Icy stream/Graphic overlay photos of Noah

Music

00:00

VERONIQUE POZNER: “His life energy, his appetite for life, he was a bon vivant, you know, he really enjoyed food and

00:12

Veronique/ Photos of Noah

companionship. He was very engaged in life. I think he… he had a lot to teach everyone about being connected”.

00:22

Snowy playground

Music

00:38

MILLAR: “It’s a big deal for

00:47

Millar and Veronique

a mother to speak out like this and yet you are finding the strength to do that, what are you hoping to achieve?”

VERONIQUE POZNER: “I think I’d like other mothers to hear me... to hear or grasp even a bit of the magnitude of the loss.

00:48

Photo. Noah

I’m speaking on behalf of my son so that he’s not forgotten”.

01:05

Aerial. Sandy Hook school massacre footage

Music

01:10

MILLAR: Ten weeks ago Sandy Hook, Connecticut, in the prosperous north east of the United States became a place of terror. With the doors to the school locked and students safely in their classrooms, shots rang out.

01:22

POLICE RADIO: “Sandy Hook School. Caller’s indicating she thinks there’s someone shooting in the building”.

01:40

Photos. Children and teachers

MILLAR: In a matter of minutes, twenty children, including Veronique Pozner’s six year old son Noah were slain – along with six of the teachers who tried to protect them.

01:47

Sandy Hook shots post-massacre

Music

01:56

MILLAR: Every day this hamlet on the outskirts of Newtown faces the reminders. Few of the parents have talked about their loss, but we found Veronique Pozner, mother of five, determined that her son would not become just another statistic.

02:01

Veronique

VERONIQUE POZNER: “It’s really heart wrenching to see your child’s name on a headstone. I mean it’s heart wrenching in any case, but it was just so sudden and a scenario I never entertained in my wildest nightmares”.

02:17

Sandy Hook school shots/Overlay of Pozner children

02:42

MILLAR: Veronique sent her children to Sandy Hook school on that Friday – big sister Sophia and six year old twins Arielle and Noah.

02:48

Photo. Noah/Photo. Adam Lanza

Noah’s little body was riddled with eleven bullets from Adam Lanza’s gun. Veronique, a nurse, forced herself to identify his remains.

VERONIQUE POZNER: “I felt I owed it to him.

02:57

Millar with Veronique

I mean I was his mother in life and I’m his mother after, you know? No matter what”.

03:11

Sandy Hook general views

Music

03:18

MILLAR: Sandy Hook. The words have been

03:25

Millar to camera on bridge

seared into my mind. I was there on that first night and for the days that followed, along with hundreds of other media. And even then, despite the ones that had come before – the Virginia Techs, the Columbines, the Tucsons – there was a sense that Sandy hook was different.

03:28

Memorial of photos on post

Different because the victims were such young, innocent children and Americans were shocked and ashamed.

03:47

AR-15 gun

Music

03:55

MILLAR:  The gun used to kill most of the children and teachers was the AR-15. It can fire more than 50 rounds a minute. Since Sandy Hook its price has doubled, now in excess of $2,000. It’s impossible to know exactly how many are being sold, but dealers say they can’t keep up with demand. The AR-15 has been the weapon of choice in a number of massacres, including the Batman movie slaying in Colorado last year.

VERONIQUE POZNER: “They are weapons of mass carnage that are designed for the battle field.

03:57

Veronique. Super:
Veronique Pozner

It just… it just has no place in society as I see it. I think they should be made illegal and I think there should be compulsory buy-back programmes of these weapons”.

MILLAR: “Similar to what we saw in Australia?”

VERONIQUE POZNER: “Correct”.

04:33

NRA Office building

MILLAR: She’s facing a formidable opponent, perhaps the most powerful lobbying group in America – the National Rifle Association.

04:53

Footage from NRA website

NRA WEBSITE: “Never fight if you can avoid it. But when you must fight don’t lose”.

05:02

Veronique

VERONIQUE POZNER: “I’m only now, in the aftermath of this, beginning to appreciate their true power. They’re certainly a force to reckon with”.

05:09

Footage from NRA website

NRA WEBSITE: “Protectors of the Second Amendment. Advocating the right to keep and bear arms”.

05:21

MILLAR: On its website, its own news channels and in its magazines, the NRA preaches that its four million members must resist any restrictions on their weapons.

