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Inside Room of Emanuel AME Church Shooting; Video Shows 13- Year-Old Buys Gun on 1st Try; Gun Sales Surge after Nightclub Massacre. Aired 2:30-3p ET

Aired June 17, 2016 - 14:30   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

[14:30:00] ESTER LANCE, MOTHER DIED IN AME CHURCH SHOOTING: Come close to the TV, I be like, woo, that's my mama church.

BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): Ester Lance was gathered around the block in a hotel waiting to hear the fate of their loved ones.

(on camera): When you knew something was wrong at the church, did you know your mom was there?

LANCE: Yeah.

BALDWIN: In that Bible study.

LANCE: I said, listen. Tell me the truth. Is my mama in that church?

BALDWIN: What did you say to those family members behind closed doors?

GREGORY MULLEN, CHIEF, CHARLESTON, SOUTH CAROLINA, POLICE DEPARTMENT: We explained to them we had a situation in the church as they were aware of and at this point that there were nine people that were deceased.

LANCE: All I can see is body bag.

BALDWIN: Ugh.

LANCE: But I knew my mama gone. My heart telling me this.

BALDWIN: You knew?

LANCE: Yes.

REV. NORVEL GOFF, PRESIDING ELDER, EDISTO DISTRICT, SOUTH CAROLINA: Had to identify who was in the church and had to identify those who were slain, murdered. We were now in the throes of planning nine funerals, home-going celebration.

JOSEPH RILEY, FORMER CHARLESTON, SOUTH CAROLINA MAYOR: And they, in the hotel, did not know exactly what had happened. They were probably about 200 people in the room so then they deducted that that was their brother, sister, father, cousin, friend, and all the ranges of weeping, crying, wailing, moaning, sobbing.

MULLEN: It was a gasp that I'll never forget when we told them that, and at that point, Reverend Goff broke out into a song and everybody was singing together and --

(CROSSTALK)

BALDWIN: Holding hands and praying.

MULLEN: -- and holding hands and praying.

This is the worst night of my career.

BALDWIN (voice-over): Just after midnight, Chief Mullen, Mayor Riley and Reverend Goff left the hotel and shared what had happened with the rest of the world.

MULLEN: The first press conference, it was very personal. I felt like that this person had come in to my community and had ripped it apart.

RILEY: I had a little stenographic pad because, you know, exhausted and you want to get it right. I referred to it as a most unspeakable act.

This is a most unspeakable and heartbreaking tragedy.

GOFF: We would hope that this person who has committed this heinous crime, which is a hate crime, be brought to justice.

MULLEN: Thank you very much.

(CROSSTALK)

MULLEN: Thank you very much.

BALDWIN: After an intense 14-hour manhunt, police apprehended their suspect. He was some 250 miles away in Shelby, North Carolina. We later learned the 21-year-old gunman hoped to start a race war.

GOFF: This act of terrorism, racism, bigotry, was the act of a -- one individual who wanted to create a race riot in the city of Charleston. What they found out is that our faith was greater than fear. And that love will always overtake hate. They will come together as a community which we did. We pulled together to make sure that how we responded to evil was not with evil.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

DON LEMON, CNN ANCHOR: Beautiful report by Brooke there.

The suspect's state trial is due to start in January. Federal prosecutors are seeking the death penalty.

And you can go to CNN.com to see more of Brooke's exclusive reporting from Charleston.

Up next, on this broadcast, a 13-year-old tries to buy lottery tickets, cigarettes, porn and guns, and guess which one he is able to purchase? That is coming up.

Plus, my next guest owns a gun store and he says sales of AR-15 assault rifles have gone through the roof since the shooting. What's behind that? Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[14:38:26] LEMON: As Democrats continue to push for laws that ban people on the terror watch list from buying guns, the national conversation has been reignited about how easy it is for anyone to buy a gun, even a 13-year-old boy. Watch this eye-opening experiment from HBO's "Real Sports" with Bryant Gumbel."

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BRYANT GUMBEL, HOST, HBO'S REAL SPORTS (voice-over): Take a ride with Jack, a 13-year-old boy who got his braces off and usually spends Saturday morning playing basketball with his friends. But he also a young actor. And today, we hired him to help us make a point. We asked him to take a drive around town, with his mother, of course, since he's not nearly old enough to drive a car.

We pass shops where he isn't old enough to work the register. Then we stop at the convenience store to see Jack try to buy beer.

