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Supreme Court Strike Down Ban On Bump Stocks For Guns; Demolition Of Parkland High School Massacre Site Begins; DOJ Says It Will Not Prosecute AG Garland After House Contempt Vote; Princess Of Wales To Make First Public Appearance Since Cancer Diagnosis. Aired 3- 3:30p ET

Aired June 14, 2024 - 15:00   ET

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

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BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: The Supreme Court strikes down a ban on bump stocks, one that was originally approved by former President Trump in the wake of the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history. We'll have the latest on the fallout.

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: Also today, a heartbreaking reminder of the precious lives lost to gun violence. The building where 17 people were killed by a gunman six years ago is now being demolished. Crews have started tearing down that structure at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. We're going to speak to the father of one of those victims.

And Buckingham Palace providing a new update on the Princess of Wales. She's set to make her first appearance since her cancer diagnosis. We have new details ahead as we follow this and many other developing stories, all coming in right here to CNN NEWS CENTRAL.

KEILAR: A landmark ruling from the nation's highest court today, handing a big win to gun rights activists and a major setback for those working to curb gun violence in America. Today, the Supreme Court lifted a federal ban on Trump-era bump stocks, making it legal again to buy the gun accessories that let semi-automatic rifles fire hundreds of bullets per minute.

Bump stocks were used by a gunman who opened fire at a Las Vegas music festival back in 2017 in the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history. He sprayed the crowd with more than a thousand bullets from a hotel room window, killing 60 people and injuring hundreds more. CNN's Joan Biskupic is with us now on this story.

This was a 6-3 decision, liberals on one side, conservatives on the other.

JOAN BISKUPIC, CNN SENIOR SUPREME COURT ANALYST: Yes. Quite a divided tableau at the Supreme Court this morning, too. You know, this is the time of year when we get our most consequential opinions and occasionally we'll get a rare oral dissent from the bench. And this time around, what Justice Clarence Thomas read from the bench for the majority provoked Justice Sotomayor to read part of her dissent on behalf of the liberals.

You refer to that tragic shooting in 2017. And after that, Donald Trump's administration, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms expanded the weapons that would be covered by a 1934 ban on machine guns. And today's case came down to a phrase in that 1934 law referring to a single function of the trigger.

And the way Justice Thomas with - backed by five other conservative appointees, read that language is to say that a bump stock, because of the way the mechanism works, would not be covered that way. Because when it comes right down to it, a bump stock only - it has to have a repeat function of the mechanism.

And let's just - here's a good comment from him that kind of tells you how he interpreted the federal law: "A bump stock does not convert a semi-automatic rifle into a machine gun any more than a shooter with a lightning fast trigger finger does. Even with a bump stock, a semi- automatic rifle will fire only one shot for every function of the trigger."

Now, Justice Sotomayor, when she read an impassioned dissent from the bench, looked at the language of that federal law much differently and stressed that when a bump stock is fired, it starts with the initial pull of a trigger. But the pressure that a shooter would apply is what causes the continuous number of rounds up to, you know, hundreds, 800 rounds. And she, reading the same language, concluded: "Today, the Court puts bump stocks back in civilian hands.

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To do so, casts aside Congress's definition of a 'machinegun' and seizes upon one that is inconsistent with the ordinary meaning of the statutory text and unsupported by context or purpose. When I see a bird that walks like a duck, swims like a duck and quacks like a duck, I call that bird a duck."

Bottom line, I call this bump stock a machine gun.

KEILAR: Yes. They sure look like them when you see them used. It's really stunning.

BISKUPIC: Right. And, you know, Justice Thomas said, well, if somebody is going to expand the definition, it should be Congress. It shouldn't be the regulators at the ATF. But as you know, Brianna, it's unlikely that Congress will take action here and it would fall to any administration's ATF.

KEILAR: That's right. Joan, thank you so much for that.

BISKUPIC: Sure.

KEILAR: We appreciate it.

Let's bring in CNN Security Correspondent Josh Campbell.

Josh, I know you've covered so many of these legal cases involving guns since that landmark 2022 Supreme Court decision expanding gun rights. Is there really a chance of Congress trying to ban bump stocks? I almost feel foolish asking you that. But is that something that you could see happen in the coming years?

JOSH CAMPBELL, CNN SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Yes, you know, very slim, especially in this particular Congress. I mean, getting any type of gun control measure through the Republican House obviously would be a challenge. And because of the mechanics of the U.S. Senate, that is likely going nowhere. But, you know, it's important to note that we now live in this era post-2020, when the Supreme Court decided that landmark decision expanding gun rights, that any new gun law has to fall under that framework. And this gets a little bit wonky, but it's so important, because imagine a bill actually did make it through Congress today banning bump stocks, it would still run up against that Supreme Court precedent.