05:28

NRA WEBSITE: “We are the NRA and the NRA is you”.

05:38

Mime artist at NRA rally

[Singing]

05:44

MILLAR: Fearful that Sandy Hook might prove a turning point, the gun lobby is staging rallies around the country. They’re well attended, an outpouring of patriotism – some of it a little bizarre.

05:50

[Singing]

06:01

Keene on sidelines watching mime artist

MILLAR:  The star of the show today in Delaware is the President of the NRA, David Keene.

06:04

DAVID KEENE: “We stand up in a united way and we say no,

06:15

Keene addresses rally

Super: David Keene
President, NRA

you shall not take the freedoms bequeathed to us from us. We will go to the ballot box, we will go to our legislators, we will write letters, we will make phone calls, we will demonstrate, we will organise, we will do everything it is necessary to do, to protect those rights and to protect the values that we share”.

06:18

Rally members applaud

06:42

MILLAR: With substantial financial backing from America’s arms makers, the NRA spends more than two hundred million dollars a year promoting gun ownership

06:44

Keene addresses rally

and since Sandy Hook it’s been savaging the gun control proposals of the Obama Administration.

06:52

DAVID KEENE: “And by God he’s not going to do it if I have anything to say about it”.

06:59

Rally members applaud

Music

07:03

Gun show

07:06

MILLAR: The NRA has a strong core constituency in rural areas. Many of the people who attended this gun show on a cold winter’s day in Virginia say they’re NRA members or planning to join..

07:16

Music

07:29

Millar with Barbour

MILLAR: In many states – at events like this – you don’t need a licence to sell a gun.

ROBERT BARBOUR (Unlicensed gun dealer) : “This is a semi-automatic AR-15”.

MILLAR: “Similar to the gun that was used in Sandy Hook?”

ROBERT BARBOUR: “Yeah and I had this made in a 6.8 calibre so I could deer hunt with it, because you can’t deer hunt with a .223 here in Virginia”.

MILLAR: “People would ask why anyone

07:38

would need a weapon like that?”

ROBERT BARBOUR: “If I’m in my home and two thieves break into my house and they’re both carrying 9 mm pistols I don’t want to go against them

07:57

Super: Robert Barbour
Unlicensed gun dealer

with a 9 mm pistol with a seven round magazine. I want my AR-15 with a 30 round or ten 30 round magazines if I need to. Whatever it takes to kill them”.

MILLAR: ‘It’s for home defence?”

ROBERT BARBOUR: “It’s for home defence”.

08:06

MILLAR: “What would you say then to people who say this weapon has to be banned?”

ROBERT BARBOUR: “They’re idiots”.

08:19

Weapons on display at gun show

BILL STATLER (Licensed gun dealer): “You start messing with an American’s guns, we take it personal.

08:25

Millar with Statler

It’s an attack against us. It’s against us - and our gun rights aren’t about duck hunting, they’re about protecting us from the government”.

08:29

Snowy New Hampshire

08:38

Millar walks in snow with Feldman

MILLAR: To better understand how the NRA exercises political power, we headed north to New Hampshire to meet the renowned gun industry insider, Richard Feldman.

“How many guns

08:43

do you have by the way?”

RICHARD FELDMAN: “A little over a hundred”.

MILLAR: “Whoa”.

RICHARD FELDMAN: “Every time I’d give a speech at a gun company they always gave me a gun”.

MILLAR: “That was the thank you gift”.

RICHARD FELDMAN: “Sure. I wasn’t going to say no to that”.

08:54

Feldman at home on porch

MILLAR: For decades, Feldman was a key strategist for the NRA. Its mantra – that only guns guarantee freedom – is based on the Second Amendment to the US Constitution, which he can recite at will.

RICHARD FELDMAN: “A well-regulated militia

09:07

Feldman. Super:
Richard Feldman
Former NRA strategist

being necessary to the security of a free state the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. It means you have a right to own a handgun for self-protection”.

09:24

MILLAR: Feldman broke away from the NRA a few years ago. He was appalled at its alarmist tactics, cynically designed he wrote in a tell-all best seller, to boost membership, raise money and intimidate politicians.

RICHARD FELDMAN: “There’s nothing sinister about the NRA unless you’re on the receiving end”.