UNIDENTIFIED BOY: Can I get it?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No.

BRYANT: The cashier can't believe he tried.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Literally looks like he's 12.

GUMBEL: At the next store, Jack tries to buy cigarettes with no luck.

UNIDENTIFIED BOY: Just wondering if I can have cigarettes.

GUMBEL: Later, he strikes out trying to buy racy magazines.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You have to be 18.

UNIDENTIFIED BOY: OK, thank you.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You're welcome.

GUMBEL: And then lottery tickets.

UNIDENTIFIED BOY: Can I get a couple scratch offs?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: How old are you? You have your I.D.?

UNIDENTIFIED BOY: 13. UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You're what?

UNIDENTIFIED BOY: 13.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You can't get no scratch offs, baby.

(LAUGHTER)

GUMBEL: It's laughable to everyone here, the idea that we'd ever expose a 13-year-old to the dangers of a lottery ticket.

But then, we arrive here, at the gun show.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It should shoot pretty good for you.

UNIDENTIFIED BOY: I'll take it.

GUMBEL: Within minutes, the 13-year-old easily and legally bought a 22-caliber rifle from a private seller and walked away with it.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

[14:40:11] LEMON: Interesting.

Well, while federal law mandates you must be 18 to buy a gun from a licensed dealer, the sale in that video was made at a gun show and it's considered a private sale. Private sales require less documentation about who is buying the gun and how frequently transactions like that are made.

Something we can measure is the spike in gun sales. Smith & Wesson reports its annual sales up 22 percent. They saw jumps in sales after the massacres in San Bernardino and Newtown and in Charleston. But the people who see evidence of this trend up close are local gun shop owners.

So let's discuss with one right now. Jay Wallace owns the Adventure Outdoors Gun Shop in Smyrna, Georgia.

And, Jay, thank you for coming on.

You're not only seeing a surge in overall sales since the Orlando shooting but sales of AR-15 rifles. How many have you sold and why is it popular?

JAY WALLACE, OWNER, ADVENTURE OUTDOORS GUN SHOP: I'm not sure how many we sold this week. Earlier in the week, when we were really busy, I looked at it and it was up to 15 an hour at the time, people were purchasing.

LEMON: What's behind it, you think?

WALLACE: Well, it's three things. One, it's just the sign of the times of people understanding that they have to take responsibility of their own safety, that the police can't be everywhere all the time. Another is that they're worried about maybe the government making these illegal at some point. And they want to get one while they still can. And then there's others that are purchasing them because if they are made illegal the ones that are there will drastically increase in what they're worth and would be an investment.

LEMON: So why is this particular gun so popular, AR-15?

WALLACE: Well, they're popular because they're accurate and they're reliable. And it's just a gun that, you know, that hunters like to use and people like to use for target practice. It's just an enjoyable gun that they like to have.

LEMON: I want to -- there's an essay in "The New York Times" I want to read part of it with you and it's written by a military veteran. He says, "I used an assault rifle in the army. I don't think civilians should own them."

And he quotes a fellow officer writing, "People who say they need an AR for hunting or home defense don't understand the ballistics or over-penetration. They cause horrific damage to humans. That's why the military developed them."

Do you agree with that?

WALLACE: It's a half truth. What he used in the military is not the same thing. Yes, it is an AR but the firearm he used in the military was fully auto. OK? There's a big difference there.

And there's the AR shots a .223. And a .223 is actually very -- pretty much not powerful compared to some other calibers out there now. So I wouldn't agree with that at all.

LEMON: But it's powerful enough to do damage to 49, 50 people in Orlando. I mean, that's pretty powerful.

WALLACE: I understand, but there's hundreds, thousands of ways that people can be killed that, you know, that's much worse. So I'm -- you know, you really have to look at it and say that, you know, it's the reasons why somebody does something and who does it, it is much more important than the means that they do it. So I don't know why you would want to pass over that and go straight to a firearm when there's hundreds of other ways they could have done the same thing.

LEMON: Like what?

WALLACE: You can take out a firearm --

(CROSSTALK)

LEMON: No. Explain to me what are the other ways to do that much -- to kill that many people quickly?

WALLACE: I don't think that would be very smart -- I don't think it's smart to talk about that on national TV and lots of people listening, including people that might be on the edge of wanting to do something like that. But I'm just saying that --

(CROSSTALK)

LEMON: I think you should -- no. People can go on the Internet. This is --

(CROSSTALK)

WALLACE: That's true. But I'm not going to help them.

