By Michael Isikoff
NBC News National Investigative Correspondent

Now that Dick Cheney has opened the door to tighter gun restrictions, will President Barack Obama do the same?

That politically dicey question is playing out behind the scenes in the run-up to next week’s State of the Union. In the aftermath of the Tucson shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and federal Judge John Roll, gun control groups and some Democratic members of Congress are pushing to get the president to directly address the issue of gun violence in his speech to Congress next Tuesday, according to gun control advocates and congressional aides, who asked for anonymity.

Some Democratic party donors are also being urged to weigh in as part of a quiet lobbying effort to prod the president to finally speak out on an issue that he has studiously avoided since taking office, the advocates say.

“There’s a major push to get [Obama] to say something on this,” said Chad Ramsey, legislative director of the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence, a leading gun control group. “We’ve been told he will say something, but we’re not sure how strong it will be.”

There have been a number of different gun control ideas put forward since the Jan. 8 Tucson shooting. But gun control groups most of all want Obama’s endorsement of the bill introduced this week by Democratic Rep. Carolyn McCarthy of New York (with more than 40 co-sponsors so far). That bill would ban the sale or transfer of high-capacity gun magazines such as the one allegedly used by Jared L. Loughner to fire off more than 30 rounds. So far, the proposal (and a companion bill to be introduced next week by Democratic Sen. Frank Lautenberg of New Jersey) has yet to pick up a single Republican co-sponsor.

But backers were buoyed Wednesday when former vice president Dick Cheney, long a stalwart supporter of gun rights, appeared open to the idea, telling NBC’s Jamie Gangel in an interview, “maybe it's appropriate to re-establish that kind of thing.” (See the video of Cheney below.)

A White House official said that aides won't publicly comment on what Obama might or might not say in the Jan. 25 State of the Union. Asked specifically about the McCarthy-Lautenberg proposal to ban high-capacity magazines, Reid Cherlin, a White House press spokesman, said in an e-mail: “A number of proposals have been put forward in the days since these tragic shootings, and we’re going to be taking a close look at all of them.”

As a sign of just how tough a fight this issue would be, the National Rifle Association on Wednesday sent a letter to members of Congress criticizing "anti-gun activists" for pushing several "schemes" after Tucson. Referring specifically to the McCarthy-Lautenberg proposal to ban clips of more than 10 rounds, Chris Cox, the group's chief lobbyist, wrote: "These magazines are standard equipment for self-defense handguns and other firearms owned by tens of millions of Americans. Law-abiding private citizens choose them for many reasons, including the same reason police officers do: to improve their odds in defensive situations." (The NRA did not respond to a request to comment on Cheney's remarks to NBC.)

Until now, the entire subject of guns has been anathema at the White House. Obama during his 2008 campaign had pledged to push to reinstate the ban on semi-automatic assault weapons. The ban, which was enacted under President Clinton in 1994 and which lapsed under President Bush 10 years later, had included a provision that prohibited the manufacture of high-capacity detachable magazines.

But White House officials pretty much dropped the issue after Obama took office, going so far as to remove the campaign pledge from the White House website. Obama, who stopped talking about guns entirely, also waited nearly two years before nominating a director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, fearing that any candidate it sent up to the Senate would incur the wrath of the formidable National Rifle Association, according to administration sources. (Sure enough, its nominee, Andrew Traver, the ATF special agent in charge in Chicago, is the target of an NRA lobbying campaign. It remains far from clear he will ever get confirmed.)

Still, advocates say that the Tucson shooting was such a searing national tragedy that it may now be impossible for Obama to duck the subject. According to gun control groups, and some law enforcement officials, a ban on high-capacity magazines is the one specific proposal that might have made a difference in Tucson, at least in lowering the body count of six killed and 13 wounded. Because of the high-capacity magazine he had attached to his Glock 19 semi-automatic, Loughner was able to get off 31 or 32 shots before he had to reload. It was only when he did so that he was wrestled to the ground.

One prong of the gun control lobbying campaign is to try to line up law enforcement backing for the McCarthy proposal, starting with the Justice Department. Thanks to the intervention of a plugged-in donor, the group has secured a meeting on Jan. 25 with Attorney General Eric Holder — the same day as the State of the Union. (Holder is on record as supporting the assault weapons ban, but like other administration officials rarely talks about it anymore. ) The groups are also hoping that McCarthy may yet have some pull with her former chief of staff, Jim Messina, now the deputy White House chief of staff and one of Obama’s most influential aides. A McCarthy spokesman said that the congresswoman has been attempting to raise the subject of the magazine ban with Messina, but said he didn’t believe the two had spoken yet.)

But skeptics wonder how far the Messina connection will get the gun control advocates. One former senior law enforcement official who follows the gun issue closely, and who asked for anonymity, noted that after Messina worked for McCarthy he served as chief of staff to Democratic Sen. Max Baucus of Montana, a strong gun rights advocate. And Messina at times has served as a White House conduit to the NRA, the former official said.

In any case, this former official predicted that, for all the outside pressure it has been getting, the White House in the end will avoid the subject, concluding it's simply not worth taking on the NRA and that it's likely to lose in the end. “As a matter of political strategy, it would be as bad for him take this on as health care was,” said this former official. “It would become a distraction from everything else.”

