Colbert on Nashville school attack: ‘Fewer guns equals fewer shootings’

Stephen Colbert

“I’m sure you know what everybody is talking about is horrible, and familiar, and horrible because it is so familiar,” said Stephen Colbert on Tuesday’s Late Show, the day after a shooter opened fire inside a Nashville elementary school, killing three adults and three children.

“It’s impossible not to read this news or see any of the footage without being heartbroken for all those people and for our beautiful country,” he continued. “Because this is the 130th mass shooting of 2023, and 2023 is only 87 days old. Not doing anything about this is an insane dereliction of our collective humanity.”

“And the obvious solution here is one President Biden has proposed” – an assault weapons ban, in place from 1994 to 2004, during which time the risk of dying in a mass shooting was 70% lower than it is today.

“That just makes sense,” said Colbert. “Fewer guns equals fewer shootings.”

“It might be hard, but it’s not complicated. That’s just math. It’s the same reason these days we have fewer strangulations with a landline.”

“It’s a simple, common sense idea that Republicans are desperate to talk about anything else,” he added, pointing to a Fox News anchor claimed that a common denominator in school shootings was not an AR-15, which has been involved in every one, but a side door. “Yes, clearly we need common sense door reform,” Colbert deadpanned. “Folks, we can’t stop at side doors. Did you know that most people enter a building at the front door? So we clearly need to get rid of those, too.”

The Daily Show

The Daily Show’s guest host, John Leguizamo, also mourned the six people killed in the Nashville school shooting and called for action. “For this to happen once is unacceptable, but now it seems to be happening all the goddamn time,” he said. “And like all of you, I’m sick to death of this. And I want to know what our representatives plan to do about it.”

“Because if you ask this representative from Tennessee, he plans to do jack-shit about it,” he continued, pointing to an interview outside the Capitol with Tim Burchett, a Republican representative from Tennessee.

According to Burchett, “We’re not going to fix it. Criminals are going to be criminals. My daddy fought in the second world war, fought in the Pacific, fought the Japanese and he told me. He said, ‘buddy, if somebody wants to take you out and doesn’t mind losing their life, there’s not a whole heck of a lot you can do about it.’”

“That’s the best you have to offer?” Leguizamo responded. “You’re a congressman! If you don’t have any ideas for how to keep our kids safe, get the fuck out of the way and go work at a Pinkberry or some shit.”

“No disrespect to his father,” he added, “but if going to school in America feels like fighting in world war two, that should be a sign that things are seriously fucked up in America.”

Seth Meyers

On Late Night, Seth Meyers took stock of the ever-shifting winds of Trump loyalty at Fox News. “With Trump under at least four different criminal investigations and after he tanked three successive elections, including last year’s midterms, there’s been a question as to whether rightwing media would finally pivot away from him and embrace Florida governor Ron DeSantis,” he said. “It started to seem like maybe that would happen,” with fawning profiles and a literal softball interview in which host Brian Kilmeade played catch with DeSantis.

But on Monday evening, Sean Hannity gave Trump the floor on his show to disparage DeSantis and to claim that his Truth Social post calling for “death & destruction” should he be arrested was not actually calling for death and destruction.

Or, as Trump put it: “I said I’m afraid that if they do this, which is a fake prosecution…I am afraid that people will do something.”

“Yeah, he didn’t say, ‘I’m going to burn down your restaurant,’” Meyers joked. “He said, ‘it would be a shame if something were to happen to your nice restaurant in the middle of the night, say 2am or so, capeesh?’”

Jimmy Kimmel

And in Los Angeles, Jimmy Kimmel lamented that the earliest a New York grand jury could vote on an indictment of Donald Trump is now next week. “In the meantime, Trump has been busy saying goodbye to old friends,” he noted. “Last night, he threw quite a pity party on his friend Sean Hannity’s show.”

Kimmel played clips of the interview, in which Trump complained about everything from DeSantis to the grand jury, to mocking violin music. “Save it for your cell mate, Donald. We don’t want to hear it anymore,” he said.

Republican congressman Jason Chaffetz, appearing on Fox News, called the interview “the worst interview I’ve seen the president do…He’s the former president of the United States! Act like it!”

“Well, if that doesn’t get the ketchup flying at Mar-a-Lago, I don’t know what will,” said Kimmel.