LEMON: This is not a cartoon. I mean --

WALLACE: That's true.

LEMON: -- this is not a kid watching a cartoon. But you said hundreds of thousands of other ways, but that's a pretty powerful way to kill people. Maybe you're talking about automobiles or, you know --

WALLACE: Well, it's just -- I mean, an adult with some understanding of things that are in this world right now that can be used, chemicals, explosives. There's lots of things. And you mention the Internet and that's one of ways that makes it a lot easier for folks to be able to do things like that. I mean, information is so easy to get now and you take the persons wanting to do something like that and why they want to dot, and put it together and they get the knowledge and then they do it. Focusing on the means that they did it -- you know, if you could take away a certain firearm and it would solve all the problems, if it would do away with terrorists, everybody would be for it. It doesn't make any sense because it's not going to solve anything. What it would do is they'd just go to another means and people are not going to be less sorrowful or less injured because of it. So we need to focus on the means -- less on the means and focus on who is doing it and why they want to do such a thing.

[11:45:40] LEMON: Jay Wallace, we appreciate your perspective. Thank you very much.

WALLACE: Thank you.

LEMON: Thank you.

Next, someone who hasn't been seen much on the campaign trail this year. We'll talk some politics. George W. Bush throwing himself back into the political ring. But he's not campaigning for Donald Trump. This story is coming up.

Plus, with the Republican convention now just one month away, some GOP strategists discussing "creative ways" to cut Donald Trump loose. We'll tell you how. That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[14:50:08] LEMON: You know that music means it's time to talk politics.

Senator John McCain is back-pedaling, and fast, after saying that President Barack Obama is directly responsible for the Orlando nightclub massacre. McCain made the initial comment blaming the president just as the president was visiting with grieving victims' families and friends in Orlando. Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. JOHN MCCAIN, (R), ARIZONA: Barack Obama is directly responsible for it because when he pulled everybody out of Iraq, and al Qaeda went to Syria, became ISIS, and ISIS is what it is today, thanks to Barack Obama's failures -- utter failures by pulling everybody out of Iraq, thinking that conflicts end just because you leave. So the responsibility for it lies with President Barack Obama and his failed policies.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: So he later walked it back, tweeting that he misspoke and said that he meant to critique the president's national security decisions.

So, let's have a conversation now. Here's Amy Cramer, co-founder of Women Vote for Trump super PAC.

Hi, Amy. Good to see you. Haven't seen you in a while.

AMY CRAMER, CO-FOUNDER, WOMEN VOTE FOR TRUMP SUPER PAC: Good to see you.

LEMON: "National Review" senior political correspondent, Mr. Jim Geraghty.

Nice to talk to you, as well.

So, Jim, McCain is in a tight re-election battle for the Arizona Senate seat. Does he need to do more to tamp down the outrage over this "blame Obama" statement that he made?

JIM GERAGHTY, SENIOR POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT, NATIONAL REVIEW: It probably -- it was good to see him walk this back. It is kind of uncharacteristic for McCain. You remember he had a classy response to his defeat in the 2008 election. It just kind of felt like the week since Orlando, there's been a really toxic instinct to blame our political opponents for what happened. It's Omar Mateen's fault but they're saying, oh, this is Obama directly responsible. Thankfully, he walked it back. Some say it's the NRA's fault. "The New York Times" editorial board said it reflects Christian anti-gay bigotry. It is the gunman's fault. If we choose to be so angry to say, no, no, no, sure he shot him, but the cause is who disagrees with me politically. We can never unite as a country. I'm glad he walked it back. I don't think people associate John McCain with frothing at the mouth and flying off the handle at least in this forum.

LEMON: Remember the response of President Obama was a Muslim and he said, no way, right away, and cut it off at the rally.

Amy, "The Washington Post" ran a headline this, "Trumpism explains McCain's claim that Obama is responsible for Orlando." Suggesting that Trump's rhetorical excesses may be spurring other Republicans to ratchet up anti-Obama remarks. What's your reaction to that?

