"Face the Nation" transcripts December 16, 2012: Newtown tragedy

(CBS News) Below is a transcript of "Face the Nation" on December 16, 2012, hosted by CBS News' Bob Schieffer. Guests include: Connecticut Gov. Dan Malloy, Lt. Paul Vance, and Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y. Plus, a panel with Brady Campaign President Dan Gross, The Daily Beast's David Frum, The Atlantic's Jeffrey Goldberg, LeHigh University's James Peterson; then, CBS News' Bob Orr, John Miller, David Axelrod, and Michelle Miller on the mass shooting at a Newtown, Conn., elementary school.

ANNOUNCER: From CBS News in Washington, Face the Nation with Bob Schieffer

BOB SCHIEFFER: Well it gets worse with every new detail and we'll get into some of that, but here is the latest. Authorities have released the names of the 28 victims, including 20 first grade students, six adult women who worked at the school. The president will attend a memorial service in Newtown later today. He will visit with the families. Many of the early details about what happened were wrong. We are now getting a better handle on what did happen, but so far no one seems to know exactly what motivated the shooter, 20-year-old Adam Lanza. We're going to begin our coverage with the spokesman for the Connecticut state police, Lieutenant Paul Vance. Lieutenant, thank you so much for finding time for us. You said something yesterday that you thought the search of the various crime scenes had been successful, and you might have found something that would help us understand the why and the how of this. What can you tell us about that?

PAUL VANCE, LT. CONNECTICUT STATE POLICE: Well, I can tell you, certainly, that the major crime detectives of the state police have been working continuously since this tragedy unfolded, searching not only the initial crime scene at the school, but a secondary crime scene that we also discovered during the investigation. Investigators have executed a number of search warrants and many, many different locations, and I can't detail what's been recovered, but I can tell you that a significant amount of evidence has been recovered and is being cataloged and processed that will certainly assist us in this investigation.

SCHIEFFER: Well, do you have any better idea today, even if you can't tell us of the details why, of why this person did this?

VANCE: I don't know that we can answer that question just yet. There's an immense amount of work that still needs to be done. There are many, many people in many different locales that need to be interviewed that will assist us in helping us arrive to a successful conclusion. The straight-up answer to your question right at this point in time, we don't have that specific answer.

SCHIEFFER: Can you tell us any more about the family? We know this person killed his mother, shot her in the face. Did your police -- or did the local police, did they know anything about this family? Were there ever police calls to their house? Was there anything that they would have come to the attention of local authorities?

VANCE: No, sir. There -- the initial information we have is that the local police department did not have much contact with -- or any contact with this family. That's -- that's historical information that we need to ensure that we peel back like an onion. We're going to look at every single level of any contact that anyone had in any location, even in any state.

SCHIEFFER: Have you found any suicide notes, any kind of notes of any kind? I understand there were a couple of computers that you may have recovered that had been smashed. What can you tell us about that?

VANCE: Well, I think what's important is that, first of all, I can't discuss the content. It would be counter-productive, but I can tell you that any electronic equipment was seized, any kind of writings, any kind of evidentiary material or anything of any value, and each individual thing will analyzed. And, really, our goal here is to paint a picture. We're going to paint a picture. And we're going to try to answer every single question as to how and why this occurred.

SCHIEFFER: Why did this young man's mother have three guns? Was she a gun collector? Was she a member of some club? Have you found any information about that?

VANCE: We have. We are working with federal authorities, ATF, and others, and we've been able to begin the process of not only tracing the weapons, but going back to their origin, to their manufacture locale any transfer that may have occurred, any purchase of admission, any attempts to purchase other weapons or ammunition. We're looking at that whole, big picture surrounding this weaponry or any respect we that may in fact be effective in this case.

SCHIEFFER: All right. Well, thank you so much Lieutenant. We wish you well in your search. We want to go now to the two correspondents who have been our lead reporters on this. John Miller in New York and Bob Orr here in Washington. John, let me ask you some of the same questions that I just asked the lieutenant. Are your sources giving you any more information on what they may have found here than the lieutenant was able to tell us when?

JOHN MILLER, CBS NEWS CORRESPONDENT: Well, they're going through that now. And I think when you listen to Paul Vance, who is a very excellent and professional spokesperson, he knows where the leans are drawn, which is they have a lot of material and they're going through it, and there are a lot of clues in there. But they haven't gotten to anything that jumps out at them and says, OK, this is the why. What they're doing is putting together a number of puzzle pieces to say do all these add up together to give us what might be a why. So, you have got all the journals and books and papers -- or whatever they could fiend at the house -- Bob will we'll get into the computers, but aside from any physicals computer, say laptop or a desktop, the other thing that they have done is they have subpoenaed all of the mother's e-mail accounts, all of the son's e-mail accounts. And when you subpoena that from the provider, whether that's MSN, or Yahoo!, or iCloud -- whoever it is -- they give you a disk, and that contains all of the sent mail, all of the received mail, all of the mail that is in draft folders and over a great deal of time. So that's why -- that's why this takes time to pull together. They're going to read through all of those messages and see if they come together with one or more themes that get them to the what could be behind this.