James Palka / AP

Congressional intern Daniel Hernandez walks with emergency personnel as Rep. Gabrielle Giffords is moved after the shooting in Tuscon, Ariz., on Saturday, Jan. 8.

By Bill Dedman
Investigative reporter
msnbc.com

How fast was the emergency response in Tucson?

It depends on your perspective.

The Pima County Sheriff's Office released on Friday a timeline of the shooting in Tucson, Ariz., of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and others, appearing to show the first ambulance arriving 20 minutes after the first 911 call came in.

That information seemed to match reports just after last Saturday's shooting, in which witnesses told reporters that ambulances were 10 to 15 minutes behind the first sheriff's deputies.

It turns out that that's not quite what happened. The sheriff's press release was incomplete.

The first fire/rescue medical personnel arrived at a staging area near the Safeway supermarket 8 minutes after the first 911 emergency call came in. The first ambulance for transporting patients arrived a minute later.

But these units and later-arriving ones were held away from the Safeway in a staging area, even several minutes after the gunman's weapon was secured, out of fear there was a second gunman. This is standard operating procedure in emergency services. First responders who become victims can't help anyone.

The first medical units didn't actually reach the Safeway until 11 minutes after the emergency call. Even then, some were held back for safety. During that time, members of the congressional staff and other volunteers provided first aide to the injured.

And it was not until 16 minutes after the first emergency call that the medical response was upgraded to a mass casualty incident, although the initial 911 call reported that there were "multiple shot." The battalion chief said he never makes that call until one of his crew is on the scene to confirm initial reports, which often are misleading.

Perspective matters
Counted as police and firefighters count their response times, the medical units arrived only five or six minutes after they were dispatched.

But counted from the time the 911 call came in, it was 11 minutes or more before patients were being treated.

"Yes, from the perspective of someone on that horrible scene, calling 911, and waiting and waiting and waiting, it would seem like a long time," said Tom Brandhuber, fire chief for the private Rural/Metro Fire Department in Pima County, whose ambulances responded. "The units got there as quickly as possible. They all descended on the scene at once. And they were able to get all the patients off the scene quickly."

Another factor of perspective: Congresswoman Giffords would naturally have been the focus of much of the attention from witnesses waiting for ambulances. The ambulance that took her to the hospital did arrive 20 minutes after the first 911 call, and left for the hospital 10 minutes later. That total time, 30 minutes, makes her survival of a gunshot wound to the head all the more remarkable.

The timeline
Here's a timeline of first responders for last Saturday's events, compiled by msnbc.com by merging information from the Pima County Sheriff's Office, the public Northwest Fire District, and private Southwest Ambulance and Rural/Metro Fire Department. Two cautions: Times were given in whole minutes, and clocks could vary from one computer-aided dispatch center to another.

10:10 a.m.: The shooter opens fire. Nineteen people are shot.

10:11 a.m.: Pima County Sheriff's Department receives the first of many 911 calls about a shooting with multiple victims at Safeway, 7100 N. Oracle Road, Tucson. That call was taken by a general call taker, who determined that this was both a police and medical emergency, and transferred the information to specialists for both types of calls.

10:14 a.m.: First medical units are dispatched. Northwest Fire/Rescue (public) sent a "first alarm medical," a higher level of response than a simple heart attack or single gunshot victim would receive. That included three fire engines with advanced life support capabilities, a battalion chief, and three ambulances. Those ambulances aren't normally used to transport patients to a hospital, so two ambulances were also dispatched by private agencies with contracts with the county, Rural/Metro Fire Department and its sister company Southwest Ambulance, to provide not only treatment but also transport.

10:15 a.m.: Southwest Ambulance dispatches a second ambulance.

10:15 a.m.: Deputy Thomas Audetat is the first sheriff's deputy on scene and detains the suspect.

10:16 a.m.: Deputy Georgina Patino is second on scene and secures the weapon.

10:17 a.m.: Southwest Ambulance dispatches a third ambulance.

10:19 a.m.: The first medical personnel begin arriving, from the county agency, Northwest Fire/Rescue, but are held in a staging area nearby to make sure the situation was secure. Northwest's first responders were six firefighters with medical certification as paramedics or EMTs, on two vehicles, a paramedic fire engine and a paramedic ambulance. These vehicles are fully equipped for medical treatment, but don't transport patients except when no other transport is available.

10:20 a.m.: The first ambulance for transport arrives from Southwest Ambulance, Paramedic 838, and is held for safety. It was Southwest's second ambulance dispatched, and arrived first, five minutes after it was dispatched.

10:22 a.m.: Northwest paramedics and EMTs are allowed to move to the treatment area and start working. Even then, not all the units moved in at first. "Even when they said it was safe to send in, I sent one rescue company and engine company, until I knew it was safe," said Battalion Chief Lane Spalla from Northwest Fire/Rescue. "It's hard for us to sit on the corner while people need help, but we have to make sure it's safe. And we have to make sure we're sending the units to the right place. Those are always good minutes that are needed. I thought law enforcement did a fantastic job clearing the scene in three minutes. We've been on calls for individual gunshot victims that took longer."

10:23 a.m.: Second and third ambulances from Southwest Ambulance and its sister Rural/Metro Fire Department arrive (Paramedic 837 and Rescue 76). They are held at the staging area waiting for the "all clear." They arrived in the staging area six minutes and nine minutes after dispatch.