09:39

MILLAR: “So is that why some suggest the letters NRA actually mean never re-elected again?”

RICHARD FELDMAN: “That’s exactly right”.

MILLAR: “What message is that sending people?”

RICHARD FELDMAN: “Well it means that if you mess with the gun owners, we’re going to mess with you. That’s the beauty of democracy”.

09:58

Skeet shooting.

10:15

Maggart shooting

MILLAR: No one knows that better than a senior Republican politician in Tennessee. Debra Maggart is an NRA victim.

10:17

DEBRA MAGGART: “This is what people in my state... what people in America do. It’s fun.

10:29

Millar with Maggart

It teaches you a skill. It teaches you a discipline. It’s a command over something. I think it teaches confidence”.

10:38

MILLAR: “ It’s rather ironic we’re here at a private range. You’ve been shooting but you’ve got a reputation as being anti-gun”.

DEBRA MAGGART: “That’s right and it’s totally unfounded in every way but it speaks to the power of the gun lobby. The gun lobby is so powerful in America that they dictate how the discussion goes in our politics”.

10:52

Maggart driving

MILLAR: Debra Maggart served eight years in the Tennessee General Assembly and was strongly pro-gun. Then the NRA drafted legislation to allow guns to be kept in locked vehicles and insisted that it be made law.

11:13

“So the fear was that the guns wouldn’t just stay in the cars”.

DEBRA MAGGART: “They wouldn’t stay in the car because they were just right there, you know? So you

11:29

could get angry at someone at work or wherever you are, and go out to your car, get your gun, come back in and perhaps shoot somebody’.

11:34

Maggart shows Millar papers

‘In Tennessee it is political suicide to be pictured with Barack Obama”.

MILLAR: Maggart and her colleagues opposed what they saw as a phoney artificial issue whipped up by the NRA for self-promotion.

DEBRA MAGGART: “They said that I, along with President Obama, we are the anti-gun duo.

11:42

Maggart. Super:
Debra Maggart
Former Republican caucus chair, Tennessee

They came after me. They spent an unprecedented amount of money in a political campaign in a small house race. They spent around $155,000, the NRA along with their other allies, attacking me”.

MILLAR: “What was the message?”

DEBRA MAGGART: “The message was I was for gun control, which is a lie. The message was that

12:01

NRA anti-Maggart advertisement

I was shredding the United States Constitution, which is a lie.

12:21

Maggart

The message was I was like President Barack Obama and that is a lie”.

12:26

NRA Website footage

NRA WEBSITE: “Are the President’s kids more important than yours? Then why is he sceptical about putting armed security in our schools when his kids are protected by armed guards at their school”.

12:28

Gun control rally

PROTESTOR #1: “We like kids more than we like guns”.

PROTESTOR #2: “...my right to free speech by blocking the camera?”

PROTESTOR #1: “My kids are more important than your guns”.

PROTESTOR #2: “I’m protecting the rights of your kids and you should do that too”.

PROTESTOR #1: “We’re protecting your kids and your life”.

12:44

MILLAR: A hundred people from Sandy Hook and Newtown Connecticut joined thousands of others in Washington, demanding tighter gun controls. America’s national capital is notorious for gun crime.

ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON: “We can end the gun lobby’s free ride”.

12:55

Eleanor addresses rally

MILLAR: Eleanor Holmes Norton represents the district in Congress.

ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON: “The gun lobby can be stopped my friends.

13:17

They can be stopped. You can stop them. All they need, all they need is a worthy opponent. You are that opponent”.

13:27

CROWD CHANTING: “Yes we can. Yes we can. Yes we can”.

13:44

MILLAR: These people are looking to Congress to show strength as new gun control legislation is being tabled.

13:49

ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON: “This time we the people are stepping up. This time we the people will act, we’re stepping up and this time we will not step back!”

13:56

Veronique

MILLAR: Watching the gun debate from Sandy Hook, Veronique Pozner was hopeful that the NRA would understand that there should be some reform of gun laws.

14:14

VERONIQUE POZNER: “I would like to think though that they’re capable of compromise. I think universal background checks and a federal data base, that’s something that is fairly middle of the road”.

14:23

MILLAR: “What is it that’s happened that made you think the NRA are so powerful?”

VERONIQUE POZNER: “Well I know they have a wide following and that they have some lobbying power. I know the gun industry since 2005 has enjoyed immunity from prosecution except in the case of a malfunction of their weapons.

