Maggie AstorCompte certifié

"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?

Biden responds: "With the truth. There’s not one single solitary legitimate outfit here, abroad, that indicates there's anything remotely reasonable to what he’s suggesting. It is way beyond anything that I quite frankly thought he would do."

Now we're back to guns. @JoeBiden is running through the key points of the plan he released this morning. Among other things, he wants to restore civil liability for gun manufacturers, ban assault weapons, and demand "smart guns" that require biometric markers to fire.

Melvin pushed Biden a bit on the licensing portion of his plan, which would give incentives for states to enact licensing reqs but wouldn't create a federal program or make states act. Mentions Booker's argument that if you don't support licensing, you shouldn't be nominee.

Biden says he could be open to a federal licensing program in the future, but "I don't want to hold things up and get into false fights in the meantime. Let's get serious things done quickly."

He pointed out that driver licensing is administered at the state level. (This is not really directly comparable to the gun licensing question, because every state *has* a driver licensing program — it's not a situation where each state is choosing whether to enact one.)

Biden says he thinks he could get gun control done "really pretty easily once this guy's gone," meaning Trump.

Two activists from Good Kids Mad City asked about reducing urban violence and "decriminalizing the way in which police and government view violence in black and brown communities."

Biden says he's proposing $900 million in funding to go into the 20 cities with the highest rates of gun violence and research the most effective violence prevention programs.

He also talks about increasing funding/resources for "at-risk schools," adding social workers and psychologists, and holding "bad cops" accountable.

Calling for a ban on high-capacity magazines, Biden says there's a law that if you're hunting ducks or geese, your shotgun can't hold more than three shells. "We protect ducks and geese better than we protect people."

"You can get this done, you really can," Biden tells the audience as he walks offstage. "Keep the faith. Go get 'em." @BetoORourke up next.

Melvin started by reading some of the criticisms from fellow Democrats of Beto's declaration, at the last debate, that "hell yes," he would take away AR-15s and AK-47s. He asked if Beto stood by his mandatory buyback. Yes, he said.

"Those who are worried about the polls and want to triangulate or talk to the consultants or listen to the focus groups... mandatory buybacks are supported by a majority of Americans," he said. Midway through, he dropped the vagueness and said he was talking to Buttigieg.

"Mayor Pete probably wants to get to the right place but is afraid of doing the right thing right now," Beto says. (Buttigieg supports a voluntary buyback program.)

Beto says "AR-15 owners have approached me in airports, in public restrooms — true story, in Katy, Texas," and told him they would be willing to give up their AR-15s.

Beto has spoken twice now of an El Paso shooting victim who was shot once in the Walmart attack, and the bullet damaged both kidneys, his spleen, his gallbladder, his liver, and his intestine in three places, and he's undergone 21 surgeries.

.@Emma4Change asked Beto how he would go about appointing a director of gun violence prevention, one of the items in March for Our Lives's platform, which Beto has endorsed. "I'm really going to rely on you... to make sure that we have the best advice and counsel," he says.