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The Northern California Wildfire Is Slowing Down After Claiming a Sixth Fatality; First Election In 37 Years Without Mugabe On Ballot; Mugabe Don't Back Successor Party He Helped Create; 3-D Printed Gun Files A Click Away. Aired 2-3a ET
Aired July 30, 2018 - 02:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[02:00:09] CYRIL VANIER, NEWSROOM ANCHOR, CNN: I'm Cyril Vanier live from the CNN Newsroom here in Atlanta. Thank you for joining us. Three more people have died in northern California as a fast moving wildfire continues to torch everything in its path. Two children and their great grandmother were not able to escape when flames engulfed their home Thursday night.
Police say they've never seen a blaze like this before. More evacuations were ordered when the unpredictable car fire nearly doubled in size overnight. It has burned nearly 33,000 hectares with high temperatures and erratic winds fuelling flames like these. Dan Simon has more.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DAN SIMON, CORRESPONDENT, CNN: We now have the first confirmed civilian deaths associated with this fire, 70-year-old Melanie Bledsoe and her 2 great-grandchildren, 5-year-old Emily Roberts and her brother, 4-year-old James Roberts. They were in a house and were unable to leave as the flames raced through their neighborhood.
We were told by a family member that Bledsoe called her husband at work to say that the fire was getting close and he needed to come back as soon as he could. That was the last anyone had ever heard from them. The family checked hospitals. They checked evacuation centers. And then late this afternoon, they got word that the bodies had been recovered.
In the meantime, you can see where we are. This is called the Cheswick Estates Subdivision. And if you look around, you can just see that nothing has left. Whole neighborhoods have disappeared as a result of this fire. And unfortunately, in terms of the outlook over the next few days, things do not appear to be getting better.
This fire is just five percent contained, and the weather remains hot, triple digit temperatures today and over the next several days. Humidity is low, and then at night the wind really gets going. And so firefighters fear that there could be more disruption, Dan Simon, CNN, Cheswick, California.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VANIER: Earlier, I spoke with Cal Fire Deputy Chief Scott McLean. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SCOTT MCLEAN, DEPUTY CHIEF, CAL FIRE: Still, five percent containment. The fire continues to grow. It's now moving to the north (Inaudible) to the south.
VANIER: Is it growing at the same rate as last night over the -- reporting is over the last 24 hours, it doubled in size.
MCLEAN: Right. It was -- 40,000 plus acres and (Inaudible) before last and then this morning it came to just over 80,000 acres because of the -- (Inaudible) different directions in different areas.
VANIER: What do the firefighting teams have to do now?
MCLEAN: Keep in mind that over the several years, fires have been acting as if they were burning during the day light hours at nigh time. We used to have (Inaudible) when we can assume that the fire because the lower temperature at night time humidity is (Inaudible) we do what we call lay down and become less active.
That way we get onto those (Inaudible) a lot closer. Get those lines in the night that needed to be done (Inaudible) mediate the progress of the fire. Nowadays, those fires are burning just as aggressive as a (Inaudible) daytime. So what we do is we pick a point and make a stand. We make sure we get out ahead of the fire so (Inaudible) putting them (Inaudible) lines.
And then in some cases we could actually fight fire with fire and burn off that vegetation between the fire and the lines (Inaudible). So there are a lot of things that are taking place right now.
VANIER: So just trying to understand when you say pick a point to make a stand. So you're going to choose one area, one lot. You're essentially going to draw line in the sand on the forest and say well, the fire cannot go past this line. Is that what I'm understanding?
(CROSSTALK)
MCLEAN: Right. It has a lot of components come into play. We're not going to do something (Inaudible) because that part is kind of (Inaudible) under and around (Inaudible). So we might take a (Inaudible) work on (Inaudible) might (Inaudible) come down into meadow (Inaudible) valley area (Inaudible) areas (Inaudible), so (Inaudible) process (Inaudible) so a lot like I said (Inaudible) a lot of items (Inaudible) come in (Inaudible).
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VANIER: That's Cal Fire Deputy Chief Scott McLean. Meteorologist Derek Van Dam joins us now. So you heard the Deputy Chief. He is very concerned that the weather is actually (Inaudible) the fire. What are your findings?
