For the first time in a long time, Stephen Colbert opened The Late Show Tuesday night with a solemn message about yet another mass shooting in the United States.
“Yesterday was another grim day for America when a gunman walked into a Boulder, Colorado, supermarket and killed 10 people, including a police officer,” he began. “This story is unspeakably tragic and I cannot imagine for a moment the grief of these families.” The “only suitable way to honor these victims is with action,” Colbert added. “But our government continues to do nothing.”
Partly due to the COVID-19 shutdowns, it had been a full year since the country had seen a mass shooting in a public place like the two that have been committed in Atlanta and Boulder over the past week. “Evidently, the only solution for America’s gun violence is putting all of us under house arrest,” he said.
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From there, Colbert turned to the “predictable” responses from “gun apologists” like the Colorado State Shooting Association, which said in a statement, “There will be a time for the debate on gun laws. There will be a time for a conversation on how this could have been prevented. But today is not the time.”
“Why not?!” Colbert shot back. “That’s what they say every time this happens. And that’s what I say about what they say every time they say it every time it happens.”
“Another gun fetishist weighing in on the tragedy is Colorado representative and H.R. supervisor for John Wick, Lauren Boebert,” the host added, pointing to a tweet from the QAnon-friendly congresswoman that read, in part, “While we are still awaiting important information and details in this case, random public shootings and senseless acts of violence are never OK.”
“Where does she find the courage?” Colbert asked. “‘Senseless acts of violence are never OK,’ implying, of course, that intentional violence is fine. You know, the kind her buddies plan on Parler.”
But he wasn’t done, taking on Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA), who argued on Tuesday that America doesn’t have a gun control problem but rather an “idiot control problem.”
“Oh, we definitely have an idiot control problem,” Colbert replied. “It’s people who don’t recognize that this country has long had a gun problem, John Kennedy. So when idiots like John Kennedy refuse to do anything about getting rid of idiots’ guns, it’s clearly time to get rid of idiots like John Kennedy. And that means voting them out!”
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