Sure enough, within an hour, it was obvious that it was the brothers, and they were engaged in an unbelievably violent ongoing shoot-out with police. If we’d stayed on air a few minutes more, we’d have been covering it all night.
FRIDAY, 19 APRIL 2013
Woke to discover that one of the two brothers, Tamerlan, had died in the shoot-out, but the younger one had got away and was still on the loose.
Boston was effectively locked down all day as thousands of police and FBI hunted him down. Finally, in incredible scenes tonight just before we went on air, he was found hiding in a boat in someone’s backyard, and captured after more rapid-fire gun exchanges.
It was an extraordinarily dramatic end to an extraordinarily dramatic week.
SATURDAY, 20 APRIL 2013
Jonathan sent the ratings for last night. They were by far the biggest in our show’s history – more than five million in total viewers, and 2.3 million in the demo.
The network as a whole had its best ratings day outside of general elections for a decade.
Further proof, not that any is needed, that when big news breaks, everyone watches CNN.
MONDAY, 22 APRIL 2013
Until tonight, I thought that Alex Jones was the most obnoxious human being I’d ever interviewed.
But that was before I interviewed New York state senator Greg Ball.
After the police captured one of the Boston marathon bombers alive, he tweeted: ‘So, scumbag number two in custody – who wouldn’t use torture on this punk to save more lives?’
The slight problem being that Dzhokhar Tsarnaev is an American citizen who committed a crime on American soil – so torturing him would be a breach of the US Constitution. The same Constitution that Mr Ball demands is never infringed when it comes to guns.
I asked him if he stood by his tweet, and off he went, like a ranting madman.
‘A lot of politicians are full of crap! I think I share the feelings of a lot of red-blooded Americans! Dude, you’re talking to a guy that supports the death penalty for cop killers and terrorists!’
He was almost foaming at the mouth.
‘Let me ask you a question,’ he said. ‘What would you do if you were given the opportunity before Osama bin Laden was shot? If you had thirty minutes in a room with him, what would you do – play cards with bin Laden?’
Bin Laden, of course, was not an American citizen, but this minor detail was lost on the good senator.
‘Maybe I should have said it in a British accent!’ he sneered. ‘This man killed innocent men, women, and children.’
He was now smirking like Jack Nicholson in The Shining.
‘Can you stop being such a jerk?’ I suggested wearily.
‘You get paid for it!’ he shot back. ‘I figured I’d give you a taste of your own medicine! You don’t like it when you don’t have another bobblehead you can beat up and treat like a coward! If given the opportunity to be in a room with Osama bin Laden, it would be me, Osama and a baseball bat. And yes, I would use torture!’
‘Very macho,’ I observed.
‘It’s not about being macho! If I wanted to be macho, I would challenge you to an arm wrestling contest!’
Mr Jones, move aside.
TUESDAY, 30 APRIL 2013
The monthly ratings have come out, and my show registered its second highest numbers ever, up a whopping 119 per cent from last April.
I’m pleased, obviously. But what I’ve learned the hard way at CNN is not to enjoy these moments too enthusiastically. Because the only certainty is that the ratings will fall again when interest in this Boston story drops, which it will do very soon.
The challenge remains to try and make our ‘normal’ show outside of breaking news as compelling as possible, and as distinct from the rest of CNN as possible.
Jeff Zucker’s made it very clear to everyone that he wants us all to expand our ideas of what ‘news’ is, away from focusing on boring politics (when it’s boring) and into stuff that people actually care and talk about.
He’s absolutely right.
WEDNESDAY, 1 MAY 2013
A two-year-old girl in Kentucky has been shot dead by her five-year-old brother – with a rifle he was given by his parents as a gift.
It was purchased from a company called Crickett, whose website is full of photos of little kids gleefully brandishing deadly rifles.
What hope is there for any change in America when this kind of nonsense is legally permissible?
Lennox Lewis shared my dismay.
‘You need a licence to drive a car,’ he tweeted. ‘To do hair, to fish. I even needed one to box, but you don’t need one for a gun. Why?’