What the Supreme Court ultimately decided back in 2022 is that any modern law is only constitutional pertaining to guns if there was a similar law on the books at the founding of the nation. And so in this case, you can imagine through that framework, because bump stocks were not illegal at that time. It doesn't matter that they didn't exist at all. The Supreme Court would look at that and say, this can't be constitutional because there wasn't this analog law that was in place.

So certainly an uphill battle and, you know, as has been discussed, this decision today certainly setback for some of the gun safety advocates.

KEILAR: Josh, what are the law enforcement and public safety implications of this ruling?

CAMPBELL: You know, so much of this often comes down to the ability to fire bullets in a rapid fashion. The more bullets, the obviously more deadly that a shooter can be. This, of course, runs head on into what we're hearing from gun rights advocates who say that, look, this is a slippery slope. If you start reducing any type of freedom as it pertains to guns, that then opens the door. This has been this long- term debate, you know, we've obviously heard.

But, you know, I've talked to gun safety advocates as well who say that, look, people can have certain guns, but let's look at the ability to reduce the amount of times that a shooter can actually fire. That's why we've heard debates about so-called high-capacity magazines. That's the device that goes into a weapon holding the bullet.

If a shooter even has to take a short amount of time to then possibly reload that weapon, that then increases the chances, you know, in a mass shooting situation that people can be fleeing or that gun could jam or that law enforcement could arrive on the scene.

But particularly with this device, the bump stock, the ability to fire hundreds and hundreds of rounds obviously increases the lethality of any type of device that is equipped with that. And then, finally, it's worth pointing out, you know, I constantly hear from law enforcement as well across the country that they often feel like they are outgunned when it comes to some of the devices that they're seeing on the street.

So it is certainly an interesting dynamic that, on one hand, you have those obviously who are in favor of gun rights that want no restriction. On the other hand, oftentimes, you have the police themselves saying, look, we're the ones that are often on the receiving end of these bullets whenever we show up on the scene of some of these heinous shootings.

KEILAR: Yes. I just interviewed a Democratic senator who tried to pass a bump stock bill and he said this will be a tool for cartels and other criminals. They're going to use this. We'll have to see.

Josh Campbell, thank you so much. Boris?

SANCHEZ: The Supreme Court ruling on bump stocks comes amid a sobering reminder today of the human toll of gun violence in the United States as we watch the demolition of the site of a mass shooting. Crews are tearing down the 1200 building at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, where six years ago, a gunman killed 14 students and three staff members on Valentine's Day.

Since then, the building was essentially untouched because it was used as evidence in the shooter's trial. CNN's Carlos Suarez is live for us outside the school.

Carlos, what are you seeing there, and what are you hearing from members of the community?

CARLOS SUAREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Boris, as you can imagine, today has been an incredibly difficult and emotional day for the Parkland families. Some of the fathers told us that the start of this demolition project ahead of the Father's Day holiday on Sunday really only added to their pain.

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Construction crews began their work out here early this morning, and they are still going at it at this hour. You can see they've been able to take out a good part of the corner of the building where this happened.

Now, the victims' families were invited to watch the start of the project. Now, some of them have wanted this building gone for some time now. Others said that really it should be preserved. The 1200 Building really hasn't been touched since the mass shooting in 2018. As you noted, Boris, it was preserved as a crime scene for the trial of the shooter.

And in the past year, the families of some of the victims, they coordinated these tours of the 1200 Building with bipartisan members of Congress and top President Biden administration officials, including Vice President Kamala Harris, all of it really in an effort to try and pass school safety measures, as well as stricter gun control laws, both at the state and federal level.

Here now is Tony Montalto. His daughter, Gina was killed in the shooting in 2018. And he was talking about the emotions of today. He knows this building very well, having taken part in these tours a number of times. Here's what he said.

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TONY MONTALTO, STAND WITH PARKLAND: This building has been a symbol, a symbol of failure. I know many in the community are happy to see it go. I know in my family, we have a difference of opinion. My son is concerned that people will forget now that the building is being taken down. My wife said she had kind of grown attached to the space as we walked through it so many times with different leaders and policymakers. As for me, I'm concerned because we haven't seen a solid plan yet for what's going to replace this building.

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SUAREZ: So the Broward County School District has not said what the building is going to be replaced with, but a lot of the Parkland families would like to see a permanent memorial built on the site to honor the 17 victims of the massacre in 2018. Of course, Broward County is not the only county in the country to tear down a school after a mass shooting. The Sandy Hook Elementary was taken down after that. And the plan for Robb Elementary in Uvalde is also to be demolished. Boris?

SANCHEZ: Carlos Suarez, live for us from Parkland, Florida. Thanks so much for the update.

Let's discuss now with Manuel Oliver, his teenage son, Joaquin, affectionately known as Guac, was among the students that was killed at the shooting.

