In an emotional monologue that opened the most recent episode of Jimmy Kimmel Live, Kimmel addressed the school shooting that devastated Robb Elementary School and rebuked politicians that still refuse to change gun laws in Texas and nationwide.
Although mass shootings have plagued American life for years at this point, it seems that gun laws in certain states have only become more lax , leaving parents and community members to figure out how to keep themselves safe on their own.
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And while the parents of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting victims have been able to sue an arms manufacturer and some stores have taken to stocking bullet-proof backpacks , it’s hard not to feel helpless when these tragedies just keep happening.
The frustration, grief, and anger that has reverberated nationwide after the Uvalde, Texas shooting is also clearly weighing on Jimmy Kimmel’s mind and it led him to make a powerful address to his fellow Americans.
On May 25, Kimmel began the night’s episode of Jimmy Kimmel Live without his studio audience present.
For him, this seemed an appropriate way to address the fact that Americans were mourning yet another elementary school shooting.
According to CNN, this incident saw a teenaged shooter enter a fourth grade class room before opening fire in a massacre that claimed the lives of 19 children and two teachers before police intervened and neutralized him.
And while the outlet mentioned in a separate article that Kimmel has spoken about the 2017 mass shooting that affected his hometown of Las Vegas, this most recent incident left him even more dismayed.
In particular, he vented his frustrations at Republican politicians at the state level and in Congress who have repeatedly blocked legislation to enforce gun control measures of any kind.
In the full video, we can see that Kimmel was incensed at the common responses among them that gun control doesn’t work and the solution is to keep armed guards (and sometimes armed teachers) posted in vulnerable spots.
In response, Kimmel said that the presence of police didn’t stop the massacre in Uvalde, nor did the presence of similar armed guards prevent a shooting in a Buffalo, New York supermarket that killed 10 people and one at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida that killed 17 people .
He also mentioned that gun control legislation is neither as ineffective nor as unpopular as these politicians would suggest.
He mentioned that 89% of Americans support background checks for gun ownership at the least, but a bipartisan bill reforming gun laws has nonetheless stalled in the Senate for over a year despite passing in the House of Representatives.
In his words, “How does this make sense to anyone? These are our children and our representatives are supposed to represent us.”
He also mentioned that gun control laws have worked in other countries. Both Scotland and Australia passed gun legislation after mass shootings that ended 17 lives and 35 lives respectively and neither nation has seen such an incident take place since.
But while he referred to politicians like Ted Cruz, Greg Abbott and John Cornyn as “cowardly” and more interested in listening to donors and the NRA than citizens, Kimmel also didn’t feel he could place all the blame on them.
Because although he felt that citizens should rightfully be able to return to their lives after angrily demanding action, Kimmel said that this is precisely what politicians opposing gun control are waiting for them to do each time a mass shooting occurs.
As he put it, “This is not a time for moments of silence. This is a time to be loud and stay loud
and not stop until we fix this.”
h/t: CNN