There’s just no sensible, logical answer.
FRIDAY, 3 MAY 2013
The NRA is holding a conference in Houston, and chief Wayne LaPierre attacked me in his speech.
‘We know how they play the game,’ he sneered. ‘President Obama or Michael Bloomberg or some other official trots out on national television to scold and shame us, suggesting that there’s something wrong with law-abiding people who want to own firearms.
‘And then what happens – all the Piers Morgans, Lawrence O’Donnells and Rachel Maddows, they pound the message over and over again.’
Then he addressed the Boston bombings.
‘How many Bostonians wished they had a gun two weeks ago? When brave law enforcement officers did their jobs in that city so courageously, good guys with guns stopped terrorists with guns.’
Ka-ching! More gun sales guaranteed.
LaPierre ended by saying: ‘They’re coming after us with a vengeance to destroy us and every ounce of our freedom. We don’t care if it’s round one, round two or round fifteen, the NRA can go the distance. To the political and media elites who scorn us, we say, let them be damned! We will always stand and fight for our American freedoms!’
Cue thunderous applause.
I addressed his comments on my show tonight:
‘That’s right, Mr LaPierre. I will continue to pound that message until people like you realise the damage that guns are doing to Americans every day.’
LaPierre won’t be happy until America is a complete military state, with every citizen armed. He’s one of the most dangerous people in the country.
TUESDAY, 7 MAY 2013
The Brady Campaign honoured me tonight for my gun-control campaigning.
I was presented with the Sarah Brady Award, named after the wife of Jim Brady who was shot and paralysed in 1981.
The event was held over dinner at the Beverly Hills Hotel, in front of 350 people, including Stevie Wonder – who was there to support my co-honoree, top Hollywood lawyer Laura Wasser.
My award was presented by Sandy Phillips, whose young daughter Jessica was murdered in the Aurora cinema massacre.
I used the occasion to say what I really thought about the gun-control fiasco.
‘America’s politicians, with a few notable exceptions, have betrayed the people of this great country. They did nothing when one of their own congresswomen was nearly murdered with a gun. They did nothing when seventy people were shot in a cinema. They did nothing when twenty young children were annihilated in their primary school.
‘Well, you know what? Doing nothing when it comes to America’s relentless tide of appalling gun violence is just not good enough any more. Especially when so many of these cowardly politicians are doing nothing because they’re scared the NRA will bully, threaten, and drive them out of their seats of power.
‘America has been very good to me in the seven years I’ve worked here. I love the country, and I love its people. Well, apart from those who signed that petition to deport me, obviously.
‘I also fully respect the Constitution, which is a magnificent document. But the true meaning of the Second Amendment of that Constitution has been dangerously and deliberately misinterpreted to protect and promote the commercial interests of the NRA and the gun manufacturers that pour money into its pockets.
‘The Founding Fathers never intended the “right to bear arms” to mean the right of a deranged young student to legally buy six thousand rounds of ammunition on the internet, four assault weapons and a clutch of hundred-bullet magazines; dress up like The Joker; and open fire on Americans, including Sandy’s daughter Jessica, as they watched a movie.
‘Nor, surely, did they intend the reaction to an atrocity like Sandy Hook to be that Americans raced out to buy the very same type of AR-15 assault rifle that Adam Lanza used in record numbers.
‘That is not the way a great nation behaves.
‘American civilians don’t need military-style assault weapons. They don’t need high-capacity magazines. Nor do they need absurd loopholes in the current background check system, meaning 40 per cent of all gun sales are conducted without the seller being required to even ask the purchaser’s name, let alone their criminal status, or mental illness record.
‘If the NRA wins this war, as they put it, America will lose.
‘I urge each and every one of you to stand up and say, loud and clear: enough is enough.’
The audience stood up and roared their approval.
Sandy Phillips walked over and hugged me.
‘Please, please don’t stop your campaigning. You are our voice.’
‘Don’t worry,’ I replied. ‘This fight has only just begun.’