DEREK VAN DAM, METEOROLOGIST, CNN: Well, it's not only feeding the fire, but it's feeding the unpredictability of it. The nature of how difficult it is for firefighters to get ahead of this particular -- just inferno, right. Look at this video. I mean what we're played it over and over again, that looks like a tornado, right?
[02:04:56] Well, if you think that, it actually is. There's a term for it. It's called a firenado or a firewhirl or a fire vortex, all one in the same. It looks like a traditional tornado. And remember, that fire creates a very intense heat, obviously. But that heat rises quickly. Get some of that graphics and I'll be able to show you.
Just a diagram that we've put together, so when you have a basic fire like we have burning over 89 times over the western U.S. We have air that rises very quickly from the intense heat. Well, that air that has just risen has to be replaced by other air. So you start to get these multidirectional vortices that have air that start to swirl.
And then you take the embers that are already burning in the graphs below, and it spreads it even further. That video just shows how quickly the fire can spread. That's called spot fires. So it can take those little burning embers and start additional fires, and you can imagine that those swirl up and then spread fire as even further.
So that makes it unpredictable nature, so difficult for firefighters, so difficult for people to get in ahead of these fast-moving fire storms. Now, here's the latest, car fire five percent contained. We've got the Creston fire and the Ferguson fire. They have gained some ground there, which is good news, but still extreme amount of acreage, impactors already consumed.
This is being seen by some air craft that's traveling over northern California. There's an image out of one of the airplanes that flew over the region. And you also see it from space. This shading of white across the Sacramento Valley that is all smoke from the car fire, now the fires are being fueled by strong erratic winds across this area, and not only that.
We have extremely heat, temperatures in the upper 30s and lower 40s under a heat dome that is set up across this region. This is also mountainous terrain. So we see those fires spread very quickly as they move along and up and over the mountain ridges. We have red flag warnings in place for Shasta County and into the greater Reading area.
That means conditions are prone for more images and videos like this. We have over 500 homes that have already been damaged, structures I should say. It's just terrible and heartbreaking to see. Those are people's livelihoods being consumed in (Inaudible) in a matter of seconds.
VANIER: And the alert system that the Deputy Chief was also telling me about earlier is pretty good. The protocols tell people when and where to leave, but sadly there have been some tragedies there.
(CROSSTALK)
VANIER: Two children and their great grandmother, who unfortunately their bodies were found -- with those fires it is always a possibility. VAN DAM: Oh, and they move at 40 kilometers an hour. You can see
why...
(CROSSTALK)
VANIER: We saw it on your footage. Derek Van Dam from the CNN Weather Center, thank you.
VAN DAM: Thanks.
VANIER: Monsoon rains are triggering deadly floods in northern India. Authorities are telling Reuters that at least 60 people have died and dozens have been injured since heavy rainfall, lightning, and flooding began on Thursday. Monsoon rains are a lifeline for farmers across India, but it can also be deadly.
There are new developments in the case of Ahed Tamimi, the 17-year-old Palestinian has been released from an Israeli prison and is headed back to the West Bank. She was jailed late last year after she was filmed kicking and slapping an Israeli soldier. The incident occurred after a soldier wounded her 15-year-old cousin, shooting him in the head with a rubber bullet.
Tamimi's actions made her a hero to many Palestinians. Israeli authorities charged her with a list of offenses, including assault. In eastern Afghanistan, a midwife training center came under militant attack on Saturday. But a far greater tragedy was prevented. Three people were killed and at least eight others were wounded in the city of (Inaudible).
Two attackers held several people hostage and security forces stormed the compound, rescuing 61 women and 2 children. Both attackers are dead. A motive is unclear, but midwife centers have been targeted before for the reproductive health services that they offer. The dramatic falling out between President Trump and his longtime attorney, Michael Cohen now appears irreversible.
One of Mr. Trump's lawyers, Rudy Giuliani, says that the President's legal team and Cohen's legal team have now stopped sharing information. That includes documents and witness interviews. The mechanism for such cooperation is known as a joint defense agreement, or JDA. But Giuliani says the JDA between the Trump and Cohen legal teams have not been in effect since Cohen hired a new attorney last month.
