Maggie AstorCompte certifié

"No no no, we're not taking a break!" he chides audience members as they start to stand up.

.@CoryBooker is up now. The first question is how he would apply his lessons from Newark (he talks a lot about how dealing with violence there has informed his positions). He says, "It's not lessons. This is not an intellectual issue... This is living with a sense of urgency."

"We cannot wait in this country — this is no time for impotency of empathy. We cannot wait until this hell is upon your community for you to be activated in this fight."

Booker just said too much agreement kills the conversation, so he's going to stir up controversy: If you don't support a federal gun licensing requirement, he says, "you should not be a nominee from our party."

Booker was the first to propose gun licensing earlier this year, and most, but not all, of the Democratic candidates now support it.

Booker arguing hard for a mandatory assault weapons buyback. Says the idea that federal agents will show up at your door and grab your guns is "NRA fearmongering."

"Australia's done it. There are not people running out there seizing weapons. There are ways to do this that get near-complete compliance. Do not let the fearmongerers dictate our policy."

Memorize this number, Booker says: 1-800-273-8255, the National Suicide Prevention Hotline. Like Buttigieg, he's talking about destigmatizing mental illness.

Booker now emphasizing "the murders we don't talk about" enough. (Shoutout to Chris Murphy's upcoming book, apparently.) Transgender people, especially trans women of color; victims of domestic violence; POC killed by police.

Booker: "If you elect me your president, I'm warning you now — vote for another person if you don't like this warning — if you elect me president, I'm going to ask more from you than any president has ever asked from you in your lifetime..."

"I'm going to ask you to serve more, to volunteer more, to engage more, to love more, because patriotism is love of country and you cannot love your country if you don't love your fellow" country(wo)men. Uses the "change doesn't come from Washington, it comes to Washington" line.

A mother in the audience just described in detail how, after her teenage son got his braces off and went out to lunch with her and told her he wanted to have 7 children, he went to a friend's house and was accidentally shot in the head with his friend's father's unsecured gun.

She asked, through tears, about Booker's stance on safe-storage requirements. Booker seems to be on the edge of tears too. Painful.

.@ewarren is up now.

Melvin's first question for @ewarren was whether, as Trump tweeted, the Democrats' impeachment inquiry will stymie gun reform. Her response: "I think Mitch McConnell and the Republicans and Donald Trump are impeding our ability to do what needs to be done on gun safety..."

"...It’s like the alternative reality. And what is so disturbing about it is, a tweet like that makes it clear that Donald Trump understands what the American people want to see done..."

"He picked gun safety for a reason, bc he knows how many people in this country have been touched by gun violence...Our laws are just way out of whack in this area, so he dangles that as a way to say don’t pay attention to the other ways in which Donald Trump has broken the law."

As she so often does, Warren tied this back to "fundamental corruption in Washington." She adds a few minutes later, "This is a fundamental question about who Washington works for."

Question from an audience member, a former NRA supporter & sharpshooter who says the NRA's been "radicalized to a point where it no longer speaks for responsible gun owners like myself": does Warren see the NRA as part of the corruption problem in DC, and how do you change that?

Yes, she says, she sees them as part of the problem, and changing that is partly "my responsibility" and partly "your responsibility." "My responsibility is to show a little courage, be willing to stand up to the NRA."

"The second is you." She lists many advocacy groups, like Giffords, MFOL, Moms Demand Action. "Sure, it's about the NRA, but it's about holding your elected leaders accountable. Hold them accountable! And make it clear in advance you will hold them accountable."

Warren said she would ask her attorney general to investigate the NRA. Melvin asks if that's the same as Trump asking his attorney general to investigate his political opponents. Absolutely not, Warren says.

In response to a question from @briaasmithh — who was on the same flight as Warren into Las Vegas, she says — Warren says, "If 100 people were dying a day from a mysterious virus, we would be all over this."

"But because it is guns, because it is so twisted into the political corruption, people don’t want to ask that question" (meaning, how do we fix it). "We need to treat gun violence like the public health emergency it is and respond with the kind of strength it demands."

More from Warren: "As I see it, this is all about politics. This is not ultimately about guns. This is about money, and it's about who makes money off the system as it is."

She's sticking very, very tightly to the big corruption message — not as much discussion of the specifics of her gun plan as the other candidates, though her gun plan absolutely has many specifics.

We now have a break until 4pm Eastern, at which point Biden will be up.

We're back with @JoeBiden.

Melvin says before they get to guns, they need to address the elephant in the room: the impeachment inquiry against Trump stemming from his "attempts to sabotage" Biden's campaign. How do you deal with that, Melvin says?