Me firing an AR-15, the gun used at Aurora and Sandy Hook. This killing machine has no place in civilian hands.
EPILOGUE
Since I finished the draft manuscript of this book, three stories happened that collectively sum up the insanity of America’s gun laws.
WEDNESDAY, 5 JUNE 2013
A man called Ezekiel Gilbert was acquitted by a jury in Bexar County, Texas, today, of killing a female escort.
He shot her after she refused to have sex with him, nor to return the $150 in cash he had given her, supposedly for that purpose. The woman was paralysed in the shooting, and died several months later.
Under Texas law, people are allowed ‘to use deadly force to recover property during a night-time theft’.
Gilbert’s lawyers successfully argued that his actions were justified because he believed sex was included as part of his fee to the escort.
If this had happened in Iran or Saudi Arabia, we’d all brand it a revolting medieval monstrosity.
Here in America, it barely made national news.
THURSDAY, 27 JUNE 2013
Bill and Tricia Lammers, a couple from Missouri, committed their troubled son Blaec SEVEN times to mental institutions.
Last November, they found a receipt in his pocket for an AR-15 assault rifle.
He’d bought it from his local Walmart store.
His horrified parents reluctantly reported his purchase to police, who arrested Blaec – and he then confessed he bought the rifle to carry out a mass shooting at a shopping mall or cinema.
It transpired that he had passed Walmart’s background check – which supposedly prohibits anyone with a criminal record or recorded mental illness from buying a gun – because all his seven stays in mental institutions had been voluntary, not ordered by a court.
His parents didn’t know what else they could have done, when I interviewed them tonight.
I had no answer.
SATURDAY, 13 JULY 2013
George Zimmerman was today acquitted of any wrongdoing over the death of Trayvon Martin.
A jury in Sanford, Florida, decided he was not guilty of either murder or manslaughter when he shot the teenager dead, despite the fact that Trayvon was unarmed and walking home at the time.
I don’t blame the jury. They applied the law of Florida, which allows self-defence with a gun if you can justifiably claim you were in fear of your life.
But one thing is certain: if Zimmerman had not been armed with a gun that night, he would probably have never left his car to follow Trayvon, the altercation would never have happened and that poor young man would have never been shot dead.
I blame the gun.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
A book like this is a team effort, and I am lucky to have a great team behind me.
I’d like to thank the following people:
Eugenie Furniss, my peerless literary agent.
John Ferriter, my irrepressible manager.
Jeremie Ruby-Strauss, my splendidly judicious and stylish editor.
Jennifer Bergstrom, my terrific publisher, and her excellent staff at Gallery Books.
Jake Lingwood, my longtime friend and mentor at Ebury Publishing, and his superb team, for their work on the UK version of this book.
Meghan McPartland, my publicist extraordinaire.
Rob McGibbon, my oldest friend in journalism, and my brother Jeremy, who both gave typically forthright – yet much valued – opinion on the manuscript.
Rick Davis at CNN for his helpful and meticulous advice.
Alan Goldman, Lisa Robinson, Jim Jackoway and Eric Weissler for keeping me out of debt, court and trouble.
And four women without whom I would probably curl into a ball and cry: ‘No more of this madness!’
My fabulous personal assistants, Juliana Severo (U.S.) and Tracey Chapman (U.K.) whose hard work, loyalty, professionalism and sense of humour make my life a million times easier.
My wife Celia, who makes me laugh when I want to punch walls.
And my mother, who’s always there to make everything sound just a little better than it seems.
Finally, I’d like to thank all the people who work in any capacity on my CNN show.
It’s been one hell of a ride.
This book is a tribute to each and every one of them.
NOTE: I deployed a team of fact checkers, skilfully masterminded by Juliana Severo. But if any eagle-eyed reader should still spy a factual error, please contact the publishers and I will fix it for later editions.
This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorized distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.
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First published in 2013 in the UK by Ebury Press,
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Shooting Straight: Guns, Gays, God, and George Clooney Page 32