14:38

I have to ask, you know, why are they given privileges that are so not really afforded to any other industry”.

15:02

Protestor being removed from NRA Rally

PROTESTOR: “NRA stop killing our children. It’s the NRA and the assault weapons that are killing our children”.

15:08

LaPierre addresses rally

WAYNE LAPIERRE: “The only thing that stops a bad buy with a gun is a good guy with a gun”.

MILLAR: Wayne LaPierre who’s been

15:16

Woman protestor being removed from NRA rally

running the NRA for 20 years and earns a million dollars a year because he’s so successful.

WOMAN PROTESTOR: “Shame on the NRA. Ban assault weapons now”.

15:25

Capitol building/Senate committee hearing

MILLAR: At the first senate committee hearings on gun control after Sandy Hook, LaPierre went on the offensive.

WAYNE LAPIERRE: “Law abiding gun owners will not

15:37

LaPierre addresses hearing

accept blame for the acts of violent or deranged criminals, nor do we believe that governments should dictate what we can lawfully own and use to protect our families”.

MILLAR: LaPierre said no to proposed bans on semi-automatic weapons and high capacity magazine clips and no to more background checks for gun buyers. The NRA said no to talking to the ABC.

15:44

Millar looks at NRA website with Sugarmann

MILLAR:  “It’s a pretty slick website.”

SUGARMANN:  “Oh, yeah.”

16:11

MILLAR:  Josh Sugarmann has spent 30 years studying the NRA’s tactics.

JOSH SUGARMANN: “The NRA basically lies. The last sentence in this website says,

16:13

it is not affiliated with any firearm or ammunition manufacturers, or with any businesses that deal in guns and ammunition and that’s just patently untrue”.

16:22

MILLAR: Sugarmann says the NRA is little more than a front of its corporate partners, gun manufacturers who sit on the board.

16:31

Sugarmann. Super:
Josh Sugarmann
Violence Policy Center

JOSH SUGARMANN: “And one measure of this is the fact that the NRA today receives tens of millions of dollars from the firearms industry and that’s because they share a common goal, and the common goal is to sell more guns which from the NRA’s perspective creates the opportunity for more members and more advocates and of course for the industry it just means a better bottom line”.

16:39

Guns on display at show

MILLAR: Close to six million guns are made in America every year and it’s estimated the weapons and ammunition generate about six billion dollars a year in revenue. After every massacre there’s a spike in sales.

16:59

Millar with Feldman

“Is there not some irony that the tragedy at Sandy Hook has been good for the gun industry?”

17:15

Feldman. Super:
Richard Feldman
Former NRA strategist

RICHARD FELDMAN: “Sure there’s some irony in there,  but when Americans feel a product they want is potentially threatened and may not be available in the future, watch out that’s when the buying frenzy begins. The firearm industry is in unbelievable shape. If the rest of the American economy was in the shape that the gun industry is in, I don’t think we’d have much of a budget deficit to worry about”.

17:21

Giffords at hearing

MILLAR: Two years ago Gabby Giffords represented Arizona in Congress. That was before

17:49

Photos.  Giffords after shooting

she was shot in the head at close range. The assassin killed six others but Giffords survived

17:56

Giffords addresses hearing

and after two years of painful rehabilitation, she’s still relearning how to speak.

18:03

GABBY GIFFORDS: “Violence is a big problem. Too many children are dying. Too many children. Be bold. Be courageous. Americans are counting on you. Thank you. Thank you.”

18:14

MILLAR: Giffords and her husband Mark Kelly – both gun owners themselves – have launched Americans for Responsible Solutions.

18:39

Kelly addresses hearing

MARK KELLY: “This time must be different. Something needs to be done. We are simply two reasonable Americans who have said ‘enough’”.

18:46

Superbowl advertisement

MILLAR: Adding to the pressure for reform Mayors Against Illegal Guns which funded this advertisement for the NFL Superbowl. The mayors’ lobby is underwritten by the billionaire New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

18:56

ADVERTISEMENT: “You know, over six hundred mayors across the country agree on commonsense reforms that would save lives. Add your voice. Go to Mayors Against Illegal Guns dot org. It’s a patriotic thing to do. You can make a giant difference in our country”.

