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Parker Spitzer

Window into Loughner's State of Mind; Rep. Giffords' Recovery; Hero in Tucson Shooting Speaks Out; Gun Law Expert Weighs in on Responsible Gun Ownership, Reflects on Hero's Close Call; Cold War Returns: Russian Reporter Challenges Gibbs; Obama as a War President

Aired January 13, 2011 - 20:00   ET

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

JOHN KING, CNN ANCHOR: I am glad to be back. I don't dislike my studio that much. We'll see you right here tomorrow night. "PARKER SPITZER" starts now.

KATHLEEN PARKER, CNN ANCHOR: Good evening, I am Kathleen Parker.

ELIOT SPITZER, CNN ANCHOR: And I'm Eliot Spitzer. Welcome to the program.

We begin tonight with the best possible news from the University Medical Center in Tucson. Extraordinary progress for Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords.

CNN's Dr. Sanjay Gupta has spoken exclusively with the congresswoman's doctors and her husband. Today they sat her up on the edge of the bed and she moved both her legs and wait until you hear what else she did.

But first here are the questions we want to drill down on tonight. Is it possible, could it happen, that Gabrielle Giffords has a full recovery?

And then the ugly side of the story, chat room postings, describing rape and cannibalism, reveal the horrible and disturbing thoughts of Jared Loughner. The strangest ramblings yet, what do they tell us about whether or not he was insane.

And then something you probably haven't heard about a second gun at the scene of the shooting and a near miss. Just how close were we to a greater tragedy in Tucson?

PARKER: Meanwhile, authorities believe they've recovered another clue that links Jared Loughner to the shooting spree in Tucson. A black bag containing several boxes of ammunition that matches the type used in the incident was found today by a teenager walking his dog very close to the Loughner home.

Loughner's father Randy told police he saw his son carrying a bag on the morning of the shooting. The father asked his son what he was doing, but Jared gave him only a mumbled response.

SPITZER: Earlier today Friends and family turned out for 9-year- old Christina Green's funeral service. Christina of course was killed while attending Giffords' meet- and-greet Saturday. As hundreds of mourners arrived at St. Elizabeth Ann Seton Catholic Church, they passed under a giant American flag recovered in the aftermath of 9/11, the very day Christina was born.

PARKER: And as family and victims search for answers we've learned more details that offer a glimpse into Loughner's dark and disturbing mind.

Randi Kaye joins us from Tucson with the latest.

Hi, Randi.

(CROSSTALK)

PARKER: Let me just start. I'm sorry. Didn't mean to interrupt you. But so much has been said about Loughner's writings and ramblings, and you've taken a closer look at some of that information. What can you tell us about what you've learned about his online writings and world he was living in?

RANDI KAYE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well I can tell you that we've learned that he was pretty obsessed with dreaming. And not just any kind of dreaming, but lucid dreaming or what's called conscious dreaming where you actually feel like you are in the dream, you're aware that you're in the dream, but you also feel like you can manipulate the dream. Sort of like that movie "Inception."

And we found some of those writings on YouTube. They were apparently written in the last four weeks. And I can tell you what some of them say. This is just a sampling of them.

One says, "My favorite activity is conscience dreaming." What he meant to write was conscious dreaming, but he misspells it and writes conscience dreaming. "Some of you don't dream, sadly."

He also wrote, "The population of dreamers in the United States is less than 5 percent." And finally, he wrote, "Jared Loughner is conscience dreaming," again using the wrong word, "at this moment. Thus Jared Loughner is asleep."

So he was very obsessed with dreaming, according to his friends. They say he actually kept a dream journal. And friends told us that he felt like he could be anything and everything that he wanted in a dream. Everything that he wasn't in the real world. So once again, obsessed with lucid dreaming or conscious dreaming -- Eliot?

SPITZER: You know, Randi, you spoke with an expert who studied all this stuff. What this lucid dreaming. Is it possible he was dreaming during the shooting? I mean is there some completely sort of psychosis that captured him?

KAYE: Well, that's what we wanted to try and find out. So we spoke with the University of Arizona psychology professor Gary Schwartz. And he said that for someone who's mentally ill which is what many experts believe Jared Loughner is, this lucid dreaming can be very dangerous because they get so deep into it that they might lose their reality.

They might not realize when they are dreaming and when they're actually in their own reality. So I asked him if it's possible that Jared Loughner was dreaming when he allegedly shot those 19 people. And this is what the professor told me.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GARY SCHWARTZ, UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA: It is conceivable from what we know about his history that he was -- he could have been confusing when he was in a dream and when he wasn't in a dream. And so we have to be open to that possibility.

(END OF VIDEO CLIP)

KAYE: Now this professor also told me that he believes that Loughner actually liked his dream world better, that his fantasy world, in his dream world that was really his escape from the darkness that appeared to be taking over his life -- Eliot.

SPITZER: All right.

PARKER: All right, Randi Kaye. Thanks so much for your report.