SCHIEFFER: Bob Orr, his mother owned these three guns, including this assault weapon. What do we know about his family life? I mean, was she a gun collector?

BOB ORR, CBS NEWS CORRESPONDENT: It seems that she was, Bob. She had a number of weapons. And Connecticut has very tough gun laws, so she crossed all Ts, dotted all the I's, followed the letter of the law. She was an avid sporting enthusiast. People that had known her over the last several years said she regularly went to gun ranges, practiced shooting, sometimes took her children with her. These were sophisticated and in many cases expensive weapons which she apparently maintained very well. The problem with this particular case is you had a cache of weapons readily available to a young man who, by all accounts, was kind of a recluse, a loner, kind of an antisocial personality. And I think that was a toxic mix.

SCHIEFFER: In the beginning, of course, we were told his mother was a school teacher or she had some connection with the school. I guess the latest is she had no connection, John, that we know of. Why do we -- is there any indication of why he decided to go to this school after killing his mother?

MILLER: There isn't. I mean, no clear one. so now you've got to kind of extrapolate. And what they're hoping to get out of all that material we were talking about a second ago is maybe that will come together. But he grew up in that town. He went to school within that school system. He had problems within that school system. His mother did battle with the school system, both over individual issues but issues with her son, and eventually, pulled him out of that school system. So that doesn't tell us enough, but it gives us some signals that there was tension between the school system in Newtown and his mom and we don't know what his experience was there. You know, when people describe him, Bob, as a shy, awkward kid who had difficulty in social situations, but was also brilliant, that kind of sets the plate for the kind of kid who we all know from our own experiences in school has a high likelihood of being picked on or singled out or given a hard time.

SCHIEFFER: Bob.

ORR: Bob you asked Lieutenant Vance about the searches and you specifically asked him about these computers that were recovered from the mother's home. And of course he had to be careful and didn't want to reveal too much information. What our sources tell us is the computers could be key. While the house was meticulous, and while the boy's room was meticulously maintained, two computers had been smashed, almost purposely, it seems, smashed to smithereens. They've collected that information and -- all those parts, I should say. They've taken those now to computer forensic experts and what they'll do is try to reconstruct the data to find out did he send any emails? Were there any advanced warnings? Did he detail his plans to anyone? And it could be very important in finding out the motive.

SCHIEFFER: John, do we have any information as to why they first thought it was his brother? Was he using his brother's ID? Or how did all that come about.

MILLER: You know, in the beginning of these things, there is always a lot of confusion, and they went with tentative IDs, which is, well, what did we find on the person. One of the things they found on the person is a piece of his brother, Ryan's, identification, which is what caused our sources to misidentify him first as Ryan Lanza and then that picture came together later. But it's suggestive, Bob. What it's suggestive of is here is a kid who may have attempted to make a gun purchase on his own earlier. He wouldn't have been old enough at 20. He would have had to have been 21, so he may have been carrying around the ID of his 24- year-old brother to try and either buy weapons or much more likely ammunition.

SCHIEFFER: What it looks like to me is, if the police had not arrived when they did -- because, when they got there, I guess they saw him out in the hall. He went into another room and that's when he proceeded to kill himself. It seems to me that, if they had not arrived when they did, this would have been worse than it was, Bob, because he was just -- seems bent on killing as many as he could.

ORR: I think that's right. He was armed for an assault where he was intending to take as many victims as he could. He had three weapons with him. Importantly, he also had a fourth weapon in the trunk of the car. It was his mother's car. And we're told that this weapon is a shotgun-type weapon capable of carrying a large drum of ammunition. So, now, we're theorizing here. If he had gone on unmolested throughout that school and not encountered the police, he perhaps could have carried out a greater slaughter there, and who knows where he might have gone with the other weapon in the car.

SCHIEFFER: All right. Well, I want to thank you both. Please stay around because we want to talk to you on "Page Two." I want to go next to New York Democrat Chuck Schumer, who sits on the Judiciary Committee, which oversees issues relating to guns. Senator, thank you for coming.

SCHUMER: Good morning, Bob.

SCHIEFFER: I think I should note that we tried to get a Republican from the Judiciary Committee but all of the members were either unavailable or we -- or said no. I know you are a strong advocate for gun laws. Where do you see this going now?