10:23 a.m.: Six more Northwest firefighters arrive, for a total of 12 medical personnel in the treatment area, with others waiting in the staging area.

10:24 a.m.: The three ambulances from Southwest Ambulance and Rural/Metro Fire are given the all clear, and move to the treatment area by the Safeway.

10:24 a.m.: A neighboring firefighter unit arrives. By now there are 30 or more medical personnel making their way from the staging area to the Safeway.

10:27 a.m.: Northwest Fire/Rescue upgrades the call to a "second alarm medical," indicating mass casualties. This effectively doubles the response, sending three more fire engines, three more ambulances, and other officers.

10:27 a.m.: A fourth ambulance from the private sector, a Rural/Metro Fire Rescue unit, is dispatched.

10:31 a.m.: This entry in the sheriff's public timeline is a source of confusion. The sheriff's office reports that Rural/Metro's Paramedic 831 is the first ambulance on scene, but this turns out not to be correct. It's the fourth ambulance for transport on scene, not the first. This ambulance had not been dispatched until 10:27. The sheriff's timeline for public release may focus on this ambulance because it's the one that will carry the congresswoman.

10:35 a.m.: The first ambulance to leave is Rescue 76 from Rural/Metro. It was on scene for 11 minutes before leaving. It arrived at Northwest hospital at 10:43.

10:36 a.m.: A second ambulance leaves the scene, Paramedic 838, and arrives at a hospital at 10:45.

10:41 a.m.: A third ambulance leaves the scene, Paramedic 831, with Rep. Giffords for University Medical Center, arriving at 10:54. (There were incorrect reports that she was taken by air ambulance. Others were, but the ground ambulances arrived at the Safeway first, and left first.)

10:48 a.m.: A fourth ambulance leaves the scene, Paramedic 837, and arrives at a hospital at 11:06. Other ambulances follow.

Standards for response times
The nationwide standard for arrival times is usually six minutes: one minute to handle a call ("dispatch time"), one minute to gear up and get on the road ("turnout time"), and four minutes to drive ("travel time"). That six-minute standard is used by the National Fire Protection Association.

Time is of the essence in handling gunshot wounds, heart attacks and other life-threatening emergencies. The American Heart Association says that brain death starts between 4 and 6 minutes after cardiac arrest.

These standards are not laws, and municipalities are not bound by them. Communities can adopt those standards, striving for the highest-quality fire and ambulance response, or they can not adopt them. Even when adopted, they are merely guidelines, though sometimes legal contracts between municipalities and ambulance companies set certain response times.

Rural/Metro Corp. and its subsidiary, Southwest Ambulance, have 20 stations in the Tucson area, and more than 75 ambulances. Based in Scottsdale, Ariz., Rural/Metro serves about 400 communities in the U.S.

Southwest Ambulance (Rural/Metro Corp.) said its standard, under its state license or so-called "certificate of necessity" issued by the Arizona Department of Health Services, is for response within 8 minutes in 70 percent of the medical calls. It said it exceeds those, hitting 8 minutes in at least 90 percent of calls.

Calculating 'response times'
Working from that timeline, these are the approximate response times:

Times for the first medical units: three minutes of dispatch time at the central dispatch before the medical units were called, then five minutes of turnout and travel time. "Response time" from the perspective of the medical units: five minutes. Then another three minutes of hold time for safety of the first-responders. "Response time" from the perspective of a person who dialed 911: 11 minutes.

Times for the first ambulance for transport: three minutes of dispatch time, at the central dispatch before the medical units were called, then six minutes of turnout and travel time. "Response time" from the perspective of the medical units: six minutes. Then four minutes of hold time for safety of the first responders. "Response time" from the perspective of a person who dialed 911: 13 minutes.

"These are good times," said Chief Brandhuber from Rural/Metro. "They show multiple agencies working together well on a mass-casualty event."

Delay in upgrading the response?
The first 911 call reported "multiple shot."

"There was a shooting at Safeway at Ina and Oracle where Gabrielle Giffords was, I do believe Gaby Giffords was hit."

Responder: "At the Safeway sir? ... Was somebody shot there sir?"

"It looks like a guy had a semi-automatic pistol, and he went in, he just started firing and then he ran."

"She's hit, she's breathing, she still got a pulse ... we got one dead... there's multiple shot."

Responder: "Oh my God."

Other callers told of "a bunch of people shot" and "a total of 10 people, maybe more."

Sheriff's radio tapes show an early call from an officer, "Start multiple med units. ... People down. ... I'm counting at least 10."

And another officer pleading, "Start every ambulance we have out here."

And a third, "We're really short on medical personnel."

It would be 16 minutes before the incident was upgraded to a mass casualty event.

"According to our records, the incident was upgraded to a second alarm medical at 10:27 a.m. and additional ambulances were dispatched according to protocols," said Jackie Evans, Southwest Ambulance's market general manager for Southern Arizona.

That's 13 minutes after the first medical units were dispatched, and 16 minutes after the 911 call.

Battalian Chief Spalla said he was responsible as the scene commander for calling for an upgrade, which doubled the number of crews responding, and he is always cautious about taking this step. If too many units are sent to a minor incident, that puts them out of position if genuine calls come in.

"We might show up and there's nothing. Stories often change from the first 911 caller to the second, from the time we get on the scene, from the ambulance crews to the ER doctors. We sent a higher level of response from the beginning, more than we would send for chest pains, and until I get units on the scene, until I get eyeballs on bodies, I don't upgrade again."