Stay tuned for more of Randi's report tonight at 10:00 p.m. on "ANDERSON COOPER 360."

SPITZER: Now we turn to Jared Loughner's defense. How will these rants and other questionable behaviors factor into it?

Joining us to explore all of this, CNN senior legal analyst Jeff Toobin.

Jeff, as always, thank you for being here.

PARKER: Jeffrey, lucid dreaming. He's dreaming but he knows he's dreaming. He can live in his dreams. It all sounds like hocus pocus. I mean is there something to this?

JEFFREY TOOBIN, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: Well, certainly it seems like the only hope if this case ever gets to a jury for the defense is some sort of insanity defense. And the legal system has been struggling for more than 200 years to define insanity in a way that people can understand.

And the best I can do to describe the contemporary standard at least in federal court is that legally insane means you have to not understand what you're doing. If you realize you are shooting a human being, you're not legally sane. But if you you're shooting a watermelon, when you are in fact shooting a human being, then perhaps you are insane. It's a very narrow -- standard. And it's very hard to get acquitted on those counts.

PARKER: Yes -- I'm just automatically skeptical. If he's writing all these things about dreaming, is he creating -- trying to create a case for himself, that he's insane, in case he gets -- you know? I mean it sounds like he's planning it all out.

TOOBIN: It doesn't strike me that way. The bigger problem for him I think is the material apparently that was found in his home that says my assassination. Giffords' name. You know I planned this.

That certainly suggests that he knew at least by the legal standard that he knew what he was doing. So I think an insanity defense is going to be very tough for him.

SPITZER: Going to have to say that. That one word, assassination. That has been recovered, handwritten, I believe, would seem to doom any capacity that he would have or an expert on his behalf would have to say that he did not understand the wrongfulness of what he was doing.

And Jeff, to your point, psychology and criminal law have never meshed well because, one, psychology is an effort to understand and almost explain away. Criminal law is an effort to say you knew what you're doing, you're culpable. There's been a very uncomfortable meshing of these two as you point out for over 200 years now.

TOOBIN: That's true. But there is also some appeal to insanity. Because at some level with a lot of criminals, and particularly a criminal like if he did what we think he did, it seems so crazy. It seems like not the result of an ordered mind. Now we also don't want to let anyone get away with this. So we're torn in both directions.

SPITZER: Here's the thing. Are -- we hope sane mind would say anybody who would do that is necessarily insane.

TOOBIN: Correct.

PARKER: Right.

SPITZER: Because the depravity speaks for itself.

PARKER: So everybody is crazy.

SPITZER: On the other hand we cannot have an ordered world in which merely the vast nature of the criminal act permits one to get off. And therefore we see this depravity, we don't let that become an excuse nor should we in my mind.

TOOBIN: And the example that defines this problem for many people is the John Hinckley case. Because John Hinckley shot President Reagan and two other people in 1981. And he wanted to impress Jodie Foster and he was obviously a person with great mental problems. And he was found not guilty by reason of insanity.

Now that doesn't mean you go home like you get acquitted in other circumstances. He has been in a mental institution for the past 30 years, although he does get hall passes to get out. It is much better to be found legally insane than to be convicted. But a lot of people were very upset with that verdict. And the defense has been tightened since 1981.

PARKER: What about -- what about guilty and insane?

TOOBIN: You know some states have that verdict. Phoenix -- Arizona does not. The federal government does not. That's an attempt to sort of grapple with this. And I think it's worked in some circumstances but it doesn't apply here.

SPITZER: Play us -- play out for us, if you would, where this case is in terms of the process of the federal prosecution. What happened the other day? What will happen next and when will he actually have to enter a plea? And what will happen thereafter?

TOOBIN: What -- he was arraigned. That means he was just had the charges read to him so he understands. The judge put the case down for what's called the preliminary hearing, 30 days later. Those preliminary hearings never happen because before the 30 days the federal government presents the case to a grand jury and then he gets indicted.

So he will be indicted sometime in the next month. At that point he will be arraigned by a federal district court. And then the pretrial motions will start. Obviously a big part of that will be psychological evaluation.

SPITZER: And of course there will be two parallel cases here. There will be a federal case for the attempted assassination of the congresswoman and the -- the killing of the federal judge. Then there will be state cases with respect to the other victims as well. So how do those two interplay with each other over time?

TOOBIN: Well, this is something I think you know something about, Eliot. There's turf battles that go on between prosecutors with parallel jurisdiction.

SPITZER: Right.

TOOBIN: And usually they work it out. But sometimes it can become pretty contentious. I think in this circumstance they'll work it out. But obviously the district attorney in Pima County and United States attorney in Arizona are going to have to figure out who goes first.

SPITZER: And who will make the determination about death penalty?

TOOBIN: Well, each jurisdiction has the option because both the U.S. government and the state of Arizona have death penalty. Clearly this case is e eligible under both. So the authorities in both jurisdictions will have to make that determination. That's going to be really interesting to see who goes first on that issue.