SCHUMER: Well, I think we could be at a tipping point for two reasons, a tipping point where we might actually get something done. First, this was not a single incident. It followed a series of others. In the last few months, we've had mass shootings in Oregon, in Wisconsin and Colorado. When the public sees these as isolated incidents, they're less upset than when they occur one after the other. And the public will not accept -- the public will not accept as a new normal one of these incidents every month, these mass shootings. Second, of course, it involved children. And it's so poignant to see those pictures. And I read the story in the newspaper where the families waited in the firehouse, and when they found that a young child had survived, they called the parents out, and there were other parents waiting. What agony, what horror. So I think we can get something done. I think we have to do things that protect the second amendment rights of legitimate gun owners, but three things that we should focus on: We don't know the details yet, so you can't say that any of them would have stopped this incident, but you can say they are parts of the pattern. One is to ban assault weapons, to try and reinstate the assault weapons ban. The second is to limit the size of clips to maybe no more than 10 bullets per clip. And the third would be to make it harder for mentally unstable people to get guns. Each has had something to do with these other incidents -- obviously, assault weapons. The clips -- you may remember, when Jared Loughner in the Gabby Giffords shooting tried to reload, that's when he was tackled. And it seems most of the people who were involved had mental instability. So those are the three areas that I think we will focus on, and I'm hopeful that there can be some kind of change.

SCHIEFFER: Senator, I'd like your -- your view on why is it that it is so hard to get anything done in this era -- area? Because you know, it's not just that Congress is reluctant to pass laws. Members, as we found out this weekend when we tried to get guests to come on and talk about this on "Face the Nation," people are just reluctant to even discuss it. They -- it's -- it's the thing that -- I think they're more reluctant to talk about this than they are about raising taxes, when you come right down to it.

SCHUMER: Yeah, well, that may well be true. We've been gridlocked. You have both sides off in a corner, and I, as somebody who wrote the Brady law and was the House author of the assault weapons ban, spend more of my time trying to stop bad things from happening than being able to do good things. But I think we need a new paradigm, Bob. It's not any one person making another speech or whatever. We need a new paradigm because both sides are in their corner and they could come to the middle. First, those of us who are pro-gun-control have to admit that there is a second amendment right to bear arms. I know that my colleagues on the pro-gun side say how can the liberals; how can the left say the first, third, fourth, fifth, sixth amendments should be read expansively and the second amendment should be seen so narrowly through the pinhole of, well, it's only militias? And the NRA, and other groups even further to the right, have engendered fear in the average gun owner. In large parts of America, guns are a way of life, that, you know, the left wants to take that hunting rifle your Uncle Tommy gave you when you were 14. Once we establish that there is a constitutional right to bear arms, we should have the right admit, and maybe they'll be more willing to admit, that no amendment is absolute. After all, the first amendment has limitations. You can't scream "Fire" in a -- falsely scream "Fire" in a crowded theater. We have limits on libel and pornography. Well, the kinds of things like the Brady law, the assault weapons ban, limitation to clips, making sure mentally unstable people don't get guns, do not interfere with the fundamental right but at the same time make us safer. Every amendment should have some balance and some limitation. And if, together, we can come to the middle on that, maybe we can make some real progress, instead of each side being off in their corner, one side saying "Ban guns, get rid of guns," and the other side saying "Don't you touch anything about guns."

SCHIEFFER: What should the president do?

SCHUMER: Well, the president has been strong on this issue. During the 2012 campaign he didn't shy away from his positions. I'm sure he took some flack in the red states and many parts of America. And I think that the president...

SCHIEFFER: You know, I don't want to dispute what you said, but I don't remember the president saying anything about this. And I think some people that were pro more and stricter gun laws, including the Brady group, say he doesn't get a very good grade on that.

SCHUMER: Well, look, I -- I've talked to the president. He cares about these issues. His positions are crystal clear. The problem has been the gridlock that I talked about. And no one person, not even the president, can break that until we get a new paradigm. And that's what I'll be attempting to talk about and do over the next several months.

SCHIEFFER: All right. Well, Senator, thank you so much for being with us this morning.

SCHUMER: Thank you.

SCHIEFFER: We'll be back in one minute with the governor of Connecticut.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SCHIEFFER: Joining us is Connecticut's Governor Dan Malloy. He is in Newtown this morning. Governor, thank you so much for finding time for us. Is there anything new this morning on what motivated this person to commit this awful crime?

MALLOY: I have not heard anything this morning that would explain what transpired on Friday morning. The investigation continues, as it will until we, you know, turn over every page and every piece of evidence to understand what possibly might have motivated this. But this is -- this is mental illness. This is, you know, dressed in evil, I suppose. And it just -- you know, it just overwhelms a community, overwhelms a state. And, obviously, as we sit here Sunday morning, it overwhelms a nation.