Did the delays matter?
There were plenty of paramedics and EMTs, pronouncing as deceased five of the victims, and assessing, stabilizing and treating the 13 wounded, preparing them for transport to the hospital, said Capt. Adam Goldberg, who also serves as a spokesman for Northwest Fire/Rescue. (The New York Times describes the scene that a first responder from Capt. Goldberg's company encountered at the Safeway store, and the life-saving choices made by paramedics, EMTs and doctors at the hospital.)

If the ambulances for transport had arrived sooner, the most seriously injured patients might have left sooner for the hospital, Goldberg said. He said he "absolutely" does not think that the wait for an ambulance made a difference between life and death in this case, but one can never be sure.

Two doctors were at the shopping center before the paramedics and EMTs, and the five dead had already been covered. The sixth to die, the 9-year-old girl, was in cardiac arrest with wounds presumed to be fatal, and wouldn't normally have been rushed to the hospital if there weren't enough paramedics to work with her, Goldberg said. After confirming the five deaths, the paramedics and EMTs went to work furiously on the 13 injured.

"As the ambulances arrived, they were given patients out of our treatment for transport," Goldberg said. If the ambulances had arrived sooner, patients would still have needed to be stabilized. "You don't just take a patient and throw them on the ambulance."

So both things are true at once, he said: If the ambulances had arrived earlier, the first patients might have left earlier. And it might not have mattered. "It's a valid question," Goldberg said.

Battalion Chief Spalla said the delays in the staging area were frustrating, but once at the Safeway his crews had all the people they needed.

"I had more than enough resources to treat at the scene," Spalla said. "We were plenty busy. Treatment never asked for an ambulance that we didn't have for them. If there had been 10 ambulances sitting on the corner, I couldn't have used them until I got triage going."

The New York Times reports that accused shooter Jared Loughner took photos showing a Glock handgun and his naked buttocks before the fatal shooting in Tucson.

Loughner was dressed in a bright red G-string, the Times reported.

More from The Times:

The photos were turned over to the police by Walgreens, where Mr. Loughner had taken the 35-mm film to be developed on Jan. 7, the day before the shooting. In some of the photos he is holding the gun near his crotch, and in others, presumably shot in a mirror, he is holding the gun next to his buttocks, the police said. It was not yet clear when the photos were taken. According to a detailed timeline released by the Pima County Sherriff’s Department on Friday, Mr. Loughner posted one of the photos and a bulletin saying, “Goodbye friends,” on MySpace early Saturday morning.

The Times offers no more details, and does not publish the photos. The Times report is here.

By Bill Dedman
msnbc.com

Pima Community College in Tucson has released records of its campus police contacts with student Jared Loughner, showing the increasing fear that he stirred in his classmates and teachers.

A thread running through the documents is the difficulty of campus police to find a context in which to intervene: Until they found a violation of the student code of conduct, or a state law, police officers wrote in the reports that they weren't sure what else they could do, even when a fellow student said she thought Loughner had brought a knife to class. (Not dissimilar from the confusion at Virginia Tech as it tried to deal with Seung-Hui Cho.)

The records show no indication that the college took steps to get Loughner any mental health counseling.

Loughner also seemed not to understand the seriousness of the fears. When police spoke with him, Loughner said his free speech rights were being violated,  and seemed to have trouble understanding why he had been called out of class.

Finally, in September, after Loughner apparently posted a video on YouTube calling the college a scam, and accusing it of genocide, police went to his home to read him a suspension letter. Even then he seemed not to fully understand.

You can read the full records in this PDF file. The Washington Post also has a thorough profile of Loughner's deterioration.

On Feb. 5, 2010, Loughner disrupted a poetry class with comments about strapping guns to babies. The dean added that a student had sent an e-mail reporting that she thought Loughner had a knife in his possession. The police officer wrote, "I told her I would check Loughner's history and see if there was anything we needed to be concerned about that we could link to this kind of behavior. I told her if so we might make contact with him and discuss the concerns with him; and if there was nothing to indicate he might have a trend of misbehavior of this type, that we really didn't have anything to react to in a law enforcement mode at this time. I suggested they keep an eye on him and call us if anything else developed that concerned them."

This "law enforcement mode," of reacting to violations instead of looking to prevent violence, was discussed in today's chat on msnbc.com, regarding the Secret Service study of assassinations. You can read that archived chat here, and here's a Secret Service guide to an approach focused more on threat assessment.

On April 6, 2010, Loughner was disruptive in the library, while he listened to music on the computers.

On May 17, 2010, an instructor reported that Loughner became "very hostile" when told he was receiving a B in the class. He said this was "unacceptable." The instructor said she did not feel comfortable unless an officer stayed in the area until class was over.

On June 1, 2010, Loughner disturbed a math class with incoherent arguments that the instructor was using the wrong number. The teacher was also disturbed that Loughner had written "Mayhem Fest" on a paper; it turned out to be the name of a music festival with death-metal music. Again the police officer said that there was little to be done, because no law was violated: "At this time I have no student code of conduct [violation] or do I have any charges to file on this student. A further investigation is needed to be able to make the decision on the student's ability to stay in class or be with other students." The dean "has advised that the instructor and students in the class are uncomfortble with Loughner inside their class and are afraid of any repercussions that could exist from Loughner being unstable in his actions."