SPITZER: And will he be tried in Tucson? Or will the defense move to have it tried far away saying he can't possibly get an impartial jury in this community?

TOOBIN: Well, certainly that's going to be an issue that's on the table. Remember the judges in Tucson have already said, we can't try this case because one of the victims was our colleague. So they're bringing in a federal judge from San Diego.

That's just one of the many complexities. The defense is going to want to do one thing above all for starters which is slow this thing down. Because everybody is so angry now, the defense is going to want to put this thing on a slow mo.

SPITZER: There's an old saying that delay is just as good as an acquittal, just doesn't last as long.

All right. Thanks so much for joining us, Jeff. Fascinating conversation as always. Our resident legal expert.

PARKER: Coming up we'll hear from Dr. Sanjay Gupta on his exclusive interview with Gabrielle Giffords' team of doctors.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I want to live up to her expectations. I want our democracy to be as good as Christina imagined it. I want America to be as good as she imaged it.

All of us, we should do everything we can do to make sure this country lives up to our children's expectations!

(END OF VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PARKER: And now to the condition of Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords. Her doctors continue to be optimistic noting her ability today to sit on the edge of her bed and move both legs.

CNN's chief correspondent Sanjay Gupta spoke exclusively with Giffords' doctors and husband today and joins us now.

Sanjay, welcome.

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Hey, thanks.

SPITZER: Sanjay, first, you had a chance to speak with Captain Mark Kelly, Gabby Giffords' husband. First time he spoke with anybody. Quite a remarkable interview. What did he tell you?

GUPTA: Well, you know, he was in Houston when he found out about this, Eliot. He got a call from the chief of staff for Congresswoman Giffords. And, you know, he didn't really know what to believe at that point. This hadn't been in the news at that point.

He's a Navy pilot, as you know, was able to get access to a plane and made his way to Tucson, about 45 minutes after he took off. He arrived here right at the time that she was being brought out of the operating room, he told me.

And it was at that time that he sat down and talk to Dr. Rhee and Dr. Lemole, two doctors that we've gotten to know over this past week. And they told him that his wife had been shot in the head at that point and specifically the nature of the injury and sort of their expectations over the next several days.

You know he talked a lot about last night. It was a -- you know, it was a really important night. I think -- you've heard what happened. The president visiting with her, her opening her eyes. He doesn't strike me as the kind of guy who's prone to using the word miracle just off the cuff.

But he said it was a miraculous moment. I asked him, I said did your wife, the congresswoman recognize that the president of the United States was in her room. And he sort of paused for a second and said, I think she knew that the president was there but she was still sort of struggling to figure out why.

And that gives you a good sense of sort of where her mind is at this point. She's moving her left arm spontaneously. She still has her breathing tube in although he believes it could be taken out as early as tomorrow.

So he shared a lot of details about sort of over the last few days, what's been happening with him and how he's been making his decisions.

PARKER: That's a remarkable --

GUPTA: I want to tell you one more thing as well, if I -- if I could just one more thing as well.

PARKER: Sure.

GUPTA: You know this whole idea of where she is in her own mind. Doctor Lemole is the chief neurosurgeon. I asked him specifically about that as well. Just take a quick listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GUPTA: Do you feel that she understands all that has happened to her?

DR. MICHAEL LEMOLE, CHIEF OF NEUROSURGERY: I'm starting to think so.

GUPTA: She knows.

LEMOLE: It's really -- I was there when the congresswoman and the senator were in the room. And to see her open her eye and look at them, there's just no question in my mind. And she's done that for her husband as well. Those glimmers of recognition, that tracking of the eyes tells you a whole lot more, that she is aware of her surroundings to some extent, coming in and out perhaps, and that she is trying to engage that reality as well.

(END OF VIDEO CLIP)

GUPTA: Kathleen, I wanted you to listen to that because, you know, we've made a lot of the fact that she's been following commands. But what he's describing there, Dr. Lemole, and also her husband, is even a higher level of cognitive function and, you know, it's a step forward which is exactly what they're looking for.

PARKER: Well, given that, Sanjay, and given the extreme injury she suffered to her brain, what do you -- what is her prognosis? I mean she seems to be experiencing a series of amazing steps forward.

GUPTA: She is able to, you know, move both of her legs. She was dangling her legs over the side of the bed as you mentioned.

You know the biggest concern at this point is still the strength in the right arm and the right leg to some extent. Perhaps even more so the right arm. And also her language function overall. Her ability to receive communication, her ability to express herself.

We can't -- we can't test that because she still has a breathing tube in. And they're still -- they're not talking a lot about the function of her right arm, although I think it's safe to say that that's one of the areas of the brain that they're probably most worried about.

So it's hard to say, Kathleen. And, you know, people can have improvements months afterwards. So where this ends up, I think is -- it really just speculation at this point.

SPITZER: Yes, you know, Sanjay, this may be unfair, as you say, speculation is probably useless. But as somebody who really has watched this, as so many of us have with amazement at the speed of the recovery, is there any hope for complete cognitive recovery so that we will once again see her on the floor of the House of Representatives giving an impassioned speech? Is that what we can hope and pray for?

