- We're now joined by Nico Bocour who is Vice President of State Affairs at GIFFORDS.

Good to see you, Nico.

- Good to see you too, Steve.

- Website's up.

Tell everyone what GIFFORDS is.

- Yeah, GIFFORDS is a gun safety organization.

We were founded by former Congresswoman Gabby Giffords.

She started this organization because she is a gun owner who's been impacted by gun violence herself and really cares about this issue and wanted to make sure that voices like hers were a part of this conversation because frankly, there has not been enough change in this country and we need to see something done to address gun violence.

And so very proud to be here and we are doing what we can to save lives across the country every single day.

- So if people don't know this, Congresswoman GIFFORDS was... There was an attempted assassination against her.

- Yeah.

- She was speaking at an event.

- Yeah, she was a Congress- - Open public situation.

Go ahead, I'm sorry.

- Oh, no sorry, go ahead.

- No, and someone... I mean, I still can't believe that happened.

She's also married to a very prominent United States senator.

Mark Kelly of Arizona.

Let me ask you this.

The mission of the organization, we were just talking about this before we got on the air, it's not to stop... It's not anti-Second Amendment, correct?

- Correct.

- Because Congresswoman, former Congresswoman Giffords owns weapons, firearms.

- Yep.

- Okay.

- She's a gun owner.

- What is the primary goal as it relates to the organization here in New Jersey?

Because New Jersey has in the eyes of some, many, some of the strictest gun laws in the nation.

But what does that actually mean and what needs to be done beyond that, Nico?

- Yeah.

In New Jersey, like in all the states where we work, our goal is to pass laws that make sense for that state that we have seen have an impact that will save lives in that state while also ensuring that responsible gun owners are able to buy, purchase, use their firearms in safe and responsible manners, whether it's for hunting or sports shooting or self-defense.

Certainly New Jersey has many, many gun owners.

They also have strong gun laws, as you mentioned.

And those strong gun laws have helped to protect New Jerseyans in many ways.

New Jersey has some of the lowest per capita gun death rates.

As you know, we're a very densely populated state and we've seen the impact that strong laws can have on gun violence in a state.

And so that's why we are here in New Jersey as well as states across the country.

We are trying to pass sensible gun safety laws, laws that are supported by the public, by gun owners themselves that will save lives.

- So to be clear, over 46,000 people die from gun violence every year in the United States.

128 Americans are killed with a gun every day.

So here's the thing.

Let's be specific.

GIFFORDS, your organization argues for universal background checks.

We don't have that, do we?

- We don't have universal background checks- - Nationally.

- Nationally, yes, that's correct.

Yeah, nationally.

- What is a red flag law?

We don't have that nationally.

What is that?

- Correct.

Nationally, we don't have that.

In New Jersey, we do have one.

A red flag law is a law that allows for people who are closest to somebody who may be experiencing some sort of crisis or have a reason that they shouldn't have a firearm.

What it allows people to do is to go and seek a protective order to temporarily remove firearms from that individual.

This is a court-ordered process overseen by a judge.

It requires evidence be presented and it results generally in a temporary order that allows for those firearms to be removed while there is considered to be a current threat or reason to remove those firearms.

It's not a permanent order.

And those individuals, when the danger is considered to be no longer present, or generally it's actually after the termination of the timeframe, which is usually about a year, those firearms can be returned.

So what it really does is it helps to make sure that the most lethal form of, a incredibly lethal form of a weapon is not accessible to somebody at a time when they could pose a danger to themselves.

- Okay, so let's be clear.

The gun lobby, National Rifle Association, primarily, they're against it.

On what grounds?

- Tends to be an argument that they make of some sort of slippery slope, but I think what we've seen time and time again.

Sorry.

- By the way, it's not fair for me to ask you to explain their position, but their position is consistent.

- Their position is consistent.

- If you change one of these laws, if you make it harder in a certain situation, whether it's a red flag law you talked about, or the universal background checks, whatever it is, even if they were to argue that that individual change in gun laws made sense, the slippery slope argument is it would move toward the elimination of the Second Amendment, which allows Americans to bear arms.

Do you, does GIFFORDS have any interest in banning the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution?

- No, we do not.

- That's unequivocal.

That is not the goal.

- Yeah.

- Well, here's what I'm curious about.

Why hasn't Congress, whether the Republicans who are in control right now of both houses and the White House, or when the Democrats were in control, why have such in the eyes of many sensible common sense gun laws been passed?

- That's a great question.

I think that unfortunately right now it's difficult to get a lot of things done in Congress.

So gun safety- - But when Democrats were in control before and it didn't get done.

- Yeah.

When Democrats were in control, we were able to pass the first gun safety law at the federal level in 30 years.

It certainly didn't do everything that we call for or that we think should be done.

- What about universal background checks?

That wasn't done.

Democrats controlled the lower house, the United States Senate, and the presidency.

Didn't get done.

- Yeah, I mean- - That means some Democrats were not for it.

- We've seen incredibly strong support both from the public and also from lawmakers on both sides of the aisle, including Democrats.

In Congress right now, it can still be incredibly difficult to get things done in part just because of the structure and nature of how Congress operates.

And so we have been able to make some progress.

When then President Joe Biden was in the White House, were able to pass the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act.

Again, that was a bipartisan piece of legislation.

And so we were able to strengthen background checks through that legislation as well as do a couple of other things, strengthen our domestic violence laws, create some trafficking penalties, and also to ensure funding for the implementation of those red flag laws we were talking about earlier as well as community violence intervention programs.

So that was some progress that was very much needed, long overdue, and we certainly need to build on that and continue to build on that.

And that's why at GIFFORDS, we engage in- - Hold on, Nico.

- Yeah.

- I hate when I have to do this.

We just don't have any more time.

- No problem.

- So we'll make sure we have you back and you can share more thoughts.

That's Nico Bocour, Vice President of State Affairs at GIFFORDS.

Nico, thank you so much for joining us.

- Of course.

Thank you so much.

- You got it.

I'm Steve Adubato.

We thank you so much for being with us.

We'll see you next time.

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