The U.S. midterm elections are just three months away. The outcome could dramatically alter the balance of power in Congress, and therefore in Washington. But there's growing concern. Russian hackers are targeting some campaigns in a systematic effort to disrupt and undermine American democracy again. CNN's Alex Marquardt has the details.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
[02:09:50] ALEX MARQUARDT, SENIOR NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT, CNN: Facing growing criticism he hasn't focusing enough on the election cyber security threat from Russia, the President met with his national security team in the White House Situation Room to discuss election interference, so far, the administration vague on the details.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Rest assured there are actions underway to protect our elections or to expose any external -- by anybody, external efforts to influence to American public, to show false news, that sort of thing. It comes as Missouri Senator Claire McCaskill accuses Russian operatives of trying to hack into her office last year.
Saying in a statement, while this attack was not successful, it is outrageous that they think they can get away with this. I will not be intimidated. I said it before and I'll say it again. Putin is a thug and a bully. McCaskill is one of the most vulnerable Democrats running for reelection this year. A senior Microsoft executive confirmed that 3 2018 candidates have been targeted by the same group of Russian intelligence operatives who've targeted Democrats in 2016.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They were all people, who because of their positions might have been interesting targets from an espionage standpoint as well as an election disruption standpoint.
MARQUARDT: The hackers used fake Microsoft pages and so-called phishing attacks. The company is on high alert for similar pages which they say they take down when discovered. It's the campaigns rather than the voting systems that are among the most vulnerable targets.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think the fact of the matter is that campaign staffer just never going to be able to get to the level of these adversaries and stare them down, which oddly enough the most sophisticated cyber operators in the world, Russian intelligence, the Iranians, the North Koreans.
MARQUARDT: The Trump administration has come under fire for not announcing a comprehensive, coordinated plan to thwart cyber threats.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think it's an embarrassment that this White House has not made election security a top priority, and has not put the kind of attention and focus on it that we need.
MARQUARDT: In May, cyber coordinator role of the National Security Council was illuminated, as top intelligence officials are sounding the alarm, comparing the current state of danger to the months before the 9/11 attacks.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm here to say the warning lights are blinking red again. Today, the digital infrastructure that serves this country is
literally under attack.
MARQUARDT: The Department of Homeland Security oversees the defense of the country's voting infrastructure. But on offense, it's less clear, with the NSA, FBI, and military all taking leading roles.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We really need more connective tissue between people gathering intelligence, people that are in law enforcement, and people charged with protecting our different assets in the digital realm.
MARQUARDT: Alex Marquardt, CNN, New York.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VANIER: We're done for now. Thanks for watching CNN Newsroom. I am Cyril Vanier. I've got the headlines for you in about 18 minutes, and we've got more world news at the top of the hour. For now though, it's Marketplace Africa.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[02:30:31] GEORGE HOWELL, CNN INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR: Lice from coast to coast across the United States and to our viewers around the world this hour, you're watching CNN NEWSROOM. Thank you for being with us. I'm George Howell.
NATALIE ALLEN, CNN INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR: I'm Natalie Allen. Let's update you on our top stories. U.S. President Donald Trump fired off a number of tweets Sunday slamming the Special Counsel Robert Mueller. He claims Mueller has a conflict of not interest because they own -- they want to have a contentious business relationship though the president did not elaborate of what he was talking about there and Mr. Trump again railed against the Russia investigation calling it an illegal scam.
HOWELL: The publisher of The New York Times says he warned President Trump that his attacks on the media are divisive and dangerous. The two meet earlier this month in a tweet on Sunday. Mr. Trump called that meeting interesting and went on to blast the media.
ALLEN: Voters in Zimbabwe are heading to the polls in their first election since former President Robert Mugabe was ousted under military threat. Mr. Mugabe ruled the country for 37 years. And now, he says he will not vote for his former party. Instead, he is suggesting he supports the opposition leader.