GUPTA: I think the idea of a full cognitive recovery is there, Eliot. You know, I was referring specifically to her motor function. But I think so. Given the fact that she was following commands even before she had surgery is very suggestive of the fact that she -- her brain injury, even though it was significant, she was already compensating even at that time.

And also, the one thing you can say, there's a lot of speculation in neurosurgery, but the one thing that you can say is that the rate of recovery immediately after an injury is directly proportional to how good, how good the outcome is going to be overall. She's been recovering fast.

PARKER: And what about other patients, Sanjay? How are they doing?

GUPTA: Well, you know there are so many patients still in the hospital here. I have heard some incredible stories from some of the patients today. Some of them are a little bit tough to even talk about. But one of them, I'll tell you real quickly, Ron Barber, is one of the staffers for the congresswoman as well. Head of community outreach.

He was standing right next to her when this happened. And he relayed the story to me today. He heard the shot. And he was actually looking at the congresswoman when she got shot. He turned his head to look to see where it came from. And he himself was shot in the face and in the leg.

The congresswoman landed. He landed behind the congresswoman. So he was lying down looking at her back. Both of them slumped over. He was still conscious. And then right in between them, Gabe Zimmerman fell. He had been shot and Ron told me and it was tough for him to talk about this. But he told me that he knew that Gabe was dead right at that time.

It was just a horrific scene. But he also described a woman named Anna who wasn't even at the even who came over and held pressure that was significant bleeding on his leg. And he told me, his doctors can confirm this that had she not come over and held that pressure, he probably wouldn't have survived. So real heroes among the horror there.

PARKER: Wow.

SPITZER: You know, Sanjay, tales of heroism just keep coming out. A remarkable thing. And even the scene behind you, the tributes that are being paid by the public. There's outpouring of support and hope. Just wonderful to see in the aftermath of this tragedy.

Dr. Sanjay Gupta, thanks so much for your analysis.

Next, there was another gun at the shooting scene last Saturday. We tell you what could have happened when we return. Stay with us.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

OBAMA: What matters is not wealth or status or power or fame, but rather how well we have loved. And what small part we have played in making the lives of other people better.

(END OF VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PARKER: You may have heard of Joe Zamudio. Joe is one of the heroes of the shooting incident in Tucson on Saturday morning. He helped restrain the shooter Jared Loughner before first responders arrived on the scene.

SPITZER: Joe is here tonight and we'll hear his remarkable story. But there's a twist to a story we want to explore. When Joe arrived on the scene he was armed, he had his gun ready with the safety off. In that moment of chaos, Joe made a split second decision not to fire his gun.

But what might have happened if he had?

Please welcome, Joe Zamudio.

Joe, thank you for being here and thank you for everything you did on Saturday.

JOE ZAMUDIO, TUCSON SHOOTING EYEWITNESS: Thank you. PARKER: All right, Joe --

SPITZER: You know --

PARKER: Before -- just tell us what happened Saturday morning. Tell us what you saw.

ZAMUDIO: Well, Kathleen, I went into the Walgreens to buy something. And before I could even finish my transaction I heard the gunshots ring out. And I just reacted. I didn't think about it at all. You know I've heard that question more times than I can count. And I honestly I didn't think. If I had I probably would have hit the ground.

PARKER: But when you got there, you saw a man holding a gun. Tell us what happened then.

ZAMUDIO: Well, as I came through the door of the store I saw a man who I believe was wounded saying shooter, shooter, get down. At that instant it affirmed my assumption that the -- there were gunshots that I had heard. And in that second, split second, I took the safety off my gun and I palmed it and I was ready to go. But I didn't remove it from my coat yet.

I turned my shoulders and squared them to the breezeway. And in that second I saw the gentleman who was not the shooter, I later found out, holding a firearm. And I saw that firearm had been cleared. And the slide was locked black. And I decided that he wasn't a threat to me. And I could possibly take him down without shooting him, which was pretty important to me to not to be an executioner.

And luckily, you know, and I made that choice. And I ran up on him. And I grabbed his wrist and told him to drop it. At which point, everyone around me made it pretty clear that the shooter was a different man. The one they were holding to the ground and struggling. And that was just another bystander like myself trying to help.

SPITZER: Now what you did, Joe -- I got to tell you what you did, it was an act of heroism. It's kind of remarkable. The question I've got for you. I mean it was an incredibly close call. You made the right judgment, a remarkably good judgment not to shoot the other fellow who was there assisting as you were.

Does it worry you, my goodness how close you came in having that many guns around might have actually caused a tragedy?

ZAMUDIO: No. I mean, I made a really good decision. That's why I carry a gun because I trust myself to make the right decision. You know? I didn't pull it out. Nobody even knew. I told the police officer, the first one I spoke to. I said, sir, I am carrying a firearm. I didn't pull it out. I didn't use it. It wasn't necessary. But I thought you should know. And he said thank you. You know?

