Hat tip to @BradBeauregardJ for the video.
John Oliver opened Last Week Tonight with a look at the Tennessee gun violence protests, and the expulsion of two black state representatives. Via The Hollywood Reporter:
Oliver went on to argue that the response from both Lee and other Republicans has been “deeply underwhelming.” He showed a clip of state Rep. William Lamberth was insisting that it would be pointless to institute a ban on AR-15 rifles.
“You’re not going to like my answer, and look, I’m going to say that straight up,” Lamberth said. “It’s not about this one gun. If there is a firearm out there that you’re comfortable being shot with, please show me which one it is.”
Replied Oliver: “I mean that is a Hall of Fame shitty response. But also, if your opener is, ‘you’re not gonna like my answer,’ maybe start thinking of some better ones. And for the record, I don’t want to be shot by any guns. I don’t want even want to get shot by a Nerf gun.”
He ridiculed the insane rationale their House Speaker used to defend expelling two Black members:
House Speaker Cameron Sexton gave a news interview in which he defended the expulsions, claiming the pair were inciting violence. When asked if he had any evidence supporting that, Sexton replied, “I mean, you can’t prove that.”
“Oh, ok,” said Oliver. “So you can’t prove they were inciting violence. But in the interest of safety, you feel you have a responsibility to take their dangerous platform away from them. But if instead of megaphones, they had, say, something that can fire 100 rounds in a matter of minutes, then, sadly, it’s literally impossible to do anything to prevent that because we asked the prematurely embalmed mayor of Whoville, and he said no.”
It’s worth noting that Johnson is white, while Jones and Pearson are Black. When asked why Johnson escaped expulsion while the other two did not, she replied, “It might have to do with the color of our skin.”
“There was a pattern to the results that was pretty hard to miss,” Oliver noted.
But you don't want to miss the reference to the cousin-mistress!
