During the opening monologue for the airing of Thursday’s Jimmy Kimmel Live, host Jimmy Kimmel urged his viewers to vote out pro-Second Amendment House members and called President Donald Trump “obviously mentally ill.”
Kimmel’s comments came toward the end of a teary-eyed monologue in which he demanded more gun “laws, real laws,” but could not describe how such a law would work to prevent the kind of deadly shooting that occurred this week at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.
It followed a tirade in which he tried to shame House Republicans into supporting gun control by describing them as “allegedly Christian men and women who stuff their pockets with money from the NRA” and in which he tried to shame the executive branch by suggesting that President Trump is “mentally ill” if he will not restrict everyone’s gun rights over the criminal act of Nikolas Cruz.
“Tell these congressmen and lobbyists who infest that swamp you said you were going to drain, force these allegedly Christian men and women who stuff their pockets with money from the NRA year after year after year to do something,” Kimmel said. “Now, not later. Now. And don’t you dare let anyone say it’s too soon to be talking about it, because you said it after Vegas, you said it after Sandy Hook, you say that after every one of these eight now fatal school shootings we had in this country this year. Children are being murdered.”
Kimmel pointed to the repeal of Barack Obama’s Social Security gun ban, looked into the camera — as if speaking directly to President Trump — and said, “You did that. Your party voted to repeal the mandates on coverage for mental health.”
Actually, you’ve done worse than nothing. You like to say this is a mental health issue. One of your very first acts as president, Mr. Trump, was to roll back the regulations that were designed to keep firearms out of the hands of mentally ill. You did that,” Kimmel said. “Your party voted to repeal the mandates on coverage for mental health. So I agree, this is a mental illness issue, because if you don’t think we need to do something about it, you’re obviously mentally ill.”
While this convoluted statement was clearly intended to suggest that President Trump and Republicans had something to do with Cruz acquiring a firearm, it overlooks the fact that the Social Security gun ban covered Social Security beneficiaries on disability who needed help managing their finances. On the basis of requiring help with their finances, such beneficiaries were prohibited from gun possession. That is no way applicable to the heinous attack on Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.
This is by no means the first time Kimmel has attempted to use shame and questionable claims to push a gun control agenda during his opening monologue.
On October 2, 2017, the day after the heinous attack on the Las Vegas strip, Breitbart News reported that Kimmel “made seven false or misleading statements about gun laws as part of a push to shame Congress into enacting increased gun control measures.”
Those statements included suggestions that attackers were using “automatic” weapons, that AR-15s are not used for self-defense, that President Trump enabled crazy people to get guns via the repeal of the Social Security gun ban (deja vu), that the NRA has Paul Ryan’s “balls in a money clip,” that people are exploiting loopholes to get guns privately.
It turns out that “automatic” weapons were not used, Paul Ryan responded to Vegas by shelving NRA-supported, pro-Second Amendment legislation, and the Vegas gunman bought all his weapons at retail — via background checks — not via private sales.
The repeal of the Social Security gun ban had zero to do with it.
Kimmel closed his monologue on Thursday by urging viewers to team up with Michael Bloomberg-funded Everytown for Gun Safety and vote pro-Second Amendment Congressional members out.
AWR Hawkins is