HOWELL: In the U.S. State of California, firefighters there making some progress containing a wildfire that has killed at least six people. The Carr fire as it's called is now 17 percent contained after exploding to 95,000 acres or about 38,000 hectares on Sunday. At least seven people are still missing there. The Carr fire is just one of seventeen fires burning up and down California, and another deadly fire. The so-called Ferguson fire, that's happening in the Yosemite National Park area.
ALLEN: A second firefighter died battling those flames on Sunday. Since starting two weeks ago, it has torched 22,000 hectares, about 54,000 acres. It is 30 percent contained right now. The U.S. certainly isn't alone in dealing with deadly wildfires. Europe has fires of its own in Greece and Sweden and it's in the middle of a heat wave. Satellite images from the European Space Agency show just how bad it is. This is Denmark in the center. And less than a month, you can see the vegetation has been gutted by extreme temperatures.
HOWELL: And it happened so quickly, doesn't it? There you just see how quickly it happened. It's not just Euro feeling. The U.S. there's also a deadly heat wave in Japan. Dozens of people there have been killed and thousands more hospitalized. Around the world, 2018 is on pace to be the fourth hottest year on record. The heat isn't the only problem. Japan also has been hit by deadly flooding in recent weeks and it's being -- it's been lashed by another typhoon.
At the same time, severe flooding is striking India. There too dozens of people have reportedly had been killed.
ALLEN: Let's talk more about this with Andrew Revkin. He's a strategic advisor, environmental, and science journalist with the National Geographic Society and the author of Weather: an Illustrated History: From Cloud Atlases to Climate Change. Andrew, thank you so much for joining us and talking with us.
ANDREW REVKIN, STRATEGIC ADVISOR FOR ENVIRONMENTAL AND SCIENCE JOURNALISM, NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC SOCIETY: As with you.
ALLEN: We just referenced the rundown of a heat related issues going on around the world right now. From Japan, to England, Canada, California where there are 17 wildfires raging, is global warming the common threat here? Do we know?
REVKIN: It is a common threat. The problem is we live in a world where so many things are changing. A year -- when Houston floods happened, interview a geographer named Steven Strater. I was at ProPublica at the time National Geographic Society for a big story on development and disasters and what's happening is -- and fast forward actually faster than climate is changing which is happening. We are building our way into these flood and fire zones all around world in ways that are the speed of it is remarkable.
You see, Strater this don't know university, the geographer. He calls it an expanding bulls- eye. It's as if we're painting a big -- a growing bulls-eye and right in the way of all these --
(CROSSTALK)
ALLEN: Yes, explain that. Building our way in, explain that.
REVKIN: Well, if you -- if you just look at areas like right in California where they got this horrible -- the most recent fire tragedy in Northern California and Central California. Just -- anyone can go on the Google Earth. They have this kind of Google Earth engine where you can look back in time.
[02:35:02] Go back 30 years and look at over satellite view of the houses. I just was doing this morning and you can see zoom with all these little areas in the woods that are just being built into, so pass that the exposure to fire is happening. The risk is being driven just by that, you know, at super-fast rate. And I'm thinking about this year after year after year in different parts of the country and different like flood zones in the Gulf Coast, fire zones in California and Colorado.
The rate of development in these areas is so fast that when you see a new fire, if you check the footprint of that fire, you look back 40 years ago, you see, wow, there were hardly any people there 40 years ago. So the thing that's building the exposure to hazard fastest is us and that kind of gets lost and, you know, we -- and doesn't mean climate change isn't happen also just being so we have to pay attention the one thing at a time and --
(CROSSTALK)
ALLEN: Right. We're putting ourselves into pockets where there are situations especially California where fires have become so prevalent. In fact, just this weekend, the Governor of California said this is a new normal where there's been a fire every month since 2012 where it used to be fire season would settle down. There wouldn't be any in the fall and winter. So what we're seeing around the world we got new normal meats we're not really paying attention. Are we to the new normal?
REVKIN: Well, it's -- again, you know, whether it's the news, so there's us or whether it's policymakers. The Governor Jerry Brown is very quick to focus Californians and the rest of the world on climate change. He's been a very powerful exposed on that. But it's very rare to see him or other California politicians in these areas with rapid growth saying, you know, we need to -- we need to slow down. We need to change our zoning.
