar situation and felt they were taken advantage of.
But until we`re able to identify an individual who`s in -- who is going into a crisis state, and we -- when -- we with the benefit of 20/20 hindsight, we find these pre-incident indicators on an individual.
Our challenge is to find those indicators and to get society, law enforcement, mental health community to do something about it, along with doing something concerning our guns in this country too.
MATTHEWS: Well, Clint, I want to ask you, because you`re the pro on this.
If you have 330 million people in a country, and more guns than that, it`s just a roulette wheel that goes around, and it`s going to land on somebody. It`s just, there are that many numbers, that many guns. Somebody who shouldn`t have a gun will get one, if they don`t already have one.
VAN ZANDT: Yes.
MATTHEWS: And they are going to do something bad with it.
Isn`t this just a law of averages, unfortunately, in this culture, in this culture?
VAN ZANDT: In this culture.
And I think that`s the key issue, Chris, is that the guns are there. Anybody who wants a gun, no matter what gun laws we pass today, if you want to buy a gun, you can go on the streets of New York City, Chicago, L.A., Washington, you can buy a gun on the street.
The issue is that each individual who commits an act like this, by and large, it`s because he`s seen someone else do it. And it`s the aha phenomena. Aha, now I too know how I can get even. I know how I can settle the score.
MATTHEWS: Yes.
VAN ZANDT: And until we can touch those people, they`re going to do just what you just said. It`s going to be the roulette wheel, and it`s this city today and it`s another city tomorrow. And it`s not going to stop until we find a way to reach people before they do this.
And that`s kind of our crapshoot too, is a psychologist trying to identify that person.
(CROSSTALK)
MATTHEWS: Thanks, Clint, as always, sir.
Let me go back to Darrin Porcher in New York, with the New York police record you have got all those years working.
Let`s talk about the police officers. Let`s talk about the good guys here, not the people with real problems that brought hell on us again. Talk about the police officer who walks into one of these situations. He`s called from headquarters. He`s told there`s a live shooter at this place.
He knows there are people already down. What does that person have to have in their head and their heart and their guts to walk into that situation?
PORCHER: Well, I give you from my personal experience.
As soon as I hear -- and I have responded on many of these cases of workplace violence. And the first thing that goes through me is, a chill goes down to my spine because I know that this is a violent situation, highly volatile, and I`m not sure if I`m going to come out of this alive, because we have a shooter.
Once again, this is a work -- this is a shooter involved in workplace violence that knows the schematic of the building. So the cop that`s responding knows what I was telling you. And so they`re going to be very, very -- I don`t want to use the term hesitant, but they`re going to go into this as tactically sound as possible.
MATTHEWS: Yes.
PORCHER: One of your guests mentioned cover and concealment. That is absolutely essential. You want to establish cover and concealment every step of the way when you enter that building.
Like I mentioned, that first officer that responds on the scene, he or she is responsible for engaging the shooter. Then the next thing that`s going to happen is, we are going to set up three perimeters. We`re going to set up something we refer to as the hot zone, the warm zone and the cold zone.
The hot zone is the area where the actual shooter would be located. Anyone that`s in that area where the hot zone is located should have a -- should have body armor that is equivalent to the weapon that`s being used by the shooter.
The warm zone is going to be a little further out. But, once again, those individuals should wear body armor that`s equivalent to the rounds that are being fired from this weapon.
And then you`re going to have the cold zone. The cold zone is the outer perimeter. And that outer perimeter, that`s where you`re going to have uniformed officers that are setting up traffic blockades and cutting off pedestrian traffic from entering and -- from entering that facility.
They`re also going to check credentials to ensure that the special operations troops get in there as quick as possible. So, going back to what you mentioned to me initially, Chris, that first officer is a human being. He`s a person that pumps red blood, just like you and I. They`re going to be nervous, but, at the same token, they`re going to practice a level of tactical vigilance.
And that`s where -- that`s where that officer is looking in terms of the tactical situation.
MATTHEWS: Darrin, hold on there. I love the protocol information.
Let`s go to Pete Williams, our expert here on the law, on what we know about the police situation.
Pete Williams.