The next day, a counselor talked with Loughner. He denied he was disruptive, saying, "My instructor said he called a number 6 and I said I call it 18." He said he asked the instructor, "How can you deny math instead of accept it?"

Loughner said he wanted to remain in class, and agreed not to ask further questions, or at least not disruptive, philosophical ones.

"This student was warned," the counselor concluded. "He has extreme views and frequently meanders from the point. He seems to have difficulty understanding how his actions impact others, yet very attuned to his unique ideology that is not always homogeneous. Since his resolution was to remain silent in class and successfully complete the course, I had no grounds to keep him out of class." There is no mention of follow-up with his parents, or a mental health evaluation, or further intervention.

On Sept. 23, a teacher reported that Loughner was disruptive and would not let class begin after she told Loughner he would receive only half credit for a late assignment. He said his freedom of speech rights were being violated, and that he should be able to say or write whatever he was thinking. The officers said Loughner clearly had trouble understanding the consequences of his actions. Loughner was prevented from returning to class that day because the teacher and students were uncomfortable.  A follow-up meeting with Loughner was scheduled for the next week. The police officers told an advanced program manager at the college that "through our training and experience that there might be a mental health concern." There was no mention of any mental health intervention. The program manager wrote a week later, "Follow up with the instructor said that Jared was doing ok, was still acting a bit 'bizarre' in class but there had been no further interruptions."

On Sept. 29, 2010, police investigated a YouTube video in which they recognized Loughner's voice and reflection in a window. Signed by "Jared ... from Pima College," it said, "We are examining the torture of students. ... The war that we are in right now is currently illegal under the constitution. ... This is my genocide school. Where I'm going to be homeless because of this school. ... I haven't forgotten the teacher who gave me a B for freedom of speech. ... This is Pima Community College, one of the biggest scams in America. ... If the student is unable to locate the external universe, the student is unable to locate the internal universe. ... This is genocide in America. ... Thank you... This is Jared ... from Pima College."

The video also rails about currency moving off the gold standard, about "illiterate" students and teachers, and says, "I don't trust in god."

Later that day, officers went to the Loughner home to read him a letter of suspension, while two other officers waited as backup in the neighborhood. "While inside the garage," the officer wrote, "I spoke with Jared who held a constant trance of staring as I narrated the past events that had transpired." Finally he ended his silence, saying, "I realize now that this is all a scam." The officers said they had a brief conversation with Loughner's father in the back yard, and they left.

There's nothing in the records to indicate that the college or its police department pressed for any further intervention, once Loughner was suspended in September. He withdrew in October, the college previously reported, when the college said he would need a mental health clearance before he could return to class. But with Loughner not attempting to return to school, there's no indication that he got such an evaluation.

Nearly four months later, Loughner was accused of killing six people and wounding 14 others in Tucson.

Update: The New York Times adds:

"The college overhauled its procedures for dealing with disruptive students last year. As part of a revision to the code of conduct, it introduced a Student Behavior Assessment Committee, a three-member team that includes the assistant vice chancellor for student development, the chief or deputy chief of the campus police and a clinical psychologist from outside the college.

"The team meets as needed to respond to students who have acted violently or threatened violence, or who may pose a threat to themselves or others. It came into existence in September, the same month Mr. Loughner was suspended following the five disruptive incidents reported to campus police.

"A campus official involved in setting up the behavior committee, Charlotte Fugett, president of one of the college’s five campuses, would not say whether the committee heard Mr. Loughner’s case."

By Michael Isikoff
NBC News National Investigative Correspondent

A leading gun rights advocate says there is no constitutional barrier to restricting the sale of high-capacity gun magazines such as the one used by accused Tucson shooter Jared Loughner and that such proposals are justified to prevent “looney tunes” from committing more gun massacres.

Robert A. Levy, who served as co-counsel in the landmark 2008 Supreme Court case that established a Second Amendment right to bear arms, said there was no reason the court’s decision in that case should apply to the purchase of high-capacity gun magazines.

“I don’t see any constitutional bar to regulating high-capacity magazines,” Levy said in an interview with NBC. “Justice (Antonin) Scalia made it quite clear some regulations are permitted. The Second Amendment is not absolute.”

The comments by Levy, chairman of the board of the libertarian Cato Institute, come as Democratic Rep. Carolyn McCarthy of New York is preparing to circulate a bill Thursday to ban the sale or transfer of high-capacity magazines. Supporters took Levy’s comments as a sign that at least one gun rights advocates might be open to the idea. 

“For somebody like him to say this is significant,” said Kristen Rand, legislative director of the Violence Policy Center, a leading gun control group. Levy had been one of the lead lawyers for gun rights advocates in  District of Columbia v. Heller, the 2008 case in which the Supreme Court overturned a Washington, D.C., ban on handgun ownership and affirmed for the first time that the Second Amendment encompassed an individual right to own firearms.

There is little doubt that any gun control proposal will face tough sledding in the Congress. A spokesman said today that House Majority Leader Eric Cantor is against the idea. One leading gun rights group, Gun Owners of America, posted a statement on its website this week denouncing “liberal politicians flocking like vultures” to gain political advantage from the Tucson tragedy by proposing gun control measures.