We need to have tighter standards on how we're going to build -- that kind of taps against the message in the west (INAUDIBLE) possibility and everyone being able to do what they want. And that really has to be part of the conversation also especially because even if the world got serious about global warming, even if China and India, and we all cut emissions of greenhouse gases, the climate system doesn't notice that for decades.
This is a big system (INAUDIBLE) it's like a bus that's already rolling down the hill. But you can't just sort of magically change that. So the vulnerability is building right now (INAUDIBLE) ways that can be change even as we work on the bigger issues cutting emissions of greenhouse gases.
ALLEN: Yes, which we haven't done. Is this accurate, the world remains more than 85 percent reliant on fossil fuels?
REVKIN: Yes, you're right. This is my 38th year writing about global warming. I am getting a gray beard because I really like a gray beard, you know, and I looked back at the story I wrote in 1988, the cover story in Discovery Magazine and it's essentially the same story we were talking earlier. We did it -- when you watch The Weather Channel, you are on the (INAUDIBLE) in 2006-ish where -- and that was when shortly after Katrina and then Florida was hammered by a bunch of hurricanes and then we have a like a hurricane drought for 10 years.
Everyone kind of goes to sleep and in my book, there's -- one of the chapters you saw back then actually and around 2006. All these climate scientists were arguing about hurricanes (INAUDIBLE) you know, but, you know, some are saying, well, you know, we don't really know the things about hurricanes can get weaker in our world, blah, blah, blah. But the one thing that they all agreed on -- they wrote this one letter that's in this book where they said, you know, the thing we're really worried about August is we're building way too fast and the hurricane dangers zones, and that's the thing that -- kind of that's the message they get lost two of them.
ALLEN: Right. It's a complex issue and every time these things popped up we try to revisit it and check it. But we appreciate so much you taking the time, Andrew Revkin. He's an environmentalist and science journalist with National Geographic Society. Thank you, Andrew.
REVKIN: Great to be with you.
HOWELL: Just around the corner, the U.S. midterm elections, three months away. And President Trump is making a big push for Republican candidates. This week, he'll attend rallies in the U.S. State of Florida and Pennsylvania. Two states in which he won the presidential election two years ago.
ALLEN: What is at stake? Control of the House and Senate. CNN's John King has been analyzing the numbers and explains how the power in Congress could shift.
JOHN KING, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: One hundred days now to the midterm elections, a new CNN rankings and brand-new rankings give the Democrats even more reason to feel bullish about their odds of retaking the big prize, control of the House of Representatives. To the campaign trail in a second, first though, a reminder of the current state of play. Let's look at the House as we speak today. 235 Republicans, that's the majority. You see the red seats down here.
Democrats in the minority with 193. But that's the state of play here in Washington. Let's take a look at our new rankings out on the campaign trail and you will see 235 Republican seats while we rank only 158 of them as solid Republican going into the final stretch of the campaign, 29 likely, 18 lean Republicans.
[02:40:10] You see the yellow or the gold, that's 27 toss up seats. Strong number for the Democrats, 182 solid, 9 likely, 12 lean Democratic seat s. So how are the Democrats get to the majority? Here is their dream scenario. When the likely -- when the leans if they could sweep these toss ups, that's the gold down there, 230 if the Democrats essentially run the board, 230 well in access of what they need to be the majority. Again, that's a dream vision.
But it does show you how this is well within their reach heading into the final stretch. One of the reasons they're so bullish, let's take a closer look at the toss up seats. You see the red on top, of the 27 toss up seats, 25 are currently held by Republicans. 25 of the 27 toss ups are currently Republican held seats. Only two held by the Democrats. Again, with the wind at your back, the reason the Democrats are optimistic.
More Republican seats moving from the red into the competitive side of our map here. Another reason the Democrats are optimistic heading into the final hundred days, they're standing today is even better than it was at the beginning of the year and they were optimistic then. Look at the Republican numbers, 177 solid to begin the year down to 158 solid now. More seats have move from dark red solid Republican this way towards the Democrats.