PETE WILLIAMS, NBC NEWS JUSTICE CHIEF CORRESPONDENT: Well, Chris, tonight, the mayor is calling this the most devastating day in the history of Virginia Beach.
The numbers, you know, 11 people killed, six people injured. We don`t yet know tonight the condition of the people who were taken to two hospitals, five to one, one to another, presumably all with gunshot wounds, although authorities haven`t said yet what the nature of their injuries is exactly.
But this is a person, they say, who was an employee of this building. In other words, they say he was shooting at people that he knew, entering the building just after 4:00, about 4:30. This is the municipal building.
It`s in a cluster of city office buildings near the courthouse, near City Hall in Virginia`s -- in Virginia Beach.
And then the police chief says he just began indiscriminately opening fire. Now, we don`t yet know what kind of weapon the gunman was carrying or how heavily armed he was. We do know that the police response was very quick, because you have got all these city buildings around. You have this large police presence there anyway.
They were in that building very, very quickly. And we do know that the gunman was killed in a shoot-out with police, and that one of the people who was a target of the gunman`s gunfire was a police officer, but the police chief is saying that his life was spared by the body armor that he was wearing, by, in essence, his bulletproof vest.
We don`t yet know anything further about the motive. All they`re saying is that this was a current employee of this municipal building. He`s being described as a disgruntled employee, obviously.
Earlier, there had been a rumor that he had been fired, but the police chief said that he was a current employee. So, we had sensed that this was a workplace shooting early on this afternoon, when some of the witnesses were saying that they knew who the gunman was, so that suggested it was a co-worker, someone they knew.
We were just waiting to find out whether this was a domestic violence situation or workplace shooting, but it does seem now like it`s the latter.
MATTHEWS: It seems that we have been saved from this particular category of mass shooting for a while.
Remember -- Pete, you have got a great memory. Remember all those post office situations that became almost classic?
WILLIAMS: Right, decades ago.
And then there was a spate of them about 10 or 15 years ago also in large industrial settings. But you`re right, we haven`t seen a lot of these, fortunately, lately. So it`s -- we`re fortunate that they`re not -- they don`t happen more often than they do.
Of course, one of the questions is, how did the person get the gun inside this building? But this was an office building, and not every office building in America -- you know, you have -- you expect to see metal detectors in courthouses, at the concourses of airports, which is where most Americans would run into them.
Here in Washington, virtually every federal office building has metal detectors for people who walk in off the street. But this was the kind of place where you go in to see the people about your water bill, to operations -- people who carry out the normal day-to-day operations of a city, and it did not have metal detectors, probably because there wasn`t a lot of public walk-in.
But that`s how this person was able to get this gun in. And, of course, an employee would know how to do it.
MATTHEWS: Pete Williams, thank you so much, sir, tonight.
Our local affiliate, by the way, in Virginia Beach, WAVY, interviewed some witnesses at the scene. Let`s listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yelling and screaming, trying to get everybody safe, and some gunshots.
QUESTION: And when you heard the gunshots, what did you hear?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We just heard people yelling and screaming to get down. And I was on the phone with 911, so I was trying to concentrate on getting -- talking to them.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MATTHEWS: A human face of a tragedy.
Let`s listen to what Virginia Governor Ralph Northam had to say while on his way to a briefing on the shooting.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) GOV. RALPH NORTHAM (D-VA): Our folks at the hospital, and just making sure that we take care of everybody right now. But we`re going to be briefed here, and I will have some further comments a little while later in the evening.
QUESTION: They say that 11 are dead. When you hear that?
NORTHAM: Yes. It`s just a horrific day.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MATTHEWS: Let me go back to Jim Cavanaugh on this, unfortunately, another case of a guy I get to talk to in the worst moments of our times here.
Jim, this workplace -- as Pete Williams was talking about, this category of mass shooting, what -- it seems to be people who know each other face to face, people shooting people they know from work. They see them at lunchtime. They see them coming and going to work. They may work next to them.
They know who they`re shooting, and they`re killing them, killing as many as they can shoot before they`re shot. It seems to me that kind of in extremis thing, I will kill until I`m killed.
CAVANAUGH: No, that`s right, Chris.
