Stephen Colbert
In the wake of the mass shootings in El Paso, Texas, and Dayton, Ohio, that killed 31 people this weekend, Stephen Colbert compared America’s gun culture to the melting nuclear core at Chernobyl. Over and over again in HBO’s show depicting the USSR’s nuclear disaster, Colbert explained, “a scientist or engineer will tell a politician: ‘Hey, we’ve got a real problem here. The nuclear core is going to melt down and kill everyone.’ But the politicians refuse to believe it, because the acknowledgment of failure threatens their position of power, and their power is more important than saving any lives.
“I think at this point, it’s clear that America’s gun culture is melting down,” Colbert continued. “But the Republicans in Congress would rather maintain their power than save lives.”
For example, Colbert pointed to two bipartisan bills that would establish background checks, slowing the purchase of guns, that have passed the House. But Senate majority leader and “this month’s centerfold of Corruption Monthly” Mitch McConnell has so far refused to take them up in the Senate. McConnell has his reasons for the delay, Colbert said, “like the $1.26m in NRA contributions he has received. Now, you can’t put a price on human life, but it doesn’t stop Mitch from trying.”
If the calls for “sensible gun legislation” have, again and again, produced nothing, “maybe it’s time for senseless gun legislation”, Colbert suggested, such as exchanging one’s assault weapon for pork sausage. Ridiculous, but at least “it’s even more phallic than your gun, and it’s only going to hurt you”.
Seth Meyers
On the Late Night, Seth Meyers cut straight to the point of a “heartbreaking weekend”. “As we all know by now, there’s an epidemic of gun violence and mass shootings in this country and no matter how difficult, we cannot become numb to it,” he said. “But it’s also not just about guns: the shooting in El Paso was an act of white supremacist domestic terrorism, specifically targeting Hispanics.”
The threat of racist domestic terrorism is “growing and real”, he added – a fact that “we must look squarely in the eye, no matter how monstrous”.
How did the political class react? At first, many senior Republicans refused to discuss it; Jake Tapper noted that the two Republican senators, lieutenant governor and governor from Texas, Ohio’s Republican governor, and the White House all declined to appear on CNN.
“So basically, we tried to get the Republican governor, lieutenant governor, senior senator, junior senator, the Republican dogcatcher, the Republican sanitation commissioner, we even tried to get the Republican elephant but it literally ran away,” Meyers said. “Let me just say: as a general rule, when you’re spending all of your time dodging questions from journalists and reporters, that usually means you’re on the wrong side of history.”
When Republicans did finally appear on TV, “they didn’t blame virulent white supremacy or wide availability of military-style assault weapons.” Instead, they focused on video games, which Meyers rejected as a ridiculous and scientifically unsupported premise, noting that Japan, for example, has a huge gaming culture but very few gun deaths.
“If video games were so influential,” Meyers concluded, “they should make one about Congress called Fucking Do Something.”
Trevor Noah
On the Daily Show, Trevor Noah assessed the most common answers offered by Republicans on what causes mass shootings.
For example, several Republicans appeared on cable news this weekend to blame “violent video games” for the epidemic of gun violence in the US, since the spike in mass shootings has occurred over the same 20-year period as the proliferation of role-playing games. Sounds reasonable on the surface, Noah said, “although by that logic, anything that’s been invented in the past 20 years could have contributed to mass shootings. Like, Crocs were invented over the last 20 years, and I know they inspire anger in me.”
This weekend’s two mass shootings didn’t happen in a vacuum. More on America’s mass shooting epidemic: pic.twitter.com/OS8TRW5kxe
— The Daily Show (@TheDailyShow) August 6, 2019
The most common suggestion, however, is mental health – the idea that mental illness, not guns, has led to routine gun violence in the United States. “Now again, this argument sounds completely logical: if someone kills a group of random strangers, they must be mentally ill,” Noah said. “But that’s not necessarily true. In fact, a majority of mass shooters have no history of mental illness.”
So what causes mass shootings? “You know what’s sad and frustrating about America is that after every mass shooting, lawmakers want to identify the one thing that causes all mass shootings,” Noah said. “And if they can’t agree on what that thing is, nothing gets done.” The truth, Noah concluded, is that it could be any one of those factors, or more. “But there’s one thing that every mass shooting has in common: whatever motivated it has to be combined with a gun.”
Jimmy Kimmel
After a day of politicians’ “thoughts and prayers”, Jimmy Kimmel admitted that “I’ve been thinking and praying about it and both parties say one thing: that we’re too divided.
“This is something we hear about a lot, that we need to find something that we agree on,” he said. “Well here’s something we can agree on: too many people are being shot with high-powered weapons.”
According to one study, Kimmel continued, 97% of gun owners supported background checks, and yet legislation to establish such measures remains stymied in Congress by “this evil, soulless old creep”, Mitch McConnell.
“Tell Mitch McConnell we have some good news,” Kimmel encouraged. “Call him and tell him that we agree on something for a change – we agree that he needs to drag his bony gray ass back to work to vote on these bills.”