The Democratic numbers are up, 182 solid now up from the beginning of the year. So this map looks good for the Democrats now at 100 days out even better than it was in January. A lot can happen between now and then but heading into this final stretch, Democrats believed their odds are quite good of retaking the biggest prize this November, control of the House.
HOWELL: John King, thank you. For the first time in 37 years, the ousted president of Zimbabwe Robert Mugabe is not running for re- election. But he made a surprised intervention turning his back on the party he helped to create. We'll explain.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[02:45:04] ALLEN: Voters in Zimbabwe are now heading to the polls in what will be a major test of the country's democracy. The polls open in the last hour. It is their first election in 37 years without former President Robert Mugabe on the ballot.
HOWELL: Mugabe was ousted under military threat back in November. But on the eve of the election, he made a surprise intervention. Following this story, CNN correspondent Farai Sevenzo is live via Skype from the capital city of Harare.
It's good to have you here on the show. Tell us about -- again, this intervention that we heard from Mugabe about this election.
FARAI SEVENZO, CNN CORRESPONDENT (via skype): Well, you know, every now and again, Mr. Mugabe pops up and gets himself on people's television screens simply by calling a press conference. Now, bear in mind that the last day of campaigning was Saturday, this week investors gone by.
On Sunday, he called a principal concern about lunch time and any say some astounding things. He basically mainly complained about the learnings of his pension, the Blue Roof mansion in which he's living is falling apart, and it has not been maintained.
But the shocker was him, then, saying that of all the 23 candidates in this historic election, never has there been that number of candidates, he cannot support the people that have given him such misery and have denied him all his rights. Of course, his referring to the incumbent president, Mr. Emmerson Mnangagwa, and the army that supported him.
And then, he said, "If you look at the 22 candidates, who else is there?" And what does he think? He said, "Chamisa, perhaps." Now, that is an astounding claim for the founder of the Zanu-PF, George. He is the man who has led this party and this country for 37 years. And it sounds like rancor and a great deal of anger. But not many people to see him as being that relevant. And in fact, this morning to all the papers are leading with columns of the same story. The state's newspaper says, "Hang on a second. Is Mr. Chamisa in bed with Mr. Mugabe?" And of course, they're using it to score political points.
Meanwhile, the independent newspapers are saying things like this, "It's my day, Chamisa is telling the people of Zimbabwe, and to try and vote for him. So it's been a very interesting last weekend of campaigning George, and I have to tell you, everyone is looking forward to see just who is going to win?
Because many people are calling is very close. And, of course, the each of the main candidates are claiming victory. It will be certainly, a significant changing of the guard. And at the same time, Mr. Mugabe finding a way to claim relevance. As you say, holding a press conference and saying that he will not back the party that he created.
So, we'll wait and see how this plays out. Farai Sevenzo, live for us in Harare, Zimbabwe. Thank you for your time.
ALLEN: Well, gun control advocates are sounding the alarm of the United States. Coming up, they say the blueprints going online this week pose a serious security threat. We'll tell you about that, coming up.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[02:50:13] PEDRAM JAVAHERI, CNN INTERNATIONAL METEOROLOGIST: Pale of two different stories across portions of the United States. You sliced the U.S. in half, do you see what's happening on the eastern periphery? It's all about the clouds.
The storms, the thunderstorms into the afternoon hour as well. The Western United States is all about sunny weather. And also extreme heat that's been in place really across more -- much of that region. But notice this, tremendous amount of moisture really east of the Mississippi over the next couple of days.
We're talking 50 to 100 millimeters widespread. Some areas across the coastal regions of the Carolinas there could see some decent downpours there going in towards the beginning of this week.
Well, New York City cools off a little up to 27. Montreal same score with thunderstorms possible while found places across let's say, Denver upper 20s. And notice Dan Cooper British Columbia. What an incredibly hot July. Quickly going to wrap that up here. Maybe bring in some cooler weather as we bring the month of August in.
But you notice, around the Midwestern U.S., if any comfortable readings have been in place for going to gradually chip away at that, bring you up into the 30s. And St. Louis, up into the upper 20s around Chicago, and even New York City sees a brief warming trend in store. But this is where we're watching for some relief.
