Returning for its 23rd season on Tuesday morning, The View started off right where it left off this summer: With conservative co-host Meghan McCain clashing with her colleagues on a hot-button social issue while grousing about being outnumbered by her liberal cohorts.
Discussing this past weekend’s mass shooting in Odessa that left at least seven people dead, the panel noted that the shooter had actually failed a federal background check but was able to purchase a firearm due to the gun-show loophole. This prompted the majority of the table—including former Fox News host Abby Huntsman—to lament the lack of action on behalf of the Republican-led Senate to address gun violence.
“If nothing is going to happen after Sandy Hook, I don’t know what it’s going to take,” Huntsman sighed.
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Moments later, McCain weighed in as the “chick on the panel that spent most of her break shooting.”
Stating that there need to be more reporters in mainstream media on the “gun beat” because there are a lot of people on TV “talking about guns that clearly have never shot a gun,” McCain complained about Democratic presidential hopeful Beto O’Rourke’s proposal for a mandatory gun buyback.
“I will say this is a ground-level issue for me,” she added. “If you’re going to be a gun-grabber, you don’t get my vote, period. We got to have a different conversation.”
Liberal co-host Joy Behar—a regular sparring partner of McCain’s—pointed out that there have been gun restrictions passed by previous Democratic administrations, specifically noting that the Clinton White House passed an assault-weapons ban.
“The AR-15 is by far the most popular gun in America, by far,” McCain declared. “I was just in the middle of nowhere Wyoming, if you're talking about taking people’s guns from them, there’s going to be a lot of violence.”
“But they lived without them for many years during the ban,” Behar retorted.
“I’m not living without guns,” McCain exclaimed. “It’s just that simple!”
Hostin, meanwhile, asked if she could live without assault weapons, causing McCain to reiterate that the AR-15 was very popular before complaining that she was being “virtue signaled.”
Huntsman, however, responded to her close friend, wondering if they could live in an America where you could “walk in a mall and not be nervous that someone is going to pull out a shotgun.”
McCain asserted that she felt safe because she could protect herself because “I have guns at my house” before stopping herself short as she felt the audience wasn’t with her.
“All right, welcome back,” she sarcastically muttered, sipping from her coffee mug.
As the segment came to a close, McCain would pipe up once again about O’Rourke’s gun buyback proposal, insisting that her guns are “not for sale.”
