LISTEN: Roland Martin Talks With Attorney General Holder On Not Taking A Pay Cut, Gun Control & More

Summary: Attorney General Eric Holder joined Tom Joyner Morning Show correspondent Roland Martin to discuss various pressing topics affecting the nation; including the current gun control initiatives, overspending in the prison system, voting rights and more. Read the entire interview below. ROLAND MARTIN :  …  Tonight the National Action Network will have their gala dinner honoring among other folks Bishop TD Jakes, Spike Lee, but the keynote person giving the speech tonight will be Attorney General Eric Holder who joins us right now.  Mr. AG how are you doing?  ATTORNEY GENERAL ERIC HOLDER:  I’m doing just fine.  Good morning.  How are you all doing?  ROLAND MARTIN :  Doing great, you, of course, the top law enforcement official in the United States.  And tonight’s speech clearly I suspect voter suppression.  And the respect of the vote will be one of the critical issues you will address. ATTORNEY GENERAL ERIC HOLDER:  Yeah, I mean, there’s actually three parts to the speech.  I’m going to talk about voting and the recent efforts to suppress the vote.  I’m going to talk about gun violence and the efforts that the administration has underway to kind of deal with that problem.  And also talk more broadly about the criminal justice system and where we are as a nation and I think where we need to be, especially in light of the fact that today is the 45th anniversary of the death of Doctor King.  And kind of looked at where we were at that time and where we need to be in the 21st Century. ROLAND MARTIN :  You talk about the prison system.  One of the things that’s quite interesting, I was talking to a civil rights leader, who said that they’ve actually gotten more support interestingly on the state level from republican governments on sentencing reform than they have from democratic governors.  And sentencing reform is a critical issue because folks are realizing you can’t just keep locking folks up.  The cost is tremendous.  And I think that’s going to somehow solve a lot of our problems in this country. ATTORNEY GENERAL ERIC HOLDER:  I think that’s right.  There is a growing recognition, certainly I’ve seen it, among the republicans and democrats that we can incarcerate our way out of the problems that we face as a nation in terms of cost.  The last thing I saw was in 2009 and it shows that about $83 billion dollars was spent in this nation on our criminal justice system, on our prison system.  And if you look at the numbers you have 1 in 28 children has a parent in children.  But if you look at African-American kids that number is 1 in 9.  And we have to deal with underlying conditions that tend to breed crime as opposed to simply putting people in jail all the time.  That simply doesn’t work.  It just doesn’t work. ROLAND MARTIN :  So much of this conversation relates to gun control.  Folks talking about banning assault weapons and things along those lines.  But when you have 70% of the deaths in this country due to handguns, is the conversation too narrow in terms of just oh, pass this law, all is well, when there should be a much broader discussion on gun violence that involves different pieces:  mental illness, background checks, as well as just dealing with handguns that really speak to the problem. ATTORNEY GENERAL ERIC HOLDER:  Well, the President has put together a proposal that really is comprehensive in nature.  We have some specific things that we want Congress to look at, to deal with the gun show loophole, to make a universal background system, so that anybody who buys a gun, whether it’s an assault rifle or a handgun, has to go through a background check.  We also look at this whole question of mental illness.  And we’re making sure that the right people are in fact possessing guns.  You know a lot of stuff is thrown at us that what the President has proposed his intention with the 2ndAmendment.  And it’s clear from my perspective as a lawyer, and I think most disinterested people would agree,