PARKER: All right. ZAMUDIO: We will talk to you about it later. I'm not worried. Go ahead.

SPITZER: Does it worry you at all? I mean, look, we don't want to do anything to diminish the heroism and the wisdom of your decision. But with too many people carrying guns, doesn't it increase the odds somebody might make the wrong decision and shoot an innocent person even with all the good intent to actually shoot only somebody who was actually committing the crime?

ZAMUDIO: Yes, I mean, you can't know what people are going to do. And I'm not trying to say that I'm perfect or that everyone out there will be in that moment as thoughtful as I was.

I definitely don't believe that everyone should carry a gun. There is a lot of people who don't have the right responses and who aren't comfortable and practice and who would make the wrong decision. And there's people who are just afraid and who would -- who would not at all be a good person to carry a gun.

But I feel like if you -- if you want to protect yourself, and if you're confident, then you should be allowed to. And I'm an American.

SPITZER: There's been a lot of conversation the past couple of days, obviously, about does it make sense to limit access to guns. I just want to ask you, one of the ideas out there is to at least to not permit somebody to buy a magazine with 33 bullets in it for a Glock 9. I mean does that sort of limit make sense to you?

ZAMUDIO: You know, I mean I guess 33 is a little bit excessive. I own -- personally I own extended magazines. It's a little bit easier when you're at the range. You don't have to reload as much. It's -- I mean it's purely a convenience thing. It's not about -- the whole thing is, you know, if you needed 30 rounds and you couldn't get a 30-round clip, he could have had two guns with 15-round clips.

I mean you're splitting hairs at that point. The problem is not the amount of bullets or whether or not he could get a gun, the problem is that this person got to this point emotionally and mentally where they could do something like this.

And I feel like we as a community and as a country have the responsibility to protect people among who need help like this. To, you know, point them out and to get them help. Even if that means committing people or whatever needs to happen, we can't allow things like this to go down. And it's not a -- I mean you can control guns better. You could try. But the truth is that criminals can get guns. They can still them, they can borrow them, they can do anything. I mean, you can buy one out of a trunk. It's not that hard to get a gun. The real thing is can we stop people from being irresponsible?

PARKER: All right. Joe Zamudio, thank you so much. We appreciate your quick, clear thinking in those circumstances and we appreciate you coming on the show.

ZAMUDIO: Thank you for having me on the show. SPITZER: Our pleasure.

ZAMUDIO: Have a wonderful evening.

SPITZER: You too.

On Tuesday, we spoke with Alan Corwin, an expert on gun law and author of "The Arizona Gun Owner's Guide." Mr. Korwin feels strongly that when more people carry guns we're all safer. Mr. Korwin is back with us tonight.

Welcome, Alan. Thanks for coming back on the show.

ALAN KORWIN, AUTHOR, "THE ARIZONA GUN OWNER'S GUIDE: It's a pleasure to be here, Eliot.

SPITZER: Thank you.

PARKER: Hi, Mr. Korwin, I'm here too. Nice to talk to you.

KORWIN: Hi, Kathleen. Sorry.

PARKER: That's OK. Hey, I'd like to listen to something that you said to us on Tuesday.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KORWIN: The only way to have stopped Loughner was with countervailing force. No, you don't want a shootout in public. But if somebody goes berserk, look how the story would have been different if some individual there had a firearm, one of Ms. Giffords' aides had a firearm and was able to return fire. That's the real travesty. There was nobody there capable of returning fire.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PARKER: OK. Well, we now know from Joe Zamudio that, in fact, he was capable of returning fire. So here's a 24-year-old with a gun. He took off the safety. He came into this chaotic, traumatic scene, and he was prepared to shoot the wrong man. In this case, you know, he didn't, thank God. But do you still feel that countervailing is the best remedy?

KORWIN: You know, I thought about that a lot since last time, Kathleen. You were concerned, legitimately that somebody might shoot and create more trouble. But if there was another active shooter there, or if Joe was there earlier, he might have stopped him. And the chances of him shooting 19 people by accident is extraordinarily remote. The chances are if he had been there earlier he could have stopped him and he did use countervailing force. He wrestled him to the ground. And they held him down.

Force was required to stop this guy. Whatever sort. If you can avoid shooting, you always do. But if innocent life immediately depends on it, you must to save the lives and to save yourselves.

PARKER: Well, that's an important point because responsible gun owners do know that. You don't shoot unless you absolutely have to.

KORWIN: Correct.

PARKER: So I think that's a point worth repeating.

SPITZER: You know, but, Alan, obviously you and I come from slightly different perspectives on this issue. I want to give you some numbers that come from the Brady campaign to prevent gun violence, and I know you disagree with them a well. But the numbers are kind of staggering. Just take a listen.

For every age group where there are more guns, there are more accidental deaths. In 2009, the most recent year for which we have real numbers, 18,610 people were wounded in unintentional shooting. So -- and I think there were also, in the year before that, there were over 600 deaths. Isn't it clear that the more guns there are out there the more death and injuries are caused accidentally? And isn't that a risk we've just got to consider in who has access to guns?

