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[MUSIC PLAYING]
ROCCO CASTORO: In Florida, I can sell you a gun on the
street, and it's completely legal.
How are you going to keep track of all these guns that
people are just selling and trading between themselves?
[GUN SHOT]
ROCCO CASTORO: Welcome to Sarasota, Florida, home to
Siesta Key, the number one beach in the
United States of America.
It's also home to more guns than you can possibly imagine.
And we're going to go shoot them, talk about their laws,
and get ready to blow the *** out of everything.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
ROCCO CASTORO: Every year, there are over 30,000 gun
deaths in the United States, a country with 5% of the world's
population and 50% of its guns.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
ROCCO CASTORO: The almost unfathomable national tragedy
that happened on December 14 was the latest and most
horrific example in a string of mass shootings that have
occurred in the United States over the past 30 years.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
ROCCO CASTORO: And this time, there will almost certainly be
a massive legislative shift on the national level.
How wide-sweeping it will be remains to be seen.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
ROCCO CASTORO: I was born and raised in Florida.
And based on my years of experience trolling around
with some of its most interesting, valiant and
despicable residents, I can assure you that many wholly
sensible and productive Floridians of
all stripes own guns.
And yeah, a lot of scumbags have them too.
One of the good guys is Philadelphia native, Eddie
Cacciola, a 32-year-old former Marine.
Eddie moved to Florida five years ago.
Before that, he served as a combat engineer during the
first wave of Operation Iraqi Freedom.
EDDIE CACCIOLA: It was pretty scary.
They were shooting Scud missiles over our heads, just
lobbing them in our direction.
They were blowing up before.
They probably blew up more of themselves than us.
ROCCO CASTORO: Following President Obama's 2008 defeat
of Republican nominee, John McCain, many firearms dealers
in Florida and throughout the nation reported a massive
uptick in background checks for concealed carry permits, a
clear indicator that gun sales were spiking nationally.
The stockpiling also resulted in an ammo shortage.
By February, 2009, the Orlando Sentinel reported that 9mm,
.45 caliber, .38 caliber, and .22 caliber bullets were
becoming scarce.
They also reported that local Walmarts in Apopka and
Kissimmee had confirmed that these types of ammo were on
back order.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
ROCCO CASTORO: We're outside Survive Anything.
Inside, you will find everything you need to survive
earthquakes, which, as far as I know, have never happened in
Florida, zombies, which again, as far as I know, have never
happened in reality, and an assortment of other
apocalyptic scenarios that you need to prepare for.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
EDDIE CACCIOLA: People were more
concerned about the elections.
People were very concerned about what Obama's going to
do, what Romney was going to do, what they
had done in the past.
ROCCO CASTORO: A 2009 Gallup poll reported that as many as
41% of Americans believe that Obama would, quote, "attempt
to ban the sale of guns in the United States while he's
president," as in all guns.
[VIDEO PLAYBACK]
-Preserve, protect and defend the Constitution
of the United States.
-Preserve, protect and defend the Constitution
of the United States.
-So help you God?
-So help me God.
-Congratulations, Mr. President.
[CHEERS]
[APPLAUSE]
[END VIDEO PLAYBACK]
EDDIE CACCIOLA: The day after, I went out just to see the
availability of stuff.
There was people in and out of there with bags of anything
they could grab.
And then I stopped at a local gun shop, The Bullet Hole.
And about every fifth person that walked in there was
talking about how they're coming to
take all of our guns.
MICHAEL CREA: I just think it's a big election scare.
And it happens every four years.
And people get worried about what could happen.
ROCCO CASTORO: Takes a lot.
MICHAEL CREA: No problem.
ROCCO CASTORO: Have a good day.
MICHAEL CREA: You too.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
ROCCO CASTORO: OK, I think we should
probably get out of here.
[VOICE ON WALKIE TALKIE]
ROCCO CASTORO: Apparently, Walmart gets freaked out when
you try to buy over 2,000 rounds of ammo at one time.
