Most late night hosts acknowledged the Las Vegas mass shooting on Monday night, but things were even more personal on Jimmy Kimmel Live, since Las Vegas is Kimmel’s hometown.
On Monday, Kimmel opened his show with a monologue about the 59 people killed by Stephen Paddock as they watched a Jason Aldean concert in Vegas. Kimmel says that, of course, he sends his thoughts and prayers, and anything else the victims and their families need. But he disagrees with statements that suggest there’s nothing to be done in regards to gun regulation, since Paddock had no criminal or mental health record.
“The Second Amendment, I guess, our forefathers wanted us to have AK-47s is the argument, I assume,” says Kimmel. “Orlando, Newtown, Aurora, San Bernardino, every one of these shootings the murderer used automatic or semiautomatic rifles, which are not weapons you use for self-defense. They’re weapons designed to kill large numbers of people in the shortest possible amount of time. And this guy, reportedly he had 10 of them in his room, apparently legally.”
Kimmel calls out Trump for signing a bill in February that “made it easier for people with severe mental illness to buy guns legally,” and says that Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan are useless because “the NRA has their balls in a money clip.” On a screen, Kimmel flashed photos of 56 senators who voted against closing loopholes that make buying automatic weapons without a background check easier, and brought up the current legislation backed by Republicans that would make it easier to buy gun silencers.
Mentioning Ryan and McConnell’s tweets about praying for Vegas, Kimmel says, “They should be praying. They should be praying for God to forgive them for letting the gun lobby run this country, because it’s so crazy.”
Throughout his monologue, Kimmel got pretty emotional, and apologized, saying he’s not “great with this kind of thing.”
“I want this to be a comedy show,” he says. “I hate talking about stuff like this. I just want to laugh about things every night, but it seems to becoming increasingly difficult lately. It feels like someone has opened a window into hell.”
He ends by saying the country needs to change their laws to prevent the next deadliest mass shooting from happening in the US in another 18 months.