Whoopi Goldberg Applauded by Audience for Tirade at 'The View' Co-Host

Whoopi Goldberg got heated up when talking about gun control on ABC's The View following the mass shooting at a private elementary school in Nashville, Tennessee.

The panelists were discussing the shooting deaths of three students and three adult staff members at the Covenant School carried out by a former student, 28-year-old Ashley Hale, on Monday. Nashville Police Chief John Drake said Hale owned seven guns and that all of the firearms used in the mass shooting were purchased legally from different local gun dealers.

Goldberg argued on The View that it should be mandatory for people to have a specific license in order to own a gun and questioned why people would need multiple weapons. Her co-host, Alyssa Farah Griffin, the only Republican at the table, had said that she was "heartened" by Democratic Connecticut Senator Chris Murphy providing alternatives for an assault weapon ban, including training and mental health screenings.

She was cut off by Goldberg asking, "why are we compromising?"

whoopi goldberg in white shirt
Whoopi Goldberg attends the "Till" premiere during the 60th New York Film Festival at Alice Tully Hall in Lincoln Center on October 1, 2022, in New York City. Goldberg recently got into a fiery debate... Dia Dipasupil/Getty Images North America

Griffin, the former White House communications director under Donald Trump, said she was a "Republican who fundamentally believes in legal [and] responsible gun ownership."

But a fired-up Goldberg asked: "When are people going to figure, I have to have a license to drive a car? It's not a compromise, we don't discuss it. You either have a license or you go to jail.

"So, to me, if you want to have '70-11' guns, we need to know that. We need to know what you got because you are now being painted with the same swath as all the people who are killing people left to right with legal guns," she said. "We need to know what you got."

The panel then debated whether people should be allowed to own machine semi-automatic rifles such as an AR-15 when Griffin started to argue that the focus should be on greater gun control rather than pushing for the full abolishment of guns.

Goldberg jumped in: "It's not 'get all guns off the street,' it's certain guns," and pointed out that she is not allowed to buy a military tank or a bazooka, which earned her a rousing applause from the live studio audience.

"AR-15s have no use in normal daily life. None," Goldberg said. "Again, I don't say, 'you have to give up your guns,' I don't know why you're going to have '50-11' of them, but I want to know that you've got them because I want to be sure that I'm aware of what's going on in my periphery and if you're not willing to do that then we have a problem."

Goldberg also disagreed with the notion that rather than abolishing guns, there should be armed guards in schools to protect children from mass shooters.

"Talk about Uvalde if you're not sure how that went down," Goldberg, said referring to the May 2022 mass shooting at Robb Elementary School in Texas where 19 children and two teachers were killed. More than an hour passed from the time police officers followed the gunman into the school and shot him dead. The law enforcement response to the Uvalde has been widely criticized.

"Talk about what kids are dealing with," Goldberg said. "These are our kids, they may not be your kids, but they're my kids, they're your kids [pointing to a co-host], they're somebody's kids."

A clip from the fiery conversation was posted on Twitter following the episode and has since garnered more than 222,000 views. People flooded the comments on the tweet and shared their thoughts on the issue.

"This got me in tears. I hugged my three year old so tight as her daddy took her to preschool," one parent tweeted in response to the video. "I can't understand why killing kids is not enough to do something. It's nothing but greed in the Republican Party."

"I'm with them. No one needs a weapon of war. The Washington Post 3D animations discussed were so difficult to see, but everyone should see exactly what these weapons do to a body," a Twitter user wrote.

"If you have to drive off the car lot with insurance & if you have to have homeowner's insurance before you purchase a home (or in some cases, rent an apt.) then you should be required to get liability insurance for your weapons before & post purchase," wrote another Twitter user.

"Thank you Whoopi for saying what needs to be said. We can't negotiate on this. Guns need to be regulated and assault rifles need to be banned. It's not complicated," a fan of The View tweeted.

Another disagreed with Goldberg: "Get out of your city bubble and live in a rural area for 6 months. You'll be singing a different tune. You are free to move to a country where its Constitution doesn't hurt your feelings."

Uncommon Knowledge

Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.

Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.

About the writer


Shannon Power is a Greek-Australian reporter, but now calls London home. They have worked as across three continents in print, ... Read more

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