Sir, thanks so much for being with us. I'm curious to get your thoughts on this demolition.

MANUEL OLIVER, SON, JOAQUIN "GUAC" OLIVER KILLED IN 2018 PARKLAND SCHOOL SHOOTING: Well, I just want to make sure that everybody understands that this is not closing a chapter for me. I do think that the community will feel better. And now I'm thinking of all those families that still have kids that survived that day. I think it's good for them not to see the building there.

In our case, the battle continues and we have to just move on. There's other things that we need to do. If you start demolishing things after gun violence, you will need to demolish half of the country, probably.

SANCHEZ: When it comes to what you would like to see fill that space, what would you like to see in the future at that site? Is it a permanent memorial that would commemorate the memory of your son and others that were killed?

OLIVER: I really don't care. That's a school site. The memory of my son, I try to keep it intact by doing other things. Like, I'm talking to you. I'm in Europe right now working on our latest campaign. And that's what's keeping Joaquin alive and Joaquin as part of the solution. Whatever happens in that ground is not anymore my business. SANCHEZ: So you mentioned you're in Europe. You're actually in Portugal right now as part of an effort to push gun safety laws. What's your reaction to hearing that the Supreme Court struck down this federal ban by the ATF on bump stocks?

OLIVER: Well, I think that the gun industry is very lucky to have a Supreme Court for them, a Supreme Court that is concerned about their future and their business and their money, but not at all concerned about the life of our loved ones. It's incredible. It's crazy. You see these countries that we had visited during this latest campaign, and we don't suffer those things.

So the call of - erases probably the only step forward that we saw during the Trump era that was working forward to save lives. Too late for me, but you guys can still enjoy the people that you love.

SANCHEZ: When it comes to the decision, it sort of moved the onus back to Congress to write legislation that would then ban bump stocks.

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We did see the passage of a bipartisan safety gun bill that you and I have talked about back in 2022, but you - I mean, you've been arrested protesting inaction by lawmakers on Capitol Hill. Are you confident that this is going to be an issue that lawmakers take up? Probably not before this next election, but perhaps after?

OLIVER: I got to be honest with you. I've been trying to speak to lawmakers, and officers and representatives from every single angle inside the United States, and we have been ignored. And you can see that since the last six years, more than 300,000 people have died from gun violence, and nobody seems to care that much. So that's why we're here today.

We're promoting the crazy idea of foreigner or citizens adopting American kids and bringing them to their safe countries, so they can be safe from the U.S. gun laws. How crazy is that? Is that crazy enough to grab people's attention? Maybe, maybe - that's what I need to do now. Create awareness, because I told everyone that is watching this interview years ago that this could happen to you and some people are regretting not being involved.

So now we have to go outside of the United States to get the attention. Shame on us and shame on our Supreme Court by the decision they made today.

SANCHEZ: Manuel Oliver, always appreciate you joining us. Thanks for sharing your perspective.

OLIVER: Thank you very much. Have a great day.

SANCHEZ: Of course, you too. Brianna?

KEILAR: We're following breaking news. The Justice Department says it will not act on the House's contempt referral of Attorney General Merrick Garland. In a letter to House Speaker Mike Johnson, the DOJ pointed to its longstanding position of not prosecuting executive branch officials who withhold information subject to executive privilege from Congress.

We have CNN's Evan Perez, who's joining us now.

Tell us what you're learning here, Evan.

EVAN PEREZ, CNN SENIOR JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Well, Brianna, this was long anticipated. The Justice Department, of course, is not going to prosecute the Attorney General Merrick Garland, who runs the Justice Department, of course, for his - essentially refusing to comply with Congress' demand to turn over the audio from President Biden's interview with Rob Hur, the special counsel who investigated the President for his mishandling of classified documents.

You remember that that investigation wrapped up a few months ago, and there was a declination to prosecute the President for mishandling, no recommendation to prosecute the president for the mishandling of those documents. We saw, of course, Congress recently pass a contempt motion against the Attorney General for his refusal to turn over the audio.

I should note that they turned over the transcript of those interviews. Here is the key part of this letter that went from the Justice Department to Speaker Mike Johnson today. It says, "Consistent with a longstanding position and uniform practice, the department has determined that the responses of Attorney General Garland to the subpoenas issued by the committees did not constitute a crime, and accordingly the Department will not bring congressional contempt citation before a grand jury or take any other action to prosecute the Attorney General."

Because, obviously, part of this story here, Brianna, is that President Biden did assert executive privilege over those recordings. And part of the reason why the administration says that they won't turn them over is that they believe Republicans only want to use this essentially for attack ads.

I should note, Brianna, that CNN is right now suing the administration and the department to seek for them to turn over these recordings, because we believe that they are newsworthy from our point of view. So, I should note that fact.