And what you find in these workplace shootings too is, they will sometimes skip some employees. They will sometimes let some employees go because they liked them or didn`t have a grudge against them, or they`re an actual human person to their mind or something.
MATTHEWS: Yes.
CAVANAUGH: Sometimes, it`s not every single person. Sometimes, they go for their boss or the person that turned them in or -- you know, the revenge.
And, as Clint said, pre-incident indicators, they`re there. Everybody is going to know he`s a disgruntled employee. That`s not going to be a secret. When you go to his home life, there`s probably going to be some indicators, Chris, of -- could be some instability in his life, some drugs or issues with him emotionally.
He could have all kinds of things going on. And he could have had prior contact with the police. You know, the question of the gun laws, as Congressman Jolly was talking about, he`s right, because, you see, what you have to do is, you are putting a bunch of hurdles in front of a mass killer. There`s hurdles to get over.
And when the gun laws are better, there`s more hurdles. It`s not that somebody can`t get over them sometime, but it`s that most people can`t. The way it is now, heck, just go into the gun show and buy all the ammo you want, buy all the guns you want.
You need more to kill more. Get more. There`s no restrictions. So it really plays into the killer`s hands, where, if he has to go into the back alley to try to find a gun, that`s risk for him. Sometimes, he gets a gun that jams and doesn`t work. Sometimes, he runs into an undercover ATF agent or a police officer and gets arrested.
Sometimes, he even gets hurt by a criminal. It`s risky business to buy black market guns in tough neighborhoods. So, we talk about it on television, how easy it was.
Listen, I worked gun trafficking for 33 years. I`m telling you, it`s not so simple. It`s criminal activity. So that`s a risk that we put out to the buyer in the black market, that he might be arrested, he could be hurt, he could be in jeopardy of the criminal justice system or drug dealers or whatever.
MATTHEWS: Sure.
CAVANAUGH: But we don`t even have to do that. The mass killer doesn`t face that risk. He can go wherever he wants, walk into the gun store or the gun show, you know, without restrictions.
So we need to tighten that up. We`re living in an America really in the last 35 years that`s been designed by the gun lobby. They have controlled all the laws, all the gun laws in the Congress.
MATTHEWS: That`s for sure.
CAVANAUGH: The Congress will not budge on anything. They won`t hear or let anything get through.
So this is this is America designed by the gun lobby.
MATTHEWS: Right. I agree.
CAVANAUGH: It could be better.
MATTHEWS: And they`re probably circling the wagons right now as we speak at the NRA and places like that, where they`re thinking, OK, there will be some heat for a couple of weeks. It will blow over, though.
CAVANAUGH: Right. Right.
MATTHEWS: People will go back to their concerns. Our concern is protecting the rights to own a gun.
Anyway, Jim, hold on there.
The mayor and police chief have briefed reporters just a short time ago. Let`s watch that.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DYER: This is the most devastating day in the history of Virginia Beach.
CERVERA: Right now, I can tell you we have multiple casualties and multiple fatalities.
We have 11 deceased victims there at the scene. We had six more victims who were transported to area hospitals. We do know that, shortly after 4:00 p.m. this afternoon, the suspect entered building two.
He was a longtime employee of public utilities. I will not release his name at this time. And he immediately began to indiscriminately fire upon all the victims.
Officers entered once the call went out. The officers were at headquarters. They were responded to building two. They secured as much of the victims as they could and then they engaged with the suspect.
The suspect did shoot a police officer. Officers returned fire. The suspect is deceased.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MATTHEWS: Clint Van Zandt, let`s talk about the kind of person who would do something like this, because we will know a lot more in the paper tomorrow. By midnight, we will know a lot more.
But it seems to me, being angry at your bosses is not a rare mood to be in. People get mad at their bosses. They get mad at their co-workers. They quit jobs. They bad-mouth. I mean, these are all remedies for people in the short run. And they`re normal. We live with them all the time.
And some people, I always wonder, why don`t they just go wash dishes in Oklahoma? Just go -- go somewhere else. Why do you have to go back to where you work and shoot people? It`s a subset of anger.
Talk to me about the cases you have studied where people resort to mass shootings at the workplace.