SCHIEFFER: We -- we understand that these guns that he took to the school were actually his mother's guns. Do we know any more about her? I mean, why would she have a collection of guns? What was that about?

MALLOY: Well, apparently, she -- she collected guns. There have been stories of her friends in the gun collecting arena. We have the permits. We know when they were sold, each one of these weapons. We certainly know -- we certainly know the impact of those weapons. But, you know, she came from a -- New Hampshire and apparently had owned guns most of her life. That's what we're -- that's what we're reading in the paper. But that all will be looked into as well. I mean, there is a reality here that we have 32,000, 33,000 deaths as a result of gun violence in the United States. Eighteen thousand of those are suicides. If you have a gun in your home, it's -- there's a good chance it's going to be used against you or a family member, 32,000 a year is what we're talking about.

SCHIEFFER: You have some very tough gun laws in Connecticut. Is there anything else that needs to be done here, either at the local or at the national level?

MALLOY: Well, you know when someone can walk -- when someone can use an assault weapon to enter a building, actually shoot out that which was preventing him from getting in the building, have clips of up to 30 rounds on a weapon that can almost instantaneously fire those, you have to start to question whether assault weapons should be allowed to be distributed the way they are in the United States. You're right, Connecticut has pretty tough regulations, but, obviously, they didn't prevent this woman from acquiring that weapon, and, obviously, allowed the son to come into possession of those and use them in a most disastrous way, a most vicious way.

SCHIEFFER: What do you want now from your legislature and from Congress? What would you like to see happen? Have you had time to think about that?

MALLOY: You know, I haven't had a whole lot of time to think about the national implications. I'm trying to help my state and this small community recover. You know, it was just Friday afternoon that I had to break it to 40 families that their loved one -- excuse me, 20 families that their loved one would not be returning to them that day or in the future. We're in the process of grieving, of attempting to recover. We have a church here that's going to have eight funerals over the coming days. We're lending every asset we can to this community, whether it's our troopers who are handling the investigation, or our troopers who are directing traffic, every community in the surrounding area wants to do everything they can to help Newtown and its citizens.

SCHIEFFER: I understand, Governor, that the children are going back to school, what, Wednesday, is it? Will they be ready to go back to school?

MALLOY: Well, you know, I think that that's a decision for parents to make. It's our obligation to open a school, and that's what we'll do. And, obviously, I think a lot of people would get back to -- would like to get back to whatever normal will look like as quickly as possible. The school system itself, the broader school system, I think, will start classes on Tuesday, is what I've heard. A replacement building for the building in this tragedy is being worked on, and should be open by Wednesday.

SCHIEFFER: Well, Governor, it goes without saying our hearts go out to you and your community. Thank you so much.

MALLOY: Thank you.

SCHIEFFER: And we will be back in a moment. I'll have some personal thoughts.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SCHIEFFER: By now, the pros and cons of the gun issue are well- known, but here is the question that must be asked: Is what happened Friday the new normal? Of course, there are legitimate reasons for both pleasure and protection to own guns, but if the slaughter of innocent children is not bad enough to make us rethink what we can do to keep guns out of the hands of the mentally ill, what is bad enough? To what depths of horror must we sink before we say this cannot be tolerated? Are we willing to settle for a culture in which Kindergarten children are no longer safe in the classroom and a visit to a mall or a movie is a life-threatening experience? In recent years there has been no serious effort to address this problem, no piece of gun legislation was seriously considered during this session of Congress. It is a subject no one wants to talk about for fear of offending the powerful gun lobby. Perhaps it is time to remember what Ed Murrow told us, that we are not descended from fearful people. Our forefathers had the courage to tell the most powerful country of their day, you have gone too far, we can tolerate this no more. And upon this courage America was built. Have we, their descendants, become so afraid of the possible political consequences that we are unwilling to explore ways to make a safer world for our children? I cannot believe we have. I think we are better than that. Back in a minute.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SCHIEFFER: Some of our stations are leaving us now, but for most of you we'll be right back with more on this story. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SCHIEFFER: Welcome back now to "Page Two" of FACE THE NATION. Joining us on this very sad Sunday: Dr. James Peterson, he is the director of Africana Studies at Lehigh University; Dan Gross is the president of the Brady campaign to prevent gun violence, David Frum was a speechwriter for President George W. Bush, now writes for the Daily Beast, and Jeffrey Goldberg is is the national correspondent for The Atlantic. We asked the National Rifle Association for a representative today but they declined. Gentlemen, I want to just ask the general question, and why don't we just go around the horn here, I will start with you, Dan, do you knowledge this is as, Chuck Schumer said a while ago -- that this may be the tipping point here, that we may see something change here? Because the last couple of years, people haven't even wanted to talk about this issue.