So we went with the next best and more expensive option,
visiting one Sarasota's many gun stores.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
JOHN BUCHAN: It started between a partnership.
We actually put a patent on a 100-round drum magazine to fit
a Glock pistol.
And we were marketing gun shows.
These used to only fit dual-feed AR-15s, AK-47s.
We converted it so it will fit a Glock, changed some inside
parts, different housing.
The first part you're going to see, it's in a chassis system
called a RONI.
ROCCO CASTORO: Well, that's impressive.
JOHN BUCHAN: You'll see a second fire sequence.
And that's just in the Glock pistol alone.
Naturally, those are not available to civilians.
ROCCO CASTORO: I would imagine.
JOHN BUCHAN: I don't sell them.
Can't sell them and won't do anything with them.
ROCCO CASTORO: But you have the patent.
JOHN BUCHAN: On the drum.
ROCCO CASTORO: On the drum.
JOHN BUCHAN: On the drum.
ROCCO CASTORO: Have people been buying more ammo or more
guns than normal?
JOHN BUCHAN: Oh, there's an increase in sales in both.
ROCCO CASTORO: Yeah.
Yep.
And why do you think that is?
JOHN BUCHAN: Personal protection, fear of, maybe, I
don't know, government regulation, banning weapons,
banning certain types of weapons, banning
ammunition, taxing it.
People are stockpiling it.
People are buying it.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
ROCCO CASTORO: Why would someone buy that weapon?
JOHN BUCHAN: Long distance shooting, competition.
It's just fun to shoot.
ROCCO CASTORO: How far will that go?
JOHN BUCHAN: At a mile and a half, a .50 round has got more
punch than a .44 Mag does six inches from your chest.
ROCCO CASTORO: At a mile and a half.
JOHN BUCHAN: In a mile and a half.
ROCCO CASTORO: Well, thanks so much, John.
JOHN BUCHAN: Yeah.
No problem.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
ROCCO CASTORO: So two Walmarts, one gun store later,
we got all of our needs for today.
Walmart was pretty accommodating.
But every time you go, it's a kind of a crap shoot, right?
EDDIE CACCIOLA: Yeah.
Sometimes they'll have everything you need.
And that's when you've got to buy it up.
Other times, you've got to buy something you don't want.
ROCCO CASTORO: I'm going to go through a little bit of what
we got here, Federal [INAUDIBLE]
for a 9mm Luger.
EDDIE CACCIOLA: Then we got a couple of boxes of .45
Federal, some .410 shotgun shells.
A big box of .45 auto, 250-round count.
ROCCO CASTORO: Rifle slugs for the shotguns, Magtech, Cowboy
Action Loads.
EDDIE CACCIOLA: And 1,000 rounds of .223.
This for the AR?
ROCCO CASTORO: How many people are we shooting with?
EDDIE CACCIOLA: Four and then some.
ROCCO CASTORO: Beautiful fall Florida day, hot as ***.
The Federal Assault Weapons Ban was passed under the
Clinton administration in September, 1994.
Sunset provisions set the ban to expire in 2004, and it did.
[VIDEO PLAYBACK]
-From my cold, dead hands.
[CHEERS]
[END VIDEO PLAYBACK]
ROCCO CASTORO: Since then, lawmakers like Senator Dianne
Feinstein of California and Congresswoman Carolyn McCarthy
of New York have attempted to institute revised
versions of the ban.
Did you do anything for Veterans Day?
EDDIE CACCIOLA: No.
I tried not to do too much.
ROCCO CASTORO: Tried to relax?
EDDIE CACCIOLA: Yeah.
I figure it's my day.
I don't have to do ***.
ROCCO CASTORO: Yep.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
ROCCO CASTORO: So with several thousand rounds of ammunition
loaded into Eddie's truck, we headed to a local range on the
outskirts of Sarasota.
