Thursday for his Fox News Channel show’s opening monologue, host Sean Hannity criticized those using Sunday’s mass shooting in Las Vegas to call into question the Second Amendment of the Constitution.

He specifically called out New York Times columnist Bret Stephens, who in a column posted earlier this week said it might be time to repeal the Second Amendment.

According to Hannity, such a move would keep people from having the ability to protect themselves from those seeking to do harm.

Transcript as follows:

As authorities continue to search for a motive in the Vegas massacre, we are learning chilling new details about this investigation. According to reports, Stephen Paddock may have been scouting out other potential mass shooting targets. Now, in August he reportedly booked hotel room in Chicago. That overlooked the Lollapalooza Music Festival but never set foot in the city. Chicago police are telling FOX News that they believe that Stephen Paddock did in fact booked the room.

Also reports tonight that Paddock researched hotel rooms in Boston near Fenway Park where the Red Sox play. The Las Vegas Journal review, they are reporting that Paddock shot at jet fuel tanks nearby McCarran International Airport during this massacre. Now, two of the bullets hit one of the tanks and one bullet actually penetrated the tank.

Thankfully, that did not cause an explosion. And according to ABC News, Paddock was seen with a woman who is not his girlfriend in the days before the shooting. NBC News reporting the girlfriend Marilou Danley has now told investigators that Paddock would lie in bed moaning and screaming and according to Clark County Sheriff Joseph Lombardo, the weekend before this mass shooting, Paddock rented and checked into a Las Vegas high-rise condo that overlooked yet another separate music festival.

Now, Sheriff Lombardo also revealed last night that he thinks Paddock had to have received help and plan to survive this attack. Now, the Sheriff added that 50 pounds of an explosive that’s called tannerite was found in the suspect’s car. Along with 1600 rounds. Now, the AP is also reporting that in addition to other possible planned attacks, Paddock may have also plotted a car bombing.

Now, that information is beyond troubling. And tonight we have questions that need to be answered. Who if anybody helped Paddock carry out this operation? What was Paddock planning to do with a car full of explosives that could be used to make bombs? How did Paddock plan to escape this shooting and why did Paddock rent rooms in Chicago and Vegas during other concerts? Was he planning to do this multiple times and then trying to escape?

And the most important question today, of course it remains unanswered. Why? What would motivate this individual to commit such evil, atrocities against innocent men, women, and children? We need answers to all these questions. And also tonight, the left liberal celebrities in the media, they continue to play politics, they’re trying to use this tragedy to use in advance their gun control agenda.

And tonight, some are even calling for the shredding of the constitution and the eradicating or our Second Amendment and our right to keep and to bear arms. Now, take a look at this headline from the so-called conservative New York Times writer Bret Stephens who is also a contributor over at that conspiracy so-called news network, MSNBC, Quote, “Repeal the Second Amendment.”

And then Stevens goes on to write, quote, “Repealing the amendment may seem like political mission impossible today but in the era of same-sex marriage, it’s worth recalling that most great causes began as improbable ones. Gun ownership should never be outlawed. Just as it isn’t outlawed in Britain and Australia but it doesn’t need a blanket constitutional protection either.”

Yes. Good luck in those countries getting a gun. And as we have showed you in great detail last night, banning guns does not prevent crime. Just the opposite. More guns prevent crime. More guns save lives and by the way, it appears these people on the left don’t care about the constitution. All banning guns will do is prevent good people from having the ability to protect themselves and their families from those that do us harm.

And unlike a lot of these celebrities and politicians, they don’t have armed guards and they don’t have big houses with expensive security systems and people out there protecting them among bodyguards everywhere they go. So, if people like Michael Moore, Brett Stevens, you really believe in repealing the Second Amendment, here’s a simple question I need you to answer.

God forbid for anybody, someone breaks into your home. Well, you have your family, your wife, your children. Would you want a gun? Would you want to have been trained in the use of a firearm and its safety to protect your wife and family? Now, what Brett Stevens is doing is shameful. He’s using this massacre here in Vegas to push a liberal agenda. One that is not constitutional. And it’s pretty obvious at this point that he’s only pretending to be a conservative.