But gun control groups argue that measures like one being proposed by McCarthy in the House (and Sen. Frank Lautenberg, who is sponsoring a similar bill in the Senate) are so modest and reasonable that they could gain traction. Law enforcement officials have noted that Loughner’s high-capacity magazine substantially increased the lethality of his rampage. Witnesses said he was able to get off at least 31 shots without reloading and was only wrestled to the ground when he tried to reload with another high-capacity magazine. The manufacture of such magazines were prohibited under the 1994 federal assault weapons ban, but that law lapsed in 2004, and gun experts say the sale of such magazines have since proliferated.

President Obama, during his 2008 campaign, supporting reinstating the assault weapons ban, but abandoned the idea as politically impractical after taking office. This week, the White House has declined to respond to requests for comment on whether the president would support a restriction on high-capacity magazines.

Although he is strongly opposed to most gun control measures, Levy said in this case “as a policy matter”  restricting access to high-capacity magazines such as the 33-round one used by Loughner makes sense. 

“It may stop a few of these looney tunes,” Levy said. While saying that he saw it as a “close call," he said that a restriction of “10 to 15 rounds makes sense.”

Follow this link to read the transcript of our chat on American assassins with Bill Dedman, investigative reporter for msnbc.com.

If you like, you can also add your comments on that page as well.

Myths about assassins are commonplace. They're loners, the myth goes. They're crazy, deranged, anarchists.

Yesterday in The New York Times, columnist David Brooks wrote about Jared Loughner, who is accused in the Tucson shooting of a federal judge, congresswoman and others:

"Other themes from Loughner's life fit the rampage-killer profile."

The problem is, there is no profile. And they're not rampage killers. (Bulls go on rampages. Assassins plan.)

A thorough study of assassins was published by the United States Secret Service in 1998, and it debunked many of these myths. The Secret Service studied 83 people who killed a public official or celebrity, or who made an attempt, or approached with a weapon and were caught.

What have researchers learned from studying previous assassinations and attempts to kill politicians and public figures in America? Is there a profile? What are the types of people who do this? Have they been mentally ill? Drug users? Suicidal? What are their motivations or grievances? Have they been political? Members of radical groups? What steps do they take to plan? Do they tell others? How do they choose their targets? Do they make threats?

Bill Dedman has written about this issue for more than a decade, first when the Secret Service completed its study of assassins and attempted assassins. He has interviewed the researchers, and written about their later work on school shootings.

By Michael Isikoff
NBC News National Investigative Correspondent

Accused Tucson shooter Jared Lee Loughner was rejected by the U.S. Army in Dec. 2008 after he admitted that he was a drug user, not because he failed a drug test, an Army official said on Monday.

Loughner was questioned by an Army recruiter as part of a standard screening process for all recruits, said U.S. Army spokesman Gary Tallman. When he admitted being a drug user, Loughner was turned down and never underwent a urinalysis or other drug test, contrary to published reports.

"It never got that far," Tallman said. "He was denied entry and was never a recruit." Tallman said he had no information on whether Loughner admitted what kinds of drugs he used.

Loughner's past drug use as well as his mental health are getting attention from gun control proponents, who are questioning his ability to legally purchase the semi-automatic Glock 19 purchase that he allegedly used to shoot Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and U.S. District Judge John Roll on Saturday. An aide to New York City Michael Bloomberg, who organized a group called Mayors Against Illegal Guns, said the group is examining ways to tighten federal gun laws to prohibit drug abusers and individuals with mental health problems from legally purchasing weapons.

Although drug "addicts" or "unlawful" drug users are currently barred by law from buying a gun, the standards are vague and enforcement sporadic. The number of persons denied purchases on those grounds are tiny. Among states such as Arizona that conduct their own background checks, only four people were specifically turned down for drug use between 2001 and 2008, according to FBI figures. (Thousands more were turned down for criminal convictions, which may have included drug sales or possession.)

Arizona court records show that Loughner was arrested on a misdemeanor drug paraphernalia charge in 2007, but the charges were dropped after he underwent a diversion program. He has also been described by former friends and classmates as a "pot smoker," although there are no indications he used other drugs. He had a later charge in 2008 for graffiti, the Arizona Republic reported.

NBC's chief Pentagon correspondent, Jim Miklaszewski, has more in the interview below:

(Updated at 3:45 p.m. Eastern to add comment from Lautenberg's and McCarthy's offices.)

By Michael Isikoff
NBC News National Investigative Correspondent

Sen. Frank Lautenberg, D-N.J., and Rep. Carolyn McCarthy, D-N.Y., with the backing of gun control groups, are drafting a bill that would ban the sale of high-capacity magazines such as the one that was used allegedly Saturday by Jared Lee Loughner, the man accused of murdering federal Judge John Roll and trying to assassinate Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D-Ariz., according to two gun control activists working with McCarthy's staff.

Gun control proponents are hoping to move rapidly on the measure in the wake of reports that Loughner's access to high-capacity, 33-round magazines substantially increased the lethality of his attack, the activists said. An Arizona law enforcement official confirmed to NBC News on Monday that Loughner had actually gotten off at least 31 shots during the Saturday shooting, not the 20 that were first reported. He was emptying his first high-capacity magazine and was trying to reload with another high-capacity magazine (with another 30 rounds) when he was wrestled to the ground, the official said.

"In the wake of these kind of incidents, the trick is to move quickly," said Kristen Rand, legislative director of the Violence Policy Center, one of the gun control groups working with McCarthy's office.