EDDIE CACCIOLA: Yeah.
It's convenient.
I like shooting outdoor.
I don't really feel comfortable in indoor ranges.
ROCCO CASTORO:
EDDIE CACCIOLA: It's that, and there's a lot of new people.
And there's just a lot of safety that goes into it that
people just have no clue.
You don't want to be in close quarters with somebody that
doesn't know what they're doing.
ROCCO CASTORO:
EDDIE CACCIOLA: No.
Deer doesn't taste that good.
And it's kind of boring hunting something that's not
going to shoot back at you.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
EDDIE CACCIOLA:
[MUSIC PLAYING]
EDDIE CACCIOLA:
[MUSIC PLAYING]
ROCCO CASTORO: Big Nick, one of the guys we shot with, he
had a pretty nice AR-15.
He bought it at a garage sale.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
ROCCO CASTORO: That's pretty standard
practice here in Florida.
No real paperwork was exchanged, as far as I know.
And he got the gun for cash, brought it home.
It was about half price.
And we just shot it here all day today.
That's how easy it is to get a gun in Florida.
What types of weapons are illegal in Florida?
JOHN BUCHAN: We have certain categories that you have to
have certain permits for.
I've got a suppressor on a gun on a wall.
You have to fill out a form.
It goes to ATF.
It's a $200 tax stamp.
They do a background check.
They send you the stamp.
You're allowed to own it.
ROCCO CASTORO: OK.
And what are some of the other classifications?
Like a Class 3 license, what would that mean?
JOHN BUCHAN: Well, fully automatic machine guns, fully
automatic weapons is a whole different license.
Transferring those weapons, there's regulations for all of
that stuff.
And those regulations are pretty stringent.
And they are enforced.
MICHAEL CREA: Everybody in Florida owns an assault rifle.
If you try and send the National Guard in, we
outnumber them.
ROCCO CASTORO: [LAUGHS]
MICHAEL CREA: And the National Guard is not going to come to
our house and take our guns away.
JOHN BUCHAN: I've always wondered why it is so
difficult to get a group of people in Washington to sit
down, maybe hook up with some people from the NRA, and set
up districts and set gun laws that are made by gun owners
and people in the firearms industry.
Those laws would work.
[VIDEO PLAYBACK]
-When freedom shivers in the cold shadow of true peril,
it's always the patriots who first hear the call.
[END VIDEO PLAYBACK]
ROCCO CASTORO: In 2004, the Department of Justice released
an assessment of the decade-long ban that said, if
the ban were to be reinstated at a future date, its effects
on gun violence are likely to be small at best, and perhaps
too small for reliable measurement.
The report also stated that assault weapons were rarely
used in gun crimes even before the ban.
A dissenting study carried out by the Brady Center for Gun
Control alleged that data provided by the ATF showed
that the number of violent crimes in which assault
weapons were used dropped from 4.82% to 1.61% during the ban.
An ATF spokesperson later said that his organization could,
in no way, vouch for the validity of that claim.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
ROCCO CASTORO: John is one of Florida's approximately 7,000
Federal Firearms License holders.
The process for obtaining an FFL and what types of weapons
can be bought and sold by those who are issued them is
largely defined by 1938's Federal Firearms Act and the
gun Control Act of 1968.
The ATF issues and oversees licensing criteria for
dealers, pawnbrokers, and other people who have
legitimate business with guns.
But the agency's oversight largely stops at the
licensee's counter.
JOHN BUCHAN: Well, first things first.
When you open a store up, ATF gives you the first right to
decline a sale to any individual for any reason.
And we practice that here.
We've turned gun sales down because of something that we
just sensed.
The person that acts skittish when he's filling out the
questions and asking you a lot of technical things on it and
checks yes to one of the blocks, not happening here.
And somebody that comes in to try to buy a weapon and you
know the gun's not for them, because the boyfriend's
standing right there.
And he's picked out the gun and he wants this.
But she wants to fill the form out.