By the way, that’s a New York Times conservative. He isn’t. Now, Hollywood liberal Michael Moore, he wants to repeal what he now calls the ancient and outdated Second Amendment and put in place European-style restrictions that essentially banned you, the American people, from buying arms to protect yourself and your families. Now, these Hollywood liberals like Moore such huge hypocrite when it comes to the issue.

How many live in those gated communities? How many can afford private security? How may buy the best and most expensive security systems but yet they would disarm law-abiding citizens who can only rely on themselves to protect their families? You want an example, take a look at this video security from the Emmys last year. You the American taxpayer, you put at least some of the bill to keep these prima donna celebrities safe at their self-congratulatory red carpet award shows one after another.

And security was extra tight last year because of terror threats. Now, take a look at some of these headlines. No expenses spared to keep the celebrities safe and happy. Variety, Oscars, LAPD, plans for multiple scenarios with three peers of security. Deadline, Hollywood, Golden Globes, ramped up security. Leading to longer waits for the celebrities. Here’s another headline from Hollywood. Emmys security will be severely in hand after London subway attack.

And as you can see, it is beyond the height of hypocrisy. Here’s another thing that these people on the left and members of this biased, abusive press in this country will never tell you. The left doesn’t believe in the Second Amendment. You heard Michael Moore say it. He thinks part of the constitution is outdated. It is why every time tragedy strikes, the left races and rushes to judgment. Pushing an agenda. Do you have a right to protect yourself, your family, your wives and children? Now, this new examples from the liberal mainstream media, take a look at this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Now, we have to turn to renewed calls. Shouts, begs for gun restrictions in the wake of the Las Vegas mass shooting.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The Second Amendment is there for a reason. You can own your gun but it does not extend to allowing an individual to own 47 guns, high-powered semiautomatic weapon guns.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The idea now that they are going to rouse themselves to action on bump stocks. That is putting a Band-Aid on a broken leg. There’s so much more that could be done.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If you want to buy a gun, a handgun, a long gun, do you want to buy 49 of them? Feel free. But you also going to have to buy an insurance policy. Minimum of say, 25 grand.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Ninety percent of the public, Democrats and Republicans favor closing any and all private sale and gun show loopholes that exist.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So, I asked Sarah Sanders the question, is the President, does he value the First Amendment as much as he values the Second Amendment?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HANNITY: And watch what Democratic Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi — oh, doesn’t she have security? What she had to say about bump stocks. Now, the attachment that Stephen Paddock did used to make a semiautomatic rifle move at a faster pace. Fire more like an automatic weapon. Watch what she says.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. NANCY PELOSI (D), CALIFORNIA: Many people who are serious gun owners say, I have a background check, they should have a background check too. In an event like that, so what? They’re going to say, do you give them, bump stock, it’s going to be a slippery slope. I certainly hope so. But I don’t think bump stocks should be a substitute for the background check. And by the way, the background check is a compromise. There are many more things members want to do.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HANNITY: Nancy Pelosi, she’s not even trying to hide the left’s true intentions. They want to ban all guns. Democrats, the media, which is so corrupt and abusively so and ideological, what they conveniently not telling you, it was the Obama administration that originally approved the sale of those bump stocks back in 2010. Democrats, are you serious about looking into bump stocks?

Okay, let’s do it. The NRA, they came out today and so those products should be subject to regulation. Let’s have the debate. Let’s come up with common sense solutions but don’t take away the rights of law abiding citizens. And what the left should not be doing is using a tragedy while people are still in the hospital and parents, I was there today. They are waiting and hoping and praying that their children will recover from the injuries.

The left has their rigid radical anti-gun agenda. And they are wanting to disarm millions of law-abiding American citizens and that would prevent them from being able to protect themselves, their children, their wives, their families.

Follow Jeff Poor on Twitter @jeff_poor