DAN GROSS, BRADY CAMPAIGN TO PREVENT GUN VIOLENCE: Yeah, I mean, the only people who haven't wanted to talk about it have been our elected officials. I do think it's a pivotal moment in the history of this issue. I mean, this is a conversation that's been percolating in the American public for a long time now. I mean, you look at policy measures, like background checks. 74 percent of NRA members support them. Problem is the disconnect between what the American public wants -- you know, we're out there talking to the American public every day. We're speaking with families of victims, people who have been touched personally by this issue. This nation wants change. We want to have a sensible conversation. And the only place that sensible conversation isn't happening is in the halls of Congress. And I do think with the president coming out saying we want meaningful action, we take him at his word, and we just need to bring the voice of the American public to that conversation.

SCHIEFFER: But Dr. Peterson, gun laws have become more lax in recent years than more strict.

JAMES PETERSON, LEHIGH UNIVERSITY: They have.

SCHIEFFER: Could this really change the attitude, do you think?

PETERSON: Well, I hope so. I hope that we can leverage this moment, not to politicize it, but to make the conversation broadly speaking and more sustained over time. But you're right, there are certain policies, like Stand your Ground law, we've been talking in the green room about all the different sort of conceal and carry laws. There are ways in which we are moving in two different directions at the exact same time -- proliferation of guns and the frequency of these kinds of mass shooting incidences. And then in the other direction, our policy seems to be one that wants more freedom and more free market system in terms of gun and gun ownership. So, we have to rectify those two things immediately in the face of this it situation.

SCHIEFFER: People don't even want to talk about this. They are so nervous about offending the NRA, I would suppose, that they don't want it to even come up in conversation.

DAVID FRUM, THE DAILY BEAST: This is a moment of paradox. I mean, we have seen over the past 20 years, and especially over the past half dozen, an amazing decline in every kind of crime. Probably in American -- certainly in the history of the statistics, and probably in the history of the Republic, American citizens have never been safer from violence than today except for this one category, of this very rare and horrifying crime that is becoming more common. Americans want guns to hunt, and they want guns to protect themselves. But what many people don't understand -- and local news plays a big part -- they don't need to protect themselves. They are safe. They are safe and getting safer every day. And the availability of these weapons that people falsely think will protect them is in fact the great source of danger.

SCHIEFFER: David, I don't know if you're a Republican or Democrat, I know you worked for a Republican...

FRUM: I voted for Mitt Romney.

SCHIEFFER: Did you -- have you evolved on this issue? Or...

FRUM: Well, I -- this is an issue -- I grew up in Canada. And this is one of the great area where's Canadians do not understand their American neighbors. And I think you can have -- you can favor a tax rate of 35 percent. You can favor a low Capital Gains rate. You think the private market should decide where we explore for energy and what kind of energy we use. You can believe that, you know, the government is too big and private markets can solve the health insurance and still not understand why somebody needs a semiautomatic weapon.

SCHIEFFER: Jeffrey?

JEFFREY GOLDBERG, THE ATLANTIC: To go back to your original question, I am asking myself the question, is this the 9/11 of mass killings? The equivalent. I'm not sure. I have the sneaking suspicion that we'll be back to business as usual, in part pause while the NRA's power is huge, part of the reason the NRA is so successful is that it's pushing on an open door. You have, according to recent Gallup poll 47 percent of adult Americans own a weapon. You have very few Americans who actually believe in gun eradication. I'm wondering if in a couple of week's time we're going to be back to -- or a week -- back to the fiscal cliff. I hope not, because I don't understand this -- this -- this idea that we shouldn't talk about -- we shouldn't politicize this issue, we shouldn't talk about it. It's beyond politics. This is politics. We have to have a conversation in America about this subject, whatever side you're on, so at least we'll have some clarity about what people think.

PETERSON: Just to speak to David's perception of the statistics, you're right there has been a decline in violent crime, but I'm not sure necessarily we're safer. Talk to the residents of inner cities and talk about shooting in Chicago, and Philadelphia and New Orleans. I mean, talk about Stand Your Ground laws in Florida. There are ways in which safety is about perception. And I don't think we perceive ourselves as being safer. If you think about the whole sort of terroristic element of this. I mean, one thing that this whole situation makes me think about, this should be a new front on the war on terror, and it needs to be domestic and it needs to be directed at some of these issues around the proliferation of guns.

SCHIEFFER: That's the part that I find kind of interesting about this. After 9/11, we turned this culture upside down. we doubled our defense budget. if this person had had -- I'm sorry to say this -- but is it he had had an Arab name, people would be going nuts about what...

(CROSSTALK)

SCHIEFFER: ...and yet and yet, we can't seem to even decide if this a problem we can solve?