VAN ZANDT: Yes.
And the question -- one of the many questions that Jim Cavanaugh and myself and others ask every time we see these is, why today, Chris? Why not yet? Why not tomorrow? What was the triggering event that set this guy off, finally? Was it a confrontation at work? Was it a confrontation at home?
Those are the things we have to understand. We have to know what the triggering mechanism is that finally sets a person off. And the challenge is, I have worked with companies. They have had me come in and they said, hey, we need you to talk to this guy because everybody in the workplace says he`s been voted the person most likely to come in and shoot the workplace up. And will you do an assessment and tell us if he`s going to do that or not?
Most of the time, Chris, you sit down and talk to somebody like that, there is. There`s a level of anger, frustration, rage. There`s mental health issues going on. But many times, too, if you can identify that person, you can talk to them.
The problem is, is that we see these things. We see people that are angry, frustrated, rageful, depressed, whatever it is, and it`s like, not my job. You know, I`m not my brother`s keeper. I`m not supposed to find out about this guy.
Well, no, it`s kind of what we need to do to protect us all. And whenever I teach workplace violence, you tell the clients, when you see something -- just like in New York City, when you see something, say something. That should be -- that should also be addressed in the area of workplace violence.
If someone is talking about weapons, if they`re angry, if they`re talking about getting revenge, if they exhibit any type of mental health problems, these are the times, as co-workers, we should have a responsibility to tell someone, hey, this guy has got some problems. Somebody needs to talk to him and find out, is he the next shooter, is he the next suicide person, or is he just going to pick up and move to another town and wash dishes?
But we need to have some way to interview those people and talk to them before they act out, because, as you say, tomorrow, everybody is going to understand. We`re going to say, gee, I always knew that guy was going to act up.
MATTHEWS: Oh, yes.
VAN ZANDT: He was always crazy.
Well, then tell somebody, if you know that.
MATTHEWS: Darrin, let`s talk about the ballistics here or the weaponry, because we would like to -- I know we all look for hope. And we say, well, if you get automatic weapons or bump stocks out of the hands of people, they can`t do mass shootings.
But here was apparently a single-shot kind of weapon, apparently. I don`t think it was a revolver. I bet it`s probably a semiautomatic pistol. But it looks like you can do a lot of damage with a single-shot weapon.
Darrin.
VAN ZANDT: Hey, Chris, let me jump in on that.
MATTHEWS: Sure, Clint.
VAN ZANDT: And you can do a lot of damage. It doesn`t have to be a fully automatic weapon. It doesn`t have to be a semiautomatic.
Chris, you and I remember Virginia Tech, when Cho, the 21-, 22-year-old shooter there, had two semiautomatic pistols, and he was able to create that much murder and mayhem on that campus.
So it`s not really the capacity of the weapon, necessarily. It`s how dedicated that shooter is, what type of environment is he shooting in, and how quickly can law enforcement respond.
And the challenge is, most mass shooters go into an environment where they believe there`s not going to be anybody who can stand up against them. In essence, they don`t think there`s going to be a police officer there to take them on at that time.
And they`re -- they`re -- what they`re trying to do is kill as many people as they can. If the police show up, then you have murder-suicide that takes place. This guy, probably, his ultimate goal, like many, may well have been to die in this incident.
He was able to do that, but why couldn`t we identify him beforehand? This is the hand-wringing. Can we keep the guns out of their hands and can we get people mental health before they commit something like this?
MATTHEWS: Yes.
VAN ZANDT: If we can -- if we could do those two miracles, we could stop this in this country.
MATTHEWS: Jim Cavanaugh, I want to talk to you about the proliferation of this horror, because I`m thinking now of all the cities and towns in this country that are known for a mass shooting.
You have got Columbine. You have San Bernardino. You have got Texas -- or Virginia Tech that was mentioned, Sandy Hook. It just seems like it`s every part of the country, every region has been hit by this thing, California, all the way back to Connecticut, down to the South, down, of course, with Fort Hood.
All this, it`s just everywhere. It`s, frankly, every city is now -- it seems like every state has a city known for a mass shooting now.
CAVANAUGH: No, that`s right, Chris.