McCarthy, one of the House's strongest gun control proponents, whose husband was killed in a mass shooting on the Long Island Railroad in 1993, confirmed Sunday that she was drafting a new bill in the aftermath of Tuscon .an aide said her office was consulting with other members, including House Speaker John Boehner's office, and that she hoped to have draft language as early as this week. A Lautenberg aide said Lautenberg was working on a similar version in the Senate. 

"The only reason to have 33 bullets loaded in a handgun is to kill a lot of people very quickly. These high-capacity clips simply should not be on the market," Lautenberg said. "Before 2004, these ammunition clips were banned, and they must be banned again. When the Senate returns to Washington, I will introduce legislation to prohibit this type of high-capacity clip." 

Lautenberg was referring to an issue that has been highlighted in recent days by senior federal law enforcement officials: the manufacture of the kind of high-capacity magazines the suspect had with him at the Tucson shopping mall was barred under a federal assault weapons ban that was passed by Congress and signed by President Bill Clinton in 1994.

By Michael Isikoff
NBC News National Investigative Correspondent

When he began shooting outside the Tucson supermarket, Jared Lee Loughner had a Glock 19 pistol that he purchased for $500 and two high capacity 33-round magazines whose manufacture had once been banned under federal law, federal law enforcement officials said Sunday.

But that law, part of a broader 1994 assault weapons ban, expired seven years ago under President Bush. As a result, the 22-year-old Loughner was able to legally acquire high-capacity clips that substantially enhanced the lethality of his attack, officials said. Loughner was charged Sunday with the incidents involving federal employees: two counts of murder and three counts of attempted murder. (A copy of the charges is here, in a PDF file.)

“It gave him a tactical advantage,” said one federal law enforcement official who asked for anonymity. Referring to high-capacity magazines, the official said, “There’s absolutely no doubt the magazines increased the lethality and the body count of this attack.”

Some federal law enforcement officials — and gun control groups — pointed to Loughner’s lawful access to the magazines, as well as the semi-automatic Glock pistol despite an apparent history of mental troubles, as further evidence of the weakness of federal gun laws. There were already signs Sunday that, as with past shooting massacres, such as the ones at Virginia Tech or at Columbine High School in Colorado, the Tuscon assassination was reigniting the perennial debate over federal gun laws.

 “The 22-year-old shooter in Tucson was not allowed to enlist in the military, was asked to leave school, and was considered ‘very disturbed,’” according to former classmates, "but that’s not enough to keep someone from legally buying as many guns as they want in America,” said Paul Helmke, president of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence.

The porous nature of the gun laws  are even greater in Arizona, where the state’s governor, Jan Brewer, a gun rights champion, last year signed a law striking down a permit requirement for carrying a concealed weapon. Two years ago, she signed a law permitting guns to be carried into bars and restaurants that sell alcohol.

Loughner legally purchased the Glock pistol at a Sportsman’s Warehouse store in Tuscson on Nov. 30, filling out a standard federal form that, among other questions, affirmed  he had never been convicted of a felony or been “adjudicated” as "mentally defective.” Although he had been charged with a misdemeanor drug offense in 2008 and had been suspended in September from Pima Community College until a mental health professional certified he was not a danger to himself or others, neither disqualified him from legally purchasing the weapon.

But one federal law enforcement official involved in the case pointed to the high-capacity magazines as an even bigger issue in the attack. The Glock pistol as advertised comes with a standard clip of 15 rounds. The shooter on Saturday had four magazines with his Glock: two high-capacity magazines of more than 30 rounds, and two standard rounds, giving him combined firepower of more than 90 rounds. "He had emptied the first magazine and was trying to reload when he was tackled," said one law enforcement official.

As part of the broader 1994 assault weapons ban, Congress prohibited the manufacture of high-capacity magazines that would enable a shooter to repeatedly fire more rounds without reloading. That law drew stiff opposition from the National  Rifle Association and other gun rights groups — and was allowed to expire under President George W. Bush in 2004.

President Obama, during his 2008 campaign, pledged to restore the ban, and in its early days the Obama White House even had language on its website affirming that the administration supported making “the expired federal Assault Weapons Ban permanent.”

But White House officials have long since dropped the issue as politically impractical, especially in light of the opposition of Blue Dog Democrats. (Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, the target of Saturday’s tactic, was among them.) The  language about the assault weapons ban since has been dropped from the White House site.

How much of a difference a reinstatement of the ban would have made in the Tucson shooting is open to dispute. James Cavanaugh, a former senior official of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, noted that the assault weapons ban only barred the manufacture of new high-capacity magazines; those already on the market were “grandfathered” in and could still be sold. Even without the two high-capacity magazines he had on him, the shooter could have used the Glock’s standard click to fire off 15 rounds—enough to have hit most, if not all, of the targets in the Saturday shooting, he said.

A more relevant issue, Cavanaugh said, was the exceedingly high standard for denying mentally unstable gun purchasers from acquiring weapons. The current standard — they must be “adjudicated” mentally unstable by a court — is very difficult to meet and results in very few denials, he said. While there are unquestionably civil liberties issues at stake, Cavanaugh said, “when people are psychotic, they shouldn’t be able to just walk in and purchase a gun at a gun store like he did.” 