CRAMER: I don't think so. Look, I know everybody's on edge. It wasn't that long ago that Paris and Brussels happened and San Bernardino and now this in Orlando. And it comes back to ISIS and these Syrian refugees and the people that are able to cross our borders and are we able to vet them properly and I think everybody's on edge about it. I don't think that you can say it's Trumpism. I think Senator McCain meant that, you know, at the end of the day, the buck stops with the president and his State Department, the foreign policy. And I think that's probably what he meant. And he didn't say that specifically but I think everybody's on edge. And I mean, look, somebody's got to do something, Don. Somebody has to stand up and deal with the problem. I have to say if the president were as angry with ISIS and what's going on, you know, with this terrorism as he was at Donald Trump, we might get somewhere with this but he doesn't seem to be able to direct his anger there.

LEMON: Jim, I see you are -- you know, you don't have a good poker face on?

GERAGHTY: Yeah. We on the right enjoy if not laughing but the left will say, oh, that is terrible event in Orlando. We have to ban AR- 15, even though the gun he used wasn't really an AR-15.

(CROSSTALK)

LEMON: It was modified.

GERAGHTY: Yeah. But the point being to turn around and have Donald Trump say, this proves why I was right and we need the ban on Muslim immigrants.

(CROSSTALK)

CRAMER: Jim, that's not what I said.

LEMON: Let him finish, Amy.

CRAMER: OK.

GERAGHTY: He described him as an Afghan born in America. OK. That's a creative definition of it. We all want to believe what we thought beforehand is exactly what was needed to stop this. The guy's not a Syrian refugee. The guy's not an immigrant. None of these ideas, even the argument put out to put people on the terror watch list and not buy guns. At the time of the shooting, Omar Mateen wasn't on the terror watch list.

LEMON: OK, let me have to let Amy get in.

GERAGHTY: The shoe horn of preferred answer to stop this.

LEMON: Go ahead, Amy?

[14:54:48] CRAMER: So I mean, we have the Internet and ISIS inspired. The bottom line is somebody dropped the ball. Was it the local authorities in Florida? Was it the FBI? Was it the CIA? Was it the NSA? Who was it? We have had this problem before. That was a problem. But leading up to 9/11, the agencies weren't communicating. And if this guy's been on the FBI watch list before, how did all of this go down? How did this happen? And this gun owner or the gun store owner I guess notified the authorities? At some point, somebody has to stand up and accept responsibility. And, yes, this guy was an American citizen, but what about the people in San Bernardino? What about the wife that was able to come here and --

(CROSSTALK)

LEMON: But, Amy? Amy, to Jim's point, that everyone is pointing the finger at someone else. You said it's the FBI, you know, national security, this person, that person. When will we say it's our fault, that everything we have done up to this point lends to this happening?

CRAMER: This is --

(CROSSTALK)

LEMON: Maybe we need to deal with a lot of things in the society and we --

(CROSSTALK)

GERAGHTY: No. No. It has to do one guy deciding to kill lots of people --

(CROSSTALK)

LEMON: -- instead of pointing the finger at somebody else.

Go ahead.

(CROSSTALK)

GERAGHTY: No. The moment you say it's all our fault and -- no! Don, whatever you were doing last Saturday night, you were not shooting up a club. It is not your fault, Don, or Amy's fault. It's nobody's fault except for the gunman, and maybe the wife, because apparently she knew about this --

CRAMER: Yes.

GERAGHTY: -- or suspicion and never dialed 911.

(CROSSTALK)

LEMON: So we are never responsible for our neighbors? We're never responsible for our actions that we have or haven't taken? We are not responsible for maybe not holding our politicians, holding their feet to the fire on certain issues? I think we can all take responsibility in some way for what happens in our own country.

CRAMER: Can I say something, Don? That's exactly why you have Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump that have risen to where they are, because they're so tired of politics as normal. They're so tired of the political spin. And that nobody will come out and call it like they see it and stand strong on their beliefs and stand firm. What they believe in. They spin everything. And the minute that somebody, you know, chastises somebody for something they said, what do they do? They're trying to walk it back. The American people are tired of it. They're really tired of it. When do you get straight talk politician? You don't.

LEMON: Yeah.

CRAMER: That's why you have seen the rise of Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump.

LEMON: Here's straight talk from a news anchor. I have to go getting to the break. This conversation is done, but I appreciate it. I enjoyed it.

Thank you, Jim,

Thank you, Amy.

Appreciate it.

CRAMER: Thanks.

GERAGHTY: Thank you.

LEMON: Have a great weekend.

CRAMER: You, too.

LEMON: We'll be right back in a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)