And I think it really behooves all the governments, local, county governments, city governments, to band together and form a little task force of agents, city, police, county deputies, state troopers, federal agents, and some mental health professionals, school administrators, form a little task force.
Formalize it more, not just a network of everybody making a phone call. Maybe get a little office space for them. Can them where they meet regular every month, where all the people come in. Clint was just talking about that -- or recognized as having the problems.
You know, well, here`s a guy that is having a problem. He works at this company, everybody is afraid of him, this is what`s going on. And then sitting around the table, well, there`s a city detective, there`s a state trooper who runs the intelligence center, there`s an ATF agent, there`s an FBI agent.
And they say, hey, let us check. We might have something on that guy. Hey, does that guy have a gun? What is he doing? Why is he doing this?
MATTHEWS: Yes.
CAVANAUGH: And maybe there could be some look at him to see if it can be interrupted.
It`s the hurdles you`re trying to make to stop the guy from doing what he`s going to do. And, look, Chris, what does the Secret Service do when they think somebody is going to attack one of their protected persons? They interview the person. They go, they sit down, and they interview the person.
We heard you made a threat against one of our protectees. Why would you want to do that? Who are you? What`s going on?
It`s direct. Clint will tell you, as negotiators, we will -- what do we say to a guy who`s going to kill himself? Are you going to kill himself? It`s not -- it`s not a secret formula. We say, hey, look, are you planning on killing yourself? Let`s talk about that.
So, you have got some direct intervention to try to get it back. We need leadership. You talk every night on your show about leadership, political leadership.
I`m going to tell you, it is the sine qua non of solving this problem. And it`s reducing the problem. Again, we can`t look at the person that says, you will never stop it all.
You will never stop everything all, no car wrecks, no heart attacks.
MATTHEWS: Well...
CAVANAUGH: You want to reduce it. But it can be greatly reduced, in my view, with real determination, not letting -- look, the gun lobby should have a say, Chris. I think they should.
I just don`t think they should control all the gun laws in the country and lock down the Congress. They should have a say, because they want to protect rights of gun owners. Good. I have been around them for years. But they shouldn`t control everything, to the detriment of any other citizen, where you can`t go to work, you can`t go to the mall, you can`t go to church, you can`t go to college, you can`t go anywhere, or you`re going to get slaughtered.
That`s crazy. It`s a crazy thing.
MATTHEWS: Let me go to Frank -- I`m sorry, Jim.
Let`s go to Frank Figliuzzi. He`s on for other issues. He`s a big man on in anti-terrorism.
Frank, when I first went to Capitol Hill back in `71, I was working as a Capitol cop for a while. And I have to tell you, I would go to the police station there right now -- next to the Senate building, and they had little X`s where everybody had been killed in the last year or so. It was a very dangerous neighborhood, Capitol Hill, back then.
Well, now the United States has cities all over the country, schools, all kinds of workplaces, where there`s been mass shootings. If you just show a map of the United States, it`s frightening.
What do you say to the rest of the world when they pick up the paper in Hong Kong tomorrow morning and they read, another shooting in the U.S.? Explain it to them. Why is America a country where people have mass shootings all the time?
FRANK FIGLIUZZI, FORMER ASSISTANT FBI DIRECTOR: You know, I know that it`s hard to explain, because I know that my friends and colleagues in other countries just shake their heads with this.
And they worry about things like knife crime and assaults. And I long for the days when we would worry about knife crimes and physical assaults.
What I think we need to have the world understand is, this is what we are right now. And we have to come up with ways to deal with it. And one of the things that I keep stressing, Chris, not only from my FBI career, but in my corporate security career, is the need for everyone to understand the warning signs and indicators.
These things don`t just happen. The myth that people "go postal" -- quote, unquote -- or that they just snap...
MATTHEWS: Yes.
FIGLIUZZI: ... is just that, a myth.
And employers have got to set up systems for co-workers to report their concerns about employees, if you know someone who is obsessing, can`t get off of a topic, is engaged in odd drawings and writing, or talking of hurting themselves or others, or they have recently acquired weapons or are training with weapons, and then you combine those with stresses in life, like a divorce, a breakup, family illnesses, distress, and then, of course, the big one, the job change, the job impact.