KORWIN: Well, you have a set of statistics there and you catch me without another set. But when you look at statistics the Brady group comes up with and they're well recognized as a highly biased group, their statistics are brilliant. When you look at the NRA statistics and they're a highly controversial group as well, their statistics are brilliant. And neither of those statistics match. So putting your rights into a statistical argument, I don't think is a good idea. And if the numbers you just cited are correct, then Americans need more training, more classes. We need more trainers on the ground. A person should know how to safely handle a firearm, how to keep them safe in the home.

There are 100 million guns in America -- more than 100 million guns, in 100 million homes. And so the statistical percentages are very low, but there are tragedies every single one and it shows the need for more training.

We have a program here in Arizona, the TrainMeAZ.com campaign, to train everybody in Arizona to know how to use a firearm safely. Whether you want one or not, you should understand how to use it.

SPITZER: You know, Alan, I --

KORWIN: Doesn't that make sense?

SPITZER: Sure it does. Look, not in entirety but I agree with you we want a lot more training. And I think that at this moment, even those who are traditionally in favor of gun control would be very happy to get bipartisan support to require training before people bought something like a Glock with 10, 20 or 30 bullets, you know, in the cartridge, in the magazine. So I think maybe we can at least agree on that much right now to knock down the number of these accidental shootings. What do you think about that?

KORWIN: I would rather see the free market do it because when government gets involved it doesn't really run as well, in my opinion, or as experience has shown. We had government-mandated classes here in Arizona for many years and they didn't cover all sorts of very important subjects. But that was the mandated class. If you went to a privately-run class and went to an instructor, you got much better training, more in-depth training.

And I'm a kind of free market type of guy. If you want America trained, let's go to the trainers who are certified, the people who know what they're doing. We have them all listed on Web sites. That's the way to pursue it, not to have government bureaucrats somewhere else decide you must study a, b, c and d, and assume that's correct. I would even see it in the schools, and Arizona has a marksmanship program for high school students that's a full semester long. Let them take that and learn that way.

PARKER: Well, Alan, I'm all for private instructors, but I wouldn't mind seeing people be required to have training before they buy a gun. But thanks so much for being with us.

SPITZER: All right, Alan. Thank you.

KORWIN: It was a pleasure. You're welcome.

SPITZER: Coming up, the Arizona tragedy made for a wild White House briefing today. We'll tell you about it when we come back.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

OBAMA: What we cannot do is use this tragedy as one more occasion to turn on each other.

(APPLAUSE)

That we cannot do.

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SPITZER: The events Arizona led to a bizarre moment in today's White House press briefing. A Russian reporter asked a question that stunned the entire room and caught Robert Gibbs off-guard.

Our senior White House correspondent Ed Henry was there and he joins us now to tell us all about it.

Ed, exactly what happened?

ED HENRY, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Eliot, it was so surreal. I was in the front row. You could almost feel a chill in the room in the sense that it was like the cold war was back maybe just for a few moments. This Russian reporter grilling the American press secretary and basically saying, look, coming out of Tucson, certainly, it's all American to have freedom of speech. But he said it was also American to have someone who's deranged and act on it in a violent way. That seemed to be suggesting that maybe in Russia where there's less freedom they don't have the same problems. It stunned reporters like myself in the room, but it also stunned a clearly emotional Robert Gibbs.

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ANDREI SITOV, ITAR-TASS NEWS AGENCY: First, my condolences to all the Americans, especially obviously to the victims. But second as to why, it does not seem all that incomprehensible, at least from the outside. It's the reverse side of freedom. Unless you want restrictions, unless you want the bigger role for the government --

ROBERT GIBBS, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: Don't do this. Look, I think there's an investigation that's going to go on. There's a -- hold on. Let me take my time back just for a second.

I think there's an investigation that's going to go on. I think there are. I think, as it goes on, we will learn more and more about what happened. I think as the president was clear last night, we may never know.

SITOV: This is America. The democracy, the freedom of speech, the freedom of assembly, the freedom to petition your government. And many people outside would also say, and the quote, unquote, freedom of a deranged mind to react in a violent way is also American. How would you respond to that?

GIBBS: I'm sorry, what's the last part?

SITOV: The quote, unquote freedom of the deranged mind to react violently to them, it is also American.

GIBBS: No, it's not.

No, no, I would disagree vehemently with that. There are -- there is nothing in the values of our country, there is nothing on the many laws on our books that would provide for somebody to impugn and impede on the very freedoms that you began with by exercising the actions that that individual took on that day. That is -- that is not American. There are, I think there's agreement on all sides of the political spectrum. Violence is never, ever acceptable.

We had people that died. We had people whose lives will be changed forever because of the deranged actions of a madman. Those are not American. Those are not in keeping with the important bedrock values by which this country was founded and by which its citizens live each and every day of their lives in hopes of something better for those that are here. Thank you.

