CNN news 2013-01-11 加文本

cnn news 2013-01-11

A big day in a big week in the debate over gun control, we begin with a very low profile, gun laws, that's already on the book, so a law you probably don't know about hidden in a very surprising place. We think you need to know about this law, because critics say damage is our ability to truely know using serious science. The impact that guns have on public health and public safety, impeding research on gun safety, preventing doctors from talking to patients about the potential health risk that come with gun ownership. Advocates who support the law say it protects the rights of gun owners, now as we reported last weem, the National Rifle Association somehow managed to push this stealth legislation into president Obama's health care reform bill. The question is how and why. And why, whatever you think of the law, one of the president's top allies, that's right, the president's ally, help the NRA get it passed.

No surprise there is a big dose of politics involved, here is Jim Acosta is "Keeping them honest".

When president Obama signed national health care reform into law, few in Washington knew that buried in the legislation's more than 900 pages was a gift to the nation's powerful gun lobby. But here it is, a provision entitled "Protection of Second Amendment Rigths", it states the government and health insurance can not collect any information, relating the lawful ownership or possession of a firearm or ammunition. The provision was such a secret, the Washington Post reports, that some people in the White House didn't even know whether it existed, despite being in the president's signature legislation. Health care advocate John Alker did notice it, and has a hunch where it came from.

"And so how do you think these got in there?"

"I don't know. I'm assuming the NRA put it in at the last minutes."

So who put it in there? it might surprise you to learn, it was this man. The most powerful Democrat in Congress, Senate majority leader Harry Reid. But why? A Democrat source close to the passage of the health care law tells the cnn this is what was viewed as a relatively benign way to make sure the National Rifle Association didn't get involve with this.

Reid has been a top advocate of gun rights for years, in fact, just days after the health care law was signed, Reid invited Wayne LaPierre, a top official at the NRA to the opening of this Nevada weapon's range.

"People who criticize this probably would criticise baseball."

LaPierre's visit was a big boost for Reid who was courting gun owners in his very pro-Second Amendment state of Nevada. A top battle for reelection.

"I also want to thank you Senate for your support everyday at the federal level for the Second Amendment and for the rights of American gun owners."

Both Reid and the NRA declined to talk to cnn on camera. But Democratic source on Capital Hill say the NRA is not the only threat to the president's health care bill. Lawmakers were also worried about conspiracy theories circulating among gun enthusiasts. A falsely accused the Obama administration of plotting to use the health care law to go after gun owners. One group, the gun owners of America insists it could still happen.

"It says that all of our medical records are available to be pawed through by bureaucrats somewhere in Washington, looking for a reason to disenfranchise gun owners."

As for Reid, his staff told us today, the Senate Majority leader's views on gun control are changing. He is in a different place than he was in 2010, says an advisor, consider how Reid answered the question after the July movie theatre massacre in Colorado.

"With a schedule we have, we're not going to get into a debate on gun control."

And how he responded after the killings in Newtown.

"We need to accept the reality that we are not doing enough to protect our citizens."