19:09

Maggart and friends on private shooting range

MILLAR: On this private range in Tennessee, Debra Maggart and her friends are obsessive about safety and take pride in their skills, but the reality is that every year about 30,000 Americans die at the end of a gun. Most are suicides, but on average a third, around 10,000 people a year are murdered, a death toll totally out of kilter with the rest of the developed world.

19:25

The NRA blames everything other than guns - primarily the failure to identify and treat people with mental illnesses, also excessively violent video games and movies. Yet it insists politicians should do nothing to infringe the right of Americans to bear arms.

20:00

Maggart. Super:
Debra Maggart
Former Republican caucus chair, Tennessee

DEBRA MAGGART: “Bullies. They use bully tactics to get their way. They know that everyone is afraid of them”.

20:23

MILLAR: “What do you personally think is actually achievable on gun reform?”

DEBRA MAGGART: “Well it depends on what you call gun reform, but I can tell you this, no one will have the courage to talk about what even those reforms might need to be if they are a Republican because they’ll be too afraid to take on the NRA”.

20:29

Democrat rally

MILLAR: Many Democrats too are afraid of crossing the NRA as President Obama knows well.

20:47

Obama State of he Union address

PRESIDENT OBAMA: “I know this is not the first time this country has debated how to reduce gun violence, but this time is different”.

20:52

MILLAR: Starting his final four years in office, President Obama, having publicly shed tears after Sandy Hook wants to change America’s relationship with guns.

21:01

PRESIDENT OBAMA: “Gabby Giffords deserves a vote. The families of Newtown deserve a vote. The families of Aurora deserve a vote. The families of Oak Creek and Tucson and Blacksburg and the countless other communities ripped open by gun violence – they deserve a simple vote”.

21:12

Shooting range

[Gunfire]

21:36

MILLAR: One reason why gun control is such an intractable problem is the sheer scale of ownership. There are 310 million Americans and it’s thought there are just as many guns – and about 110 million gun owners. The culture of gun love is fostered from childhood and gun makers are increasingly pitching at the young. We met Shawn Clarke and his sons skeet shooting.

SHAWN CLARK: “This is the place...

21:43

Shawn with children at range

if my boys are going to have exposure to firearms, this is definitely the right place to have that exposure to the firearms”.

22:15

NATHAN CLARK: “Yeah I get to shoot like targets and zombie targets”.

MILLAR: “And what would you like to be able to do?”

NATHAN CLARK: “Shoot like... the rifles”.

22:25

MILLAR: “Is that a pretty important moment for your family when a son first shoots?”

SHAWN CLARK: “Absolutely, yeah, yeah absolutely.

22:38

He certainly sees quite a few guns in the video games and on TV and today I think being around them will teach him a little bit more of what they’re really about”.

22:46

Pan from Capitol Building to Millar to camera

MILLAR: “It’s ten weeks since the slaughter in Sandy Hook and the initial optimism that it would provoke the biggest changes to gun laws in decades is fading. While Congress might agree on background checks and reducing high capacity magazines, what Veronique Pozner wanted most was to get semi-automatic weapons off the streets – that appears politically impossible nationally. The NRA and other pro-gun groups are just too strong.

22:58

Vigil at Sandy Hook

Music

23:27

Veronique

VERONIQUE POZNER: “I think any change is protracted, incremental and painful. It’s hard to know ‘cause you’re really operating against some very powerful forces. Night time is much harder for me. But it’s bitter sweet because for instance last night I had a very vivid dream about Noah.

23:34

Photo. Noah.

It was quite wonderful. It was difficult to wake up and realise the bleakness... well I guess the bleakness of the weather sort of matched my mood, that it wasn’t real.

23:59

He was a bit of a philosopher. He asked questions about life and God and what happens after we die.

24:17

Veronique/Photo Noah

I always called him an old soul. I would always tell his father you know I think he’s an old soul... and I think some of it came from being a twin too, that ability to coexist because neither one was dominant. They kind of compromised with each other. Sometimes one got their way, sometimes it was the other and they just had this beautiful synergy together and he has left such a void”.

24:24

Photo. Noah

24:53

Credits:

Reporter:  Lisa Millar

Camera:     Robert Hill, ACS 

Research:  Tara Libert

Editor:        Garth Thomas

Producer:  Greg Wilesmith

25:05