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HENRY: Now, I spoke to the reporter later. He said, look, all -- the only point he was trying to make was that if Americans want to clamp down on this, we're going to need more gun control. And, by the way, Robert Gibbs pushing back so hard he was able to sort of duck that broader issue of gun control. But the manner in which this reporter approached it, especially now when emotions are still so raw just a few days after the tragedy seemed just a bit over the top. And that's why you saw such a strong reaction from him to say the least. PARKER: Just a bit. Good for Robert Gibbs. Yes.

HENRY: Yes.

SPITZER: All right. Couldn't agree more. I think Robert Gibbs handled it just right. And the amazing thing is I don't think most folks would even realize a foreign reporter can go into the White House and ask questions of our national leadership. I bet you one thing they do not do that in Russia. All right.

HENRY: Freedom of speech here for sure.

SPITZER: Ed Henry, thanks for being with us.

HENRY: Thank you.

PARKER: Thanks, Ed.

SPITZER: Our next guest says that not all evils in the world are equal and that we need to rank them accordingly. We'll find out just what measurements he'd use and why. Coming up next.

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SPITZER: Barack Obama may have run for president as the anti- George W. Bush, but our next guest says in some ways he can hardly tell the difference.

PARKER: Stephen L. Carter writes about Obama, the war president, in his book "The Violence of Peace: America's War in the Age of Obama." And he joins us here tonight.

Welcome, Stephen.

STEPHEN L. CARTER, AUTHOR, "THE VIOLENCE OF PEACE": Thanks very much. Thank you for having me on.

PARKER: We've all learned that there's a big difference between campaigning and governing. And the former anti-war Barack Obama has become the pro-war President Obama. What do you think happened?

CARTER: It's really quite striking. And I think maybe the best example of it is if you look at the speech that President Obama gave when he won the Nobel Prize in December 2009, he had a little line in the speech, a fascinating line in what he said there is evil in the world and sometimes you have to use military force to combat it. And that sounds so much like George W. Bush.

PARKER: Bush.

CARTER: And I think what happened, this is not a criticism of either man. I think what happens is that once a president gets into the White House and sees the actual breadth of threats that exist in the world, the world starts to look like a different place and the question of how you deploy America's military starts to look maybe a little different than it did in the course of campaigning. What I'm trying to do in this book is to ask the question that President Obama in that address challenges to ask, which is where do we find the moral framework for evaluating these things, things that presidents feel they must do? Wars that presidents feel they must fight as President Obama has said about Afghanistan to find a moral framework for that evaluation.

PARKER: Well, you've been critical of the president for not having a well-defined philosophy of war. I mean, he did talk about just war in that speech. But has he effectively made the case for what we're trying to accomplish in Afghanistan and how it fits into that framework.

CARTER: What you see with the president is a repeated emphasis on the necessity of winning the war in Afghanistan. He referred to it as a war of necessity, a war that was forced on us, a war we have no choice but to win. But at the same time that he insists on that view, he's also taken the view that on the other hand we're going to be out by 2014. And you really can't do both. You have to have a view either this is a war that's crucial to win, in which case you go all in. Or it's a war that was a great mistake, in which case you begin in a serious way to withdraw. And I think the president ought to choose one of those two courses as it were to ride.

SPITZER: Look, the Oslo speech where he accepted the Nobel Peace Prize was a beautiful speech and laid out, as you said, both the historical and the current rationale for just war which is sometimes a difficult concept for people. But what theory of just war now would apply to Afghanistan as the president articulated? Is it any longer a war of self defense in your view?

CARTER: That's a fair question. The president said that a just war has to be a war that's a last resort and is for a just cause. There's a part of the just war theory. It's a very important part. And I think that the question about whether Afghanistan fits that definition, which is something all of us have strong opinions on, is exactly the kind of question that I think we need to be debating. We don't debate enough.

The ideal I think is to find ways to talk about issues of war and peace without resorting to the kind of effort to gain partisan advantage all the time. There used to be this idea that politics stops at the water's edge. I'm not saying I want you to oppose a war. If it's a bad idea, we should fight against it. But we need to find ways to discuss war, to talk about war within a framework like the just war framework without simply thinking about what makes our side of the debate better off.

PARKER: Well, that's part of what you do in this book as you give us language to use and talking about it. And you insist that the larger American public needs to be a part of that discussion, shouldn't just be happening in the halls of Congress. When you talk about a war of last resort, did Iraq qualify as a just war in any way?

CARTER: I think it's very difficult to make the case that Iraq was a war of last resort. But I'm not entirely sure Afghanistan was either. But the question isn't so much what I think. The question is where is the form? Where do we discuss these issues in a way that's actually helpful to those who are making actual policy? That I think is what we need to try to find room to do.

SPITZER: What's interesting -- in the section, the pivotal section of the president's speech in Oslo, where he defines just war, he talks about last resort and self defense. There's much less in there about spreading virtues of democracy, freedom, sort of the world one would create with war which have been President Bush's sort of articulated foreign policy frame. President Obama is a much more self-defense oriented speech which actually makes it harder for him, I think, right now to justify a war against just the Taliban in Afghanistan.