Totally illegal.
Not happening here.
The kid that walked in here had his hat turned around
backwards, had all the jewelry on and decided to grab one of
the shotguns and wheel it around on his hip and act
like, say hello to my little friend and I've got to have
one of these, not happening here.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
ROCCO CASTORO: After me and the boys exhausted most of our
ammunition, we packed up the weapons and drove to Sarasota
Trap Skeet & Clays, about a half mile down the road.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
'BIG' NICK COLELLA:
ROCCO CASTORO: Shortly after arriving at the range, we were
joined by Eddie's 12-year-old son, Shawn.
EDDIE CACCIOLA:
ROCCO CASTORO: He came to spend some quality shooting
time with his dad, an American pastime older than playing
catch in the front yard.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
ROCCO CASTORO: So with this shooting, it's better to keep
both eyes open?
Some people?
EDDIE CACCIOLA: Yeah.
Some people say that, on the skeet and trap, it's better to
keep both eyes open.
You couldn't shoot an AR with both eyes open.
ROCCO CASTORO: Yeah.
Yeah.
Of course.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
EDDIE CACCIOLA:
He's known about guns and the safety rules, probably, five
years prior to him ever picking one up
and shooting one.
If the guns are there and he's there, the sooner I teach him
about the safety, the better off I'd be.
ROCCO CASTORO: Shawn, as it turned out, was
a crack clay shooter.
SHAWN CACCIOLA: Pull!
[MUSIC PLAYING]
EDDIE CACCIOLA:
ROCCO CASTORO: I shuddered at the thought of how accurate
Shawn might be behind an AR-15, imagining a future with
remote control drone soldiers piloted by preteen
sharpshooters.
[VOICE OF JOHN WAYNE]
He's a good shot.
ROCCO CASTORO: Pull.
Smell the gunpowder.
Nice.
In between stations, I finally got a chance to speak with
Steve, the fifth member of our party and a former Army medic.
Where were you deployed?
STEVE NORTON: Baghdad.
ROCCO CASTORO: Did you treat a lot of gunshot injuries?
STEVE NORTON:
ROCCO CASTORO: Since you came back from your deployment, did
it change your appreciation for weapons at all?
STEVE NORTON: No, not at all.
I've always loved weapons.
My dad was special forces.
He taught me at a young age about shooting.
And before I could own my own, he gave me a couple of books I
had to read.
ROCCO CASTORO: Are there any aspects of the law that you
think are a bit overreaching or under-reaching?
STEVE NORTON: Probably not too bad.
ROCCO CASTORO: Yeah?
STEVE NORTON: As long as you do the proper paperwork
in the right way.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
ROCCO CASTORO: On January 16, Obama announced 23 executive
orders he could enact without Congressional approval, in an
effort to curb gun violence and reinforce existing
firearms laws.
These actions include signing a Presidential memorandum that
requires Federal agencies to make relevant firearms
purchasing data available to the Federal Background Check
System, launching a national safe and responsible gun
ownership campaign, providing schools with resource officers
and counselors, and instituting more severe
penalties for gun trafficking.
[VIDEO PLAYBACK]
-As soon as I'm finished speaking here, I will sit at
that desk and I will sign a directive giving law
enforcement, schools, mental health professionals, and the
public health community some of the tools they need to help
reduce gun violence.
[APPLAUSE]
[END VIDEO PLAYBACK]
[MUSIC PLAYING]
ROCCO CASTORO: High Noon, like many other gun shops in the
state, offers Concealed Weapon Permit Certification classes.
They are overseen by Tom Dusseau, a local police
officer, former Marine, and private military contractor.
TOM DUSSEAU: Well, essentially, the state of
Florida requires that you take an NRA approved course.
But what a lot of the instructors are lacking is
the, say, for lack of a better term, the real life experience
when it comes to being involved in a
confrontational situation.