Of course, we know the firefighting efforts across northern places of California, venturing Oregon. But notice temps across Seattle and Portland have been at historic values, going to see a cooling trend at the beginning the month of August there with temps dropping back towards seasonal values. While down into the Caribbean, Havana around 32. Nassau, 31 degrees.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HOWELL: Welcome back at CNN NEWSROOM. In a couple of days, there will be an entirely new angle to the debate over guns in America. And it comes down to ghost guns and 3-D firearms like the one you see here.
What it means is anyone with access to the Internet, they will be able to make their own guns like this one with a 3d printer.
ALLEN: The blueprints for them are set to go online as CNN's Athena Jones reports a gun control advocates say, it is a threat to public safety and national security.
ATHENA JONES, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: It could be the dawn of a new era in gun manufacturing. Starting as soon as Wednesday, people will be able to use 3-D printers to make their own weapons and weapon parts, no background check required.
This, after the government settled a lawsuit last month with a non- profit group defense distributed that will allow the posting of 3-D printable gun plans online. A move that's triggering a debate about public safety and national security.
The group's founder Cody Wilson, has built a web site where people will be able to download plans for a handgun he dubs, The Liberator. As well as digital files for a complete Beretta M9 handgun and other firearms.
Wilson's legal battle began after he posted handgun blueprints online in 2013. Leading to a demand from the State Department to take them down, because they could violate a law regulating the export of defense materials, services, and technical data like blueprints. Wilson explained his goal in a 2013 interview.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
CODY WILSON, FOUNDER, DEFENSE DISTRIBUTED: I'm putting guns, one, is just say, an exercise and -- you know, experimentalism, can you print a gun. But really, for me it's important, it's like a symbolic political statement.
JONES: He described the future in which people could access unregulated guns.
WILSON: In this future, people will be able to make guns for themselves. That was already true, but now, it's been demonstrated in yet another technology.
JONES: The June 29 settlement will also allow Wilson site to post online plans for an AR-15 lower receiver, a key component of the gun. Gun control advocates fear these firearms made almost entirely of plastic would be untraceable and impossible to regulate.
The co-president of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence says these hard to detect guns would be a national security threat. Making it easier for terrorists and people who can't pass criminal background checks to get their hands on dangerous weapons. Adding, "I think, everybody in America ought to be terrified about that."
But experts like Lawrence Keane, senior vice president for the National Shooting Sports Foundation, the firearm industry's trade association, say 3-D printed guns would have to include metal components to function. And because federal law requires it.
LAWRENCE KEANE, SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT, THE NATIONAL SHOOTING SPORTS FOUNDATION: Federal laws since to mid-1980s under the Undetectable Firearms Act requires a certain amount of metals, so they are not undetectable, and can codes for metal detectors undetected, or through x-ray machines.
JONES: Even with those metal components, the guns would not work well.
KEANE: The truth is that they don't -- many times, they fail after a single shot being fired, they break. And they're not very durable, and they really don't work.
JONES: He said, the sort of high-end printer that would be needed to make a gun cost as much as a quarter of a million dollars. And the resulting weapons unreliability, means the country is unlikely to see a rush of people trying to print their own guns.
New York Senator Chuck Schumer expressed similar concerns back in 2013.
[02:55:15] SEN. CHUCK SCHUMER (D-NY), SENATE MINORITY LEADER: Felon, a terrorist, can make a gun in the comfort of their home not even leaving their home and do terrible damage with it. And so, the question is, what we do about it?
JONES: Last week, he demanded the State Department and the Department of Justice reversed the decision or postponed finalizing it. And said that if they don't, he would use emergency congressional actions to block those gun web sites.
SCHUMER: So, we're here to sound the alarm. We're here to plead with the administration not to allow these types of web sites to go forward which we are planning to on August first. And we're here to say, we'll pass legislation to our best pass it, if such a web site is allowed.
JONES: Athena Jones, CNN, New York.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
HOWELL: Thanks for being with us for CNN NEWSROOM. I'm George Howell.
ALLEN: And I'm Natalie Allen, we'll be right back with another hour of news for you. Do stay with us
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