I note that today is Friday. I note that Friday throughout the corporate world is a day when personnel actions happen.
MATTHEWS: It sure does.
FIGLIUZZI: That it`s the end of a pay period.
And this is what triggers people. So, we have got to get the warning signs and indicators trained into people. And companies have to accept reporting by their concerned co-workers.
MATTHEWS: And I think do -- people historically face firing, if there`s going to be a termination, it would -- tends to happen on Friday afternoon. I think that -- who knows if that`s involved here.
But, Frank, let me talk to you about this mass shooting thing, because, as you point out, street crime is worldwide. Sometimes, it`s knives. Sometimes, it`s pistols. But what`s it about us, the mass shooting?
It doesn`t seem to happen in Japan. It doesn`t happen. You know, the other day, in the Danube, a boat overturned with a lot of South Korean tourists on it. They don`t die that way. They don`t die in mass shootings in South Korea or anywhere except here.
FIGLIUZZI: Well, look, this goes back to historians talking about the Wild West and the building of America and the impact of a gun, the importance of firearms in American history in taming the West.
MATTHEWS: Yes.
FIGLIUZZI: And we have this kind of image of -- an iconic image of what it was like to carry the sidearm and the revolver and the six-shooter.
And it permeates our media now. It permeates our entertainment. We find it entertaining to play violent games, to go see a movie that`s filled with bloodshed. And it`s become a part of our culture.
And we have to call time-out on that.
MATTHEWS: I agree.
FIGLIUZZI: We have to ask ourselves, as people debate gun laws and gun control and all of those issues, what are we doing culturally? What are we doing with our kids? What do we call entertainment?
But it`s part of the culture of who we are, and it`s time to question that culture.
MATTHEWS: Have you seen any movie previews lately? They`re horrible.
Anyway, it reminds me, Clint, of going back -- or back to the days of -- or, Frank, back to the days of -- Clint, back to the days of "Gunsmoke," which was the number one show on television for 10 years, I believe.
And everything was about a new guy coming into town trying to get a reputation by shooting somebody, a reputation. Isn`t that interesting culture overlay? Kill somebody, get a reputation.
FIGLIUZZI: Well, it`s how we choose to deal with things, sadly.
We have got to get additional coping mechanisms and start teaching people how to deal with trouble without violence, because it`s easy for us in our society, because of the accessibility of weapons, to not try to talk it out, to not be equipped with coping skills, but rather to go down to the store and buy the firearm. And it`s the easy way out.
We have got to teach alternative coping methods.
MATTHEWS: Well, we have got a meeting coming up in Fresno State next Monday night, coming up two days from now.
And I have to tell you that Mayor Pete Buttigieg, who`s out there, he is calling for registration of firearms. That`s, of course, a very hot proposition, Clint. That`s a hot one, registration. But maybe we`re going to reach that point at some point.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Clint, you there?
MATTHEWS: Clint?
Let me go to Frank on that one.
Frank, what do you think of that one?
VAN ZANDT: Yes, well...
MATTHEWS: That`s going to be a hot number.
VAN ZANDT: Yes, we may reach that, Chris.
But, again, you start telling Americans, OK, we`re going to send a police officer to every house, we want to see your guns, we want to see your serial numbers on your guns, maybe in 100 years, but not in the next five or 10 years is anything like that going to happen in this country.
MATTHEWS: OK.
Thank you so much to all our guests tonight, a tragic night. We report the news here, the news tonight. And here it is. Eleven people are dead in Virginia Beach after a mass shooting in a municipal building. The suspect, according to police, was a disgruntled city employee. He was killed by police.
MSNBC will continue covering this story all night long, of course.
And a quick programming note. As I said, on Monday night, coming up in two days -- or actually three days -- Mayor Pete Buttigieg will join me for a live town hall meeting out in Fresno State in California to answer voters` questions about the major news of the day.
It`s going to be a big night. And I`m sure we will talk about mass shootings and gun violence.
Tune in Monday night, 7:00 p.m. Eastern, here on MSNBC.
"ALL IN WITH CHRIS HAYES" starts right now.
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