CARTER: I think there's something to that. The Bush doctrine much maligned had two separate aspects. One of them which President Obama has endorsed wholeheartedly is attacking our enemies before they can attack us. He's used that same language a lot of times. Used more drone attacks than President Bush ever did. A lot of things like that. The other part to spread democracy, he's been less attuned to, less interested in perhaps. But then you get the complication what's going on in Afghanistan. Afghanistan, we're fighting a war, problems in the government that everyone agrees is quite a corrupt government. And I don't know any way that you can work with it without increasing that corruption. You can decide that's the cost of doing business you have to do that. But again, that's the sort of thing I think that we ought to be debating.

SPITZER: Interestingly, the framework of just war might apply more readily to Iraq if one were to believe there were weapons of mass destruction. Obviously, we found that there weren't. But if you believe that the leadership of the country actually believed that, then the definition of just war that President Obama laid out, arguably could have justified that war.

CARTER: Actually there's another part of Obama's speech which is quite interesting on this. President Obama pointed out correctly that the just war tradition sometimes allows the use of force not just in self defense, but actually requires the use of force to defend other people who are suffering. If you look at the early writers on just war, we're talking about a couple thousand years ago, a lot of them actually thought that defending others was a higher cause than defending the self. And that's something I think we ought to think about two.

PARKER: And where does nation-building fit into that whole definition?

CARTER: I think nation-building fits into it poorly. It's difficult to imagine that you can without an enormous commitment of force create a nation by force.

Now, we did it after World War II. But that was with an enormous troop commitment. That wasn't with the kind of limited engagement that we're willing to do today. I think that -- if the war in Afghanistan is a war to keep the Taliban from seizing power, we have to have clear benchmarks. I shouldn't use that word. It's too politically freighted. But we have to have a clear vision from the president, this would count as victory. And this is how I'm going to attain it.

SPITZER: All right. We have to take a quick break. We'll continue our conversation with Stephen Carter in just a moment. We'll be right back.

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PARKER: We're back with author Stephen L. Carter.

SPITZER: Professor, I just got to read and quote something from your book here. Fascinating, the whole book is fascinating. But you say you're talking about terrorism and the choice of going to war. The true absolutist is rare. And then you continue on. But I want to quote, "This position is in its way Nobel but it fails to partake of the reality that we have no choice but to rank evils."

That's a remarkably important observation. I think it's absolutely correct. But does that take you to a conclusion that you would torture somebody to get the evidence to stop a bomb from going off, this sort of quintessential morality choice that professors love to play with?

CARTER: I wouldn't do it. I'm an absolutist on torture. I think you never do it. But I think that people who believe there's a reasonable scale up to things like that, they're making an important argument. I think we ought to have that conversation sometimes, conversations like that instead of just condemning one side or the other --

SPITZER: You have a fascinating discussion here about the role of human intelligence, which is essential to all these decisions, of course. But if you're going to rank evils, do you not then -- haven't you just said you need to rank the relative evil of torture against one individual versus the cataclysm of mass murder?

CARTER: I think that's right. I think that's basically right. Again, I emphasize I wouldn't do it.

SPITZER: Right.

CARTER: I would be against it in all circumstances. But I think that someone who doesn't take that view, it's not a wicked view, it's not an evil view.

SPITZER: Right.

CARTER: It's a view that helps solve (ph) the complexity and the difficulty of these issues.

PARKER: On the subject of evil, President Obama has mentioned it in his speech. President Bush used it often. Is the concept of evil as relates to war, is that a new conversation or is that always been part of our war dialogue? CARTER: It's a very old conversation going back to some of the early debates about just war theory. And there is evil in the world. The president is right about that. He also mentioned it in his talk in Tucson. He mentioned evil in the world as well.

There is evil in the word, but the question of whether you have to use military force is not determined just by whether you have identified an evil out there. You also have to go through the other questions of just war tradition raises, like whether it's a last resort, where there other less violent ways to accomplish the same thing.

SPITZER: And I think that the issue in our limited seconds left that we have not touched upon is the moral obligation to go into a situation like Rwanda. Forget nation-building, just saving human life, and whether that is -- there's a moral compulsion to do that?

CARTER: Bill Clinton said that it was the biggest mistake of his presidency not trying to defend Rwanda where a million people died. And I agree with him.

PARKER: Or the moral obligation to stay in Iraq to protect the women should the Taliban resurge.

CARTER: Well, I think that all over the world, when we get involved, when we have those questions, we can't be everywhere but that doesn't mean we shouldn't be anywhere.

SPITZER: All right.

PARKER: All right. Stephen Carter, thanks so much for being with us.

CARTER: My pleasure, thank you.

PARKER: And thank you for watching.

Good night from New York. A special edition of "ANDERSON COOPER 360" starts right now.