On Wednesday evening, a rifle-toting gunman murdered 18 people and wounded at least 13 more in Lewiston, Maine, when he opened fire at two separate locations—a bowling alley, followed by a bar. A manhunt is still underway for 40-year-old suspect Robert Card, a trained firearms instructor with the U.S. Army Reserve who, just this summer, spent two weeks in a mental hospital after reporting that he was hearing voices and threatening to shoot up a military base.
While the other late-night talk show hosts stuck to poking fun at new Speaker of the House Mike Johnson on Thursday night, Stephen Colbert took his rebuke of the Louisiana congressman to a whole other level.
“Now, we know the arguments,” Colbert said of the do-nothing response politicians generally have to tragedies such as this. “Some people are going to say this is a mental health issue. Others are going to say it’s a gun issue. But there’s no reason it can’t be both.”
I gave up after Sandy Hook. If the population can’t prevent assault weapons from being sold after such a gun butchers children, then they won’t make their representatives do anything that makes a difference. You have to fix it someday, but I’m not going to hold my breath.
The year of Sandy Hook, the gun lobby increased their “donations” to Republicans from $8 million to $16 million per year, where it remains to this day.
Also, be wary of saying “assault weapons” as it’s vague and used by the pro-gun crowd to undermine discussion – semi-automatic guns are the weapon of choice for criminals, terrorists and domestic abusers and are not necessary for hunting nor hobby shooting.
It’s why they’re strictly controlled in most countries.