You look at the weapons and how other people perceive
them, and that's what it is, it's perception, when you have
a list of people, politicians, whatever the case may be,
picking weapons to put on an assault weapons banned list,
just because they look evil.
EDDIE CACCIOLA: You can make anything look badass.
Some have a wooden stock.
Some have a composite stock.
Obviously, the composite stock looks like somebody's coming
to hurt you.
And the other one reminds me of my grandfather's rifle.
TOM DUSSEAU: Does that make it a war-type or assault weapon?
Not really.
It's a design.
After the first election when Obama was elected, I was
teaching Concealed Weapons classes in
the state of Florida.
A big class prior to the election
was eight to 10 people.
After the election, every time I'd walk in there, there was
25 to 30 people.
The people are running in panic.
They know the restrictions are coming.
They come out and they buy a large number of firearms.
And then they just put them in a safe.
They don't carry them.
They don't use them.
They just buy them.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
-24-year-old James Holmes walked into a theater--
Holmes was heavily armed-- and opened fire.
-20-year-old Adam Lanza, who died of a self-inflicted
gunshot wound to the head, this was the
work of a lone wolf.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
ROCCO CASTORO: On a Saturday following the shooting of 28
people at an elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut,
Virginia State Police processed 4,166 background
checks for concealed and assault-type weapons, a 42%
increase from the same Saturday in 2011.
On the same day, Colorado, a state still reeling from a
string of recent shootings, also processed 4,200
background checks, the highest number since the
program began in 1999.
The fallout resulting from the shooting at Sandy Hook
Elementary has led to a 19% rise in background checks
nationwide.
According to the FBI, approximately 2.78 million
background checks were recorded in the month of
December 2012 alone.
That's a 39% rise from the previous month.
In recent years, there has been much renewed attention
paid to some of the more nebulous aspects of many
states' gun laws.
Particular attention has been paid to what is called the
"stand your ground" law, the guiding principle behind
"stand your ground" being that any person in public, if they
feel as if their life has been threatened, has the right to
shoot that threat dead on the spot
without any duty to retreat.
"Stand your ground" became a household phrase following an
incident in Florida in which the threat in question was an
unarmed, black 17-year-old with nothing in his pockets
but a bag of Skittles.
That boy's name was Trayvon Martin.
There are currently 24 states with "stand your
ground" laws in effect.
New research indicates that states with "stand your
ground" laws have a 7% to 9% higher homicide rate, compared
to states without such laws.
Another aspect of firearms laws currently under scrutiny
in Washington is the ability to purchase certain types of
weapons at gun shows, pop-up shops, or through private
sales between citizens.
[VIDEO PLAYBACK]
--when as many as 40% of all gun purchases are conducted
without a background check.
[END VIDEO PLAYBACK]
MICHAEL CREA: In Florida, I can sell you
a gun on the street.
And it's completely legal.
JOHN BUCHAN: You run into a lot of that at gun shows,
outside in the parking lot, the side deal.
But yes, it is legal to do that.
MICHAEL CREA: You know, I could have bought a gun from a
guy who had it for 40 years, sold it to
10 different people.
They're not going to trace that back.
How are you going to keep track of all these guns that
people are just selling and trading between themselves?
EDDIE CACCIOLA: One came right here.
And the other one I met in a gas station parking lot.
ROCCO CASTORO: Did they just hand it to
you out in the open?
EDDIE CACCIOLA: We put it in the back of my pickup truck
and tactfully looked it over and made sure
it was what it was.
And he had a gun and I had cash, so we made a trade.
So I'm here looking on Florida Gun Trader, see if there's any
local deals to be had.
Let's see.
What have we got here?
[INAUDIBLE]
Yeah, this guy's real close to where we're at.
[PHONE RINGS]
[MALE VOICE ON PHONE]
Hello.
Yeah.
Yeah.
How you doing?
EDDIE CACCIOLA: Good.
Does it come with anything?