GROSS: You look at the disproportionate response, even the disproportionate response to these tragedies that capture our national attention, every day in our country, 32 people are murder by guns. So while violence rates might be going down, gun violence rates are not. And the American public doesn't want to live in a country like this. We know we are better than this. And I'm out there talking with victims all the time. That's why on Tuesday, we're going to bring victims from families from Aurora and Columbine and Virginia Tech, all to D.C., to take that message to Congress to take that message to the White House. That's the connection that needs to be made on this issue where the American public that is suffering from a very real public health and safety crisis makes their voice heard in terms of the solutions that already exist.

SCHIEFFER: Well, there's no question that Americans like their guns. I saw something the other day that there may be as many as 300 million in this country.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And 4 million come on the market each year. It's a domestic arms race.

SCHIEFFER: John Miller reports in the last 10 years since background checks went into effect, 100 million Americans have purchased guns. And here's an interesting stat, on Black Friday last month, all records were broken over the weekend, almost 300,000 people bought guns. So people want guns. But keeping them out of the hands of these mentally ill...

FRUM: That's the problem. Stop policing guns is probably a fool's errand, and defining certain -- banning certain category puts the law in a race with technology and technology is going to win. But the tracking the very small number of people who would do a terrible crime like this, that is feasible. With other kinds of dangerous technologies like automobiles, you have -- you don't try to say -- we're not going to ban the car or deny people the right, but you have to pass an exam, you have to demonstrate some competencies and, of course, if you drive without license you get into a lot of trouble.

SCHIEFFER: And at my age you have to go to a doctor and get a physical exam and an eye doctor has to give you an eye test. I can buy a gun much cheaper -- I mean much easier than I can get a driver's license or even check out a library book.

FRUM: If you have a record of domestic violence you should not be able to get a gun. If you are on the terrorist watch list, you should not be able to get a gun.

GOLDBERG: David, it's not as easy -- it's not as easy as you say. Because we're -- after these incidents we talk only about the gun industry and gun owners. We need to be talking about what the mental health community's role in this is. Because we have a terrible problem -- the vector is easy access to guns and dangerously mentally ill people. And if you're not adjudicated mentally ill person you are going to be allowed to get -- you're not going to be on the background check list, on the banned list and you're going to be allowed to buy a gun. The mental health community needs to step up in a kind of way and figure out a way to keep the guns of the handed of people they know to be dangerous but haven't been adjudicated.

GROSS: There's a very important aspect to that, which is the fact that 40 percent of all gun sales in our country don't require any background checks whatsoever. So even if you vetted every body properly, you still have 40 percent, gun shows, over the internet, the big gun show that exists every day over the internet. And the amazing thing is the American public believes that that is something worth focusing on. 74 percent of NRA members support criminal background checks. It has nothing to do with the Second Amendment, it has nothing to be with law-abiding citizens owning guns. You'll hear the gun lobby say if you pass gun laws only criminals will be able to get their hands on guns. This is exactly the opposite of that. That is the kind of conversation that we need to be having. We need to look at it in terms of an opportunity of how can save the most lives, how many of those 32 murders every day can we prevent?

PETERSON: That's on behalf of the families that are survivors of these tragedies and we often don't talk enough about the sort of impact this has on communities, on individuals who actually survive these things. But Jeff's right, we have to add other components to this conversation. It can't just be about guns, although I don't want to dispense with the assault weapons ban that quickly, I do think we have to talk about the culture of violence. We do have to talk about mental health and resourcing mental health in a way that de-stigmatize it and that gets more people on board with thinking about the ways in which we can troubleshoot it and educate young people, especially, about the violence that guns can produce, but also the mental health issues that surround some of these horrific incidents that we've seen...

SCHIEFFER: David, what do you think is doable? What do you think could actually be done?

PETERSON: We couldn't even get the NRA on this show today.

FRUM: What is doable, I think, is to make it more difficult for dangerous people to get weapons, not to ban categories of guns but to -- but to put in place a series of processes that first affirm that gun ownership is an important right; individual gun ownership is a right, that hunting is a cherished part of the American culture of the outdoors, which hunting is, sadly, in decline...

PETERSON: The survivors of victims of this do not want to hear what you're saying right now, David. They don't want to hear that.

FRUM: But --- but it's a big country, and everybody has to be part of the conversation.

GOLDBERG: And if you want to fix the problem, you have to bring in the people who own guns.

PETERSON: All I'm saying is the people in Newtown do not want to hear that conversation right now.

GROSS: I have to tell you, I'm talking with people in Newtown, and I've been shocked to the extent to which they do. You know, the victims -- you know, I spend every day speaking with victims of these tragedies. We're bringing the victims from Aurora and other tragedies to D.C. on Tuesday. I mean, they do -- they're the most passionate about having that conversation. They know it's too late to bring back their loved ones. What can we do to prevent others from going through the same thing?

