Samantha Bee Calls out America's Lack of Action on Gun Control
By:
Samantha Bee let loose with a darkly funny tirade against elected officials who are dodging questions about gun control in the wake of the Pulse nightclub massacre.
She started her show "Full Frontal with Samantha Bee" by refusing to make statements of solidarity.
"Fuck it, I am too angry for that," she said. "Love does not win unless we start loving each other enough to fix our fucking problems."
Youtube/Full Frontal with Samantha Bee - youtube.com
Instead she expressed her anger and disgust with gun legislation in the U.S. Bee started by slamming the fact that shooter Omar Mateen, who killed 49 people at Pulse nightclub in Orlando, was able to buy a gun despite his history of domestic violence and two rounds of questioning by the FBI.
"Our shooter du jour was Omar Mateen, born in New York. He beat his ex-wife. He'd been reported multiple times to his employer as homophobic and unhinged, and the FBI had twice questioned him for ties to terrorism, but none of these things disqualified him from legally buying a gun that shoots 45 rounds a minute, not even his terrible mirror selfies. I think we can all agree that if you don't have one friend to hold the phone for you, your lone wolf ass doesn't get a gun."
Bee then played a clip of President Barack Obama's comments two weeks ago at a PBS Newshour town hall in Indiana. Prompted by a question from the audience, Obama explained that NRA lobbyists are fighting against legislation that would keep guns away from U.S. citizens who are on government watch lists for suspected ties to terrorism.
In the aftermath of the Orlando shooting just two weeks after Obama's comments, Bee pointed out that that Mateen may have bought the assault weapon he used to kill 49 people around the time that Obama made these comments about the watch list loophole.
"Obama may have been explaining that vulnerability in our gun laws at the very moment the Orlando shooter was taking advantage of it. Did the shooter just watch PBS Newshour and go 'hey that's what I should do.' You know what, of course, this raises some very thorny questions. Should we restrict people's rights based on scary things they say? Are innocent lives worth less than the sanctity of free speech even if it's hate speech? And what about profiling? You know what, these questions are hard."
Bee then slammed comments that Florida Senator and former Republican presidential candidate Marco Rubio made about Orlando. "This could have happened anywhere in the world," Rubio said in the clip. "Unfortunately, today was Orlando's turn."
Youtube/Full Frontal with Samantha Bee - youtube.com
Bee argued that out that mass shootings should not be considered normal and that other countries have passed strict gun control laws to prevent them from happening. After a mass shooting in 1996 that left 35 people dead, Australia passed new gun control laws and hasn't had a mass shooting since.
Bee finished by calling out Florida Gov. Rick Scott for his lack of action and for dodging questions about gun policy in his state. Bee noted that the massacre at Pulse was the second high-profile shooting in Orlando this week. The first was the shooting of singer Christina Grimmie.