What remains to be seen, though, Brianna, is what Republicans in the House might do next. There is one representative from Florida who has threatened to at least bring up inherent contempt. This is something that's been rarely, rarely used, where the sergeant of arms could go and try to arrest the Attorney General. That hasn't been done since 1934, where a former commerce official was locked up in the Willard Hotel for about a week.

Nobody thinks we're going to get there. But, look, we live in the weirdest of times, and we never know what Congress will do.

KEILAR: Yes, that's like Alice in Wonderland stuff, Evan. But I will say, I think politically Republicans will like sort of the image that this gives off. They've referred this to the DOJ, and the DOJ is passing on, obviously, moving forward on something for the head of the DOJ.

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So, Republicans can, in a way, make their point. But at the same time, some of these very Republicans going after Merrick Garland, including the chairman of one of the committees behind this, has actually defied ...

PEREZ: Right.

KEILAR: ... a Congressional subpoena himself, right?

PEREZ: That's right. Jim Jordan famously did that with the January 6th Committee, and they have, you know, I think that the Congressman has seen no irony in the fact that he has been pressing for this very action against the attorney general. They see no irony in that and - or any kind of contradiction in what the chairman of that committee himself did back then, right?

And so, we don't know, obviously, what the - course of action they'll take next. Congress could bring a lawsuit and try to challenge the President's assertion of executive privilege. That's something that's going to take some time, probably a couple of years to work out.

And that might, of course, obviously, the point of all of this, as I think the president and the administration believes, is they want to use this before the November election. So, by the time that could get resolved, we'll be past the election.

KEILAR: Yes, a good point indeed. Evan, thank you so much for the latest on that. We appreciate it.

Britain's Princess Catherine says she's making good progress in her cancer treatments as she prepares to make her first public appearance in months. We are live outside of Buckingham Palace with the latest on that.

Plus, Pope Francis is making history as the first pontiff to attend and address a G7 summit, the global issues that world leaders hope to tackle.

And as the U.S. tries to bounce back from a long-running shortage of ADHD medications, federal authorities are warning it could soon get even worse. Those stories and much more coming up on CNN NEWS CENTRAL.

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KEILAR: Now to that major update from the Princess of Wales. Catherine announcing that she will make a long-awaited public appearance tomorrow, the first time this year. The Princess of Wales also revealing new insights about her recovery. CNN's Max Foster is joining us now from outside of Buckingham Palace with the latest. What can you tell us, Max? MAX FOSTER, CNN ROYAL CORRESPONDENT: So they issued a photo which was taken earlier this week. It was taken in Windsor Great Park, which is where Kate lives with the kids currently. She's been keeping a very low profile, as we know, trying to get on with this recovery. And with that photo came a quite personal statement expressing a lot of feeling actually for a royal and for Kate as well: "I'm making good progress, but as anyone going through chemotherapy will know, there are good days and there are bad days. On those bad days, you feel weak, tired, and you have to give your body - give in to your body resting. But on the good days, when you feel stronger, you want to make the most of feeling well. My treatment is ongoing and will be going on for a few months," so going on longer than we expected.

She looks well in the photo, but all eyes out, I think, tomorrow, Brianna, when we see her in the flesh, as it were, at a big event.

KEILAR: Yes. Tell us what she's going to be doing tomorrow.

FOSTER: So it's King's birthday parade. He's the king. He has two birthdays. One is actual birthday, and then the one at this time of year, which is slightly better weather. But it's a big, spectacular, ceremonial event. And it's also always keenly watched in this country, but particularly tomorrow, now that we're going to see the princess.

So she will be in a carriage with her three children. I think that's on purpose, because she's talked about how they've been the priority and trying to get back to normality with them. So she'll come out of the palace, go behind me up towards the parade ground at the other end of the Mall. She'll view the military parade, and then she'll come back down in a carriage, cross past all of the crowds that will be gathered along the route. And then we'll see her appear on the balcony for the big family photo, which is, you know, the tradition on these occasions.

I think there'll be big crowds, and people will be very excited to see her, because we haven't seen her this year, not since Christmas, on a public engagement. And what we're being told is that she's going to take each event day by day, see how she feels. If it is a bad day tomorrow, she might decide she can't do it or her doctors may decide for her, so it might not happen. And then if it goes well, I think over the summer, we'll see her a bit more. But this - they're being very clear, this is not a return to full-time work.

KEILAR: Yes, her health needs to come first, and her kids need to come first in this. Max, thank you so much, live for us outside of Buckingham Palace. We appreciate it.

An extraordinary appearance in Italy as Pope Francis joins President Biden and other G7 leaders at their annual summit. AI and China's rising influence topping the agenda on day two. What steps they plan to take on those issues when we come back.

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