[MALE VOICE ON PHONE]
Just some [? [INAUDIBLE]. ?]
[MUSIC PLAYING]
ROCCO CASTORO: So earlier today, you found this Sig
Sauer P238 Blackwood with night sites
on Florida Gun Trader.
And the guy got in touch with you.
And we're about to go meet him in a parking lot.
EDDIE CACCIOLA: Yeah.
ROCCO CASTORO: And I don't know.
How shady of a deal, on a scale of 1 to 10,
would you rate this?
EDDIE CACCIOLA: 9 and 1/2.
ROCCO CASTORO: 9 and 1/2?
[LAUGHS]
EDDIE CACCIOLA: Yeah.
Buying a gun at 10 o'clock at night, a little suspect.
ROCCO CASTORO: Yeah.
You can't go to restaurants after 10:00.
Buying a gun, kind of interesting.
What did the guy say to you on the phone?
EDDIE CACCIOLA: He wants $550 at the minimum, and as long as
I'm a Florida resident.
ROCCO CASTORO: And that just means you've got
to show him an ID?
EDDIE CACCIOLA: Yeah.
ROCCO CASTORO: And he wants cash?
EDDIE CACCIOLA: Yeah.
ROCCO CASTORO: OK.
I'm going to ask you to ask him for a receipt, maybe hint
at that you may have some priors, but you don't know.
Are you OK with that?
EDDIE CACCIOLA: Yeah.
ROCCO CASTORO: Are you going to be carrying?
EDDIE CACCIOLA: Probably.
ROCCO CASTORO: [LAUGHS]
So let's go do this.
This is kind of weird.
[LAUGHS]
EDDIE CACCIOLA: All right.
ROCCO CASTORO: Within 30 minutes, we were posted up in
a Lowe's parking lot, waiting for our
sketchy deal to go down.
EDDIE CACCIOLA:
EDDIE CACCIOLA:
[MUSIC PLAYING]
ROCCO CASTORO: How'd it go down?
You met him, shook hands.
EDDIE CACCIOLA: We just shot the *** for a minute.
ROCCO CASTORO: Yeah?
EDDIE CACCIOLA: And then got down to business, showed me
what he had.
ROCCO CASTORO: Did it feel like you were
making a drug deal?
EDDIE CACCIOLA: Kind of, actually.
ROCCO CASTORO: Yeah?
Yeah?
[LAUGHS]
Why don't you show us what you got?
EDDIE CACCIOLA: A little Sig P238, a little compact carry
piece, perfect for, maybe, the pocket.
ROCCO CASTORO: Put it in your belt or something like that.
It's a nice weight.
EDDIE CACCIOLA: He didn't ask me for anything.
ROCCO CASTORO: Not even an ID?
EDDIE CACCIOLA: No.
ROCCO CASTORO: Didn't even ask for an ID?
EDDIE CACCIOLA: No.
ROCCO CASTORO: What kind of guy did he seem like?
EDDIE CACCIOLA: Ah, a little questionable.
ROCCO CASTORO: A little quacky?
Did he think that was weird?
Did he hesitate at all?
EDDIE CACCIOLA: He was a little hesitant.
ROCCO CASTORO: But then he was like, *** it, I got the cash?
EDDIE CACCIOLA: Yeah.
He was like, ah, OK.
Once he signed his name and I signed my name, he said this
is a legal binding contract.
ROCCO CASTORO: Is it notarized?
[LAUGHS]
[MUSIC PLAYING]
ROCCO CASTORO: Just like abortion, gay marriage, and
other hot-button legal issues, it is nearly impossible to
convince someone that his or her opinion
about guns is wrong.
Even if somehow, in some bizarro dimension where
martial law has been declared, the same people will keep
stockpiling more and more, until they
are no longer available.
Outside of stricter regulations on background
checks and keeping guns out of the hands of the mentally
disturbed, there is no easy answer to the firearms debate
that will make everyone happy.
[MUSIC PLAYING]