PETERSON: They don't want to talk about hunting and the NRA, though. They don't. They want to talk about how do we solve the challenges that create these situations?

(CROSSTALK)

FRUM: Some of them are hunters.

GOLDBERG: No, no, no, look, I think there's three prongs to this. The first thing we have to do is acknowledge that government has failed. We have -- what Connecticut is about is a failure. The government did not protect those children. The school system failed. The police failed. The police cannot protect people from -- from what happens in the society because the society is saturated with guns, and it's saturated with people who are violently inclined and who are -- or dangerously mentally ill. So we have to acknowledge that. I definitely -- I mean, I agree with Dan absolutely, stringent gun control. We've got to make it more difficult for people to get guns. It should be as hard...

(UNKNOWN): Dangerous people.

GOLDBERG: Dangerous, but, well, I think -- I think, you know, we're not dangerous, but we have to go through a process to get a driver's license, as you said...

(CROSSTALK)

GOLDBERG: But we also have to acknowledge, and I think this is what you talk about, that even the president, in the debate on October 16, recognized that self-defense has a role to play in all of this, because -- and I know you believe that there's no reason to bring this issue up because people -- you've said, you know, they're -- they're mostly mythologizing the threat against them.

PETERSON: Yes.

GOLDBERG: But, you know, according to -- you know, according to Justice Department statistics, there are cases in which people have used guns that they own legally and are trained to use to stop crime.

(CROSSTALK)

(UNKNOWN): Very few, thought. Very few, though.

(CROSSTALK)

FRUM: The president's role here will not be helpful. The more this becomes an issue of conventional politics, the more it is doomed to failure. The most successful public safety campaign of our lifetimes was Mothers Against Drunk Driving. That wasn't launched by President Carter or President Reagan. That was launched by people outside the political system who said "We only care about this; this is the one thing. And we don't want to ban the car. We don't want to ban driving, but we want to change the attitude" -- I mean, 40 years ago the most popular comedian in American life, Dean Martin, used to go on TV and make jokes about driving drunk. Today nobody would make such a joke. It becomes -- it's an important thing we have all internalized. You don't let your friends...

GOLDBERG: It's not a bad idea. Guns can become the new cigarettes.

(CROSSTALK)

GOLDBERG: ... in the right way.

(CROSSTALK)

FRUM: Outside the political movement, the more the president talks about it, the more he will generate resistance, the more it will be seen as part of a larger agenda.

GOLDBERG: Even though the president is actually fairly moderate on the issue, despite what the NRA says.

(CROSSTALK)

GOLDBERG: The NRA paints him as he's going to take your guns.

PETERSON: I think people were expecting presidential leadership on this because this is such an awful tragedy and it's so pervasive.

FRUM: The more presidential leadership we have, the less successful.

(CROSSTALK)

GROSS: Yeah, I think there's room for both. I mean, I know those who -- the overwhelming majority of Americans who support sensible laws were very heartened to hear the president come out and inspired to hear him come out saying that we need meaningful action. At the same time, I completely agree with this idea that, to really create change, we need to engage the American public. We need to change social norms. We need to look at this as the true issue of public health and safety.

SCHIEFFER: I want to thank all of you. This has been very enlightening for me. I really appreciate you coming this morning. We're going to come back in one minute. We'll have an update from our people on the scene and our lead reporters, so stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SCHIEFFER: We're back now with our CBS correspondents who have been covering this story. Jim Axelrod and Michelle Miller have been on the scene in Newtown and are there again this morning. We're also bringing back senior correspondent John Miller and justice correspondent Bob Orr for any late details they may have. I would just say, Jim Axelrod, all of us are reporters because we like to cover big stories, but this is not the kind of story that you want to be covering.

AXELROD: Bob, I was just walking around Newtown and I was thinking to myself, this is the saddest place I've ever been. It's stunning, the feeling of grief that has descended over this town. And I was thinking, unlike Aurora, Colorado, where I was this summer, there's no diversion. There's no booby-trapped apartment that police are trying to get into or a first appearance in court. There's no diversion here. It's all grief. And it is, as I say, paralyzing and stunning and unlike any place else I've ever been.

SCHIEFFER: Michelle, it must be hard for you, too. What's going to happen up there today? M. MILLER: Well, what we know is that President Obama will be coming in. And I think that means a lot for the folks here because it's a validation that it's not just their community that is suffering. It is certainly a pain that is being felt throughout the nation. One man said here that, you know, evil entered this town, came to this town on Friday. But what has been wonderful is that, since then, love has poured in from all across the globe.