By Bill Dedman
msnbc.com

Although the lay person may think that any person who commits an act of political assassination is, by definition, mentally disturbed, a 1999 Secret Service study of 83 people who made assassination attempts against public figures in America found that only one-third had ever received a mental health evaluation, and fewer than one-fifth had been diagnosed with a mental health or behavior disorder prior to the attack.

Of course, it's possible that others among the attackers had mental health issues but had not been screened or diagnosed. Most of the attackers had a history of suicidal attempts or had expressed suicidal thoughts.

"Although most attackers had not received a formal mental health evaluation or diagnosis," the researchers found, "most attackers exhibited a history of suicide attempts or suicidal thoughts at some point prior to their attack."  And, "more than half of the attackers had a documented history of feeling extremely depressed or desperate."

The videos published online in the name of Jared Lee Loughner, who has been named by law enforcement officials as a suspect in Saturday's shooting of a congresswoman and a federal judge, appear to be the work of a "psychotic and paranoid" individual, according to a psychiatrist who reviewed the videos for msnbc.com. The psychiatrist has not treated Loughner and asked not to be identified.

"The YouTube video text by Loughner," the psychiatrist said, "reads like something from a psychotic and paranoid individual who thinks he is being watched/monitored, who is paranoid about the government, who has disorganized thinking, and who feels superior to people around him. (I-have-better-grammar-than-you, you-don't-know-you're-being-brainwashed, etc.) There also is the hint of big event(s) coming soon on the You Tube mid-December posting."

Few threats
The Secret Service study rebuts the common notion that there is a "type" or "profile" of a kind of person who commits such an act. Some are the stereotypical loners, and some have many friends. Some did well in school, and others did not. They were male and female, young and old.

No profile, no type of person, can fit all the attackers, and any profile would include far too many people who are not dangerous, the researchers found. In short: Profiles don't help law enforcement prevent attackers, but do tie up law enforcement resources.

Another insight from the study: Few of the attackers, only 27 out of 83, had conveyed a direct threat to anyone, and only eight of those had communicated such a threat to the target or to law enforcement.

Most attackers don't threaten, and most threateners don't attack.

But many warnings
The Secret Service did find that the attackers shared behaviors in common. The researchers are saying there is not a type of person, but there is a type of action, such as acquiring a weapon, and communicating their intentions (though not a threat) to others. Time after time, in the days after such attacks, the news emerges that the shooter had described the plans to others, who often took no action to alert anyone. This is similar to school shootings, in which the young people commonly warn others what is coming, without making a direct threat to the school, the Secret Service found in a later study.

The Arizona Republic reported that Loughner posted on his MySpace page in December just such a warning, about wanting to kill a police officer:

“WOW! I’m glad i didn’t kill myself. I’ll see you on National T.v.! This is foreshadow .... why doesn’t anyone talk to me?.."

"I don’t feel good: I’m ready to kill a police officer! I can say it."

Clear grievances
The Secret Service researchers also found that the attackers, even when they showed signs of mental illness, often had clear grievances that motivated their attacks. The community college attended by Loughner disclosed Saturday evening that he had been suspened in September,  and withdrew under pressure in October, after his videos and actions in class disturbed the school. This sort of loss of status or "severe situational stress" is common just before an attack. He then criticized the school online, calling its actions "illegal" for depriving him of the education he had paid for.

"An attacker or would-be attacker with motives that clearly are not 'political' is likely to be seen as 'crazy,'" wrote the researchers, psychologist Robert A. Fein and Bryan Vossekuil, a veteran Secret Service agent on the presidential protection detail.

"It has often been assumed that mentally ill assailants or potential assailants either have motives that are so irrational that they cannot be understood or have no motives other than their illness. This perspective is also incorrect. Subjects who were clearly mentally ill often had defined (and technically 'rational') motives."

Motives identified in the attacks included:

• to achieve notoriety or fame
• to avenge a perceived wrong
• to end personal pain, to be killed by law enforcement
• to bring attention to a perceived problem
• to save the country or the world
• to achieve a special relationship with the target
• to make money
• to bring about political change

Changing targets
Shifting of targets is common, the researchers found. A person with a grievance against one person or institution might carry out an attack on another person. In the best known example, John Hinckley attended Jimmy Carter campaign events in 1980, carrying a weapon, before shifting his attention to the new president, Ronald Reagan, whom he was able to wound in an attack.

The 1999 study was intended to help Secret Service agents and others look for those behaviors, and to move away from the trite and untrue notions that only certain types of people are capable of such an act, or that people "suddenly snap." Assassins don't snap — they plan.

You can read the full study of assassins here, in a PDF file: http://www.secretservice.gov/ntac/ntac_jfs.pdf. And a later report on school shootings is at http://www.secretservice.gov/ntac.shtml.

P.S. A note on the word "rampage": It's popular to call these kinds of shootings a "rampage," but the researchers who study such shootings object to the word rampage. Someone on a rampage is rushing wildly about. Bulls go on rampages, but assassins rarely do. Why do the experts object? Because their research shows that these shootings (assassinations, school shootings, etc.) are hardly ever rampages. The scientists call them "targeted violence." These assailants do shoot one person after another, but they're usually shooting the people they're intending to shoot. Targeted violence. The opposite of a rampage. Maybe a neutral word is attack, or mass shooting, or assassination.

Kari Huus of msnbc.com contributed reporting.