It says a lot when Jon Stewart, who’s made a career of calling the media and politicians on their bullshit, says he’s found “hypocrisy of the highest order.” Those are, however, Stewart’s parting words after a typically heated debate with Oklahoma State Senator Nathan Dahm during Friday’s The Problem with Jon Stewart.
Each week’s episode of Stewart’s Apple TV+ series zeroes in on one issue, and this week Stewart chose to tackle gun reform, a subject he’s previously discussed numerous times on The Daily Show and elsewhere.
The comedian was in peak form Friday as he needled Dahm about his support of legislation that loosens gun restrictions. “You're saying more guns makes us more safe,” Stewart said early on. “So when? We’ve got 4 million guns in the country. We had an increase and gun deaths went up. So when, exactly, does this curve hit that takes it down? Would a billion guns do it?”
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During his Daily Show run, Stewart made debates like these his bread and butter, and not much has changed since his move to Apple, where he recently grilled Arizona’s attorney general about Donald Trump’s claims that the 2020 presidential election was stolen. Throughout their discussion, Stewart pushed Dahm to explain how removing regulations on gun purchases makes anyone safer.
“You’re bringing chaos to order,” Stewart said at one point. “We have 50,000 gun-related deaths. That’s not a subjective opinion. That’s dead people.” When Dahm argues that laws requiring people to register their guns infringe on one’s right to bear arms, Stewart can’t help himself: “Is voting a right?” he asks, before pausing for effect and adding, “...do you have to do anything to do it?”
Toward the end of the conversation, Stewart pivots to a seemingly unrelated topic—the right’s obsession with keeping drag performers away from children. (Last fall, the comedian apologized for the “shitty” anti-trans jokes he’s told in the past.) What, exactly, is Dahm protecting, he wondered aloud, when there’s a far more obvious threat to children across America?
“What is the leading cause of death of children in this country?” Stewart asked Dahm directly. “And I’m going to give you a hint, it’s not drag show readings.”
The answer, as Dahm and Stewart both know, is firearms.
“And what you're telling me is, you don't mind infringing free speech to protect children from this amorphous thing that you think of,” Stewart told his guest, “but when it comes to children that have died, you don't give a flying fuck to stop that.”
As he put it at another point during their discussion, “You want to say ‘I’m a Second Amendment purist and I’m making it safer.’ You're not. You’re making it more chaotic, and that’s not a matter of opinion. That’s the truth.”
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