SCHIEFFER: Jim, it's our understanding they're going to start these kids back to school Tuesday or Wednesday of -- I asked the governor this morning did he think they were ready? What's your -- what sense are you getting up there of whether people are ready to send these kids back to school?

AXELROD: Well, they're still certainly talking about it. The superintendent, of course, was quoted as saying "sometime this week," though certainly not at Sandy Hook Elementary, the district will, sort of, resume. But it seems to me that you're talking about the week leading up to Christmas break. I'm not sure what the value is of sending kids back Wednesday or Thursday, you know, when you've had something like this. To gather yourself, why don't you start back in January? That's the feeling, as well, up here from some folks that we're speaking with as well. But, of course, I think this thing is so fluid, and trying to get their arms around such emotion that nobody has had any experience in dealing with, that I think there's a little bit of "Let's figure this out as we move along this week."

SCHIEFFER: Michelle, I think probably the saddest scenes we're going to see, we have not yet seen, and that is when they begin to have these funerals for these small children and those small coffins. Do we know when that's going to take place?

M. MILLER: Well, we know that none are taking place today. We haven't gotten or received word from the coroner when -- when any of the funerals are set. But we are told that we will be notified.

SCHIEFFER: All right. John Miller, any late news on this investigation since we started this morning?

J. MILLER: One of the things that I think was striking that we learned last night was the response in the school. I mean, you had mentioned with Bob Orr earlier, when the officers came through the broken glass the gunman had shot out, spotted him and saw him duck into a room and then heard a number of shots, but in the background, when they got there and they started to go room to room and they started to find teachers had locked children in classrooms and closets and cloakrooms and bathrooms, and when the SWAT teams got there and said we're the Newtown P.D.; we're the Connecticut State Police, you can come out now, in a number of cases, the teacher said, "If you're really the police, you'll be able to obtain a key, but our training tells us we don't open this door for anybody." The idea, as we've discussed, that this is some kind of new normal, that they, A, had been through these drills enough that they were that well-trained that they stuck to the protocols when many would have panicked really tells us the level of professionalism and also the disturbing reality that they have to practice these things and learn them.

SCHIEFFER: Yeah, I mean, the thing -- one of the things that really, kind of -- if there's anything to feel good about here, it does seem that the -- the teachers were well-trained and carried out their part. And if there were ever a time when we can appreciate teachers, this certainly was one of those times, Bob.

ORR: Absolutely, Bob. It's so difficult for all of us to get our head around what happened there because it's inexplicable violence. You know, I covered airplane crashes for 14 years, and every time the question was the same, "Why did this happen?" And at the end of the day, we'd go through this painstaking fact-finding process. And we would often come up with a why. And in some ways there was some satisfaction there. What I'm afraid of here, this is most gut-wrenching story I've seen in a long, long time, is eventually the police will probably be able to explain this. They will probably come up with what looks like a plausible scenario and a motive. And I will tell you now, it won't be satisfactory, because logical people, people in their right minds will look at what the police explained as they lay this out, and they will say that still doesn't make any sense to me. And what I'm really afraid of here is we will never have an answer that we can accept here.

SCHIEFFER: John, do you -- what do you make of this information? We keep hearing -- we hear about the smashed computers. We heard the lieutenant say our searches and so forth have been successful. Do you think they're near anything or that they have uncovered anything that is leading them to some sort of a motive, as irrational as it might be? Because it's going to be irrational because this person is, obviously, mentally disturbed. Nobody does something like this for a logical reason.

J. MILLER: Bob, I don't think they have the answer, but what I do believe from the people I've been talking to is that a set of answers are coming together to form a picture, and those answers involve tension between Adam Lanza and his mother, tension in the larger family, including issues that arose out of the divorce that split the family up, as well as the potential emotional problems that Adam Lanza was having. I think when they bring all that together, they'll come up with something. But as Bob said, I don't think when we hear the answer, if there is a final one, that we're going to shake our heads and say, now I get it.

SCHIEFFER: Michelle, from you and Jim, just a final thought quickly, and we're very close to being out of time.

M. MILLER: Well, the one thing I have been noticing just standing here talking with police is that people here in their grief want to be productive. They want to do something. So you see people, neighbors coming out, bringing food to the police officers here. You see them trying to look for ways to make things easier for people. They want to help. And I think the grieving process over the next several weeks is going to be important for them. And as Jim mentioned, it's the reset. They want to -- they want to start over. The question is, for everyone, when that will be.

SCHIEFFER: All right. Well, I want to thank all of you, and I don't envy you having to cover this story. Thank you very much. And we'll be back in a minute.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SCHIEFFER: We leave you today asking you to remember the brave teachers and the innocent children who died in this awful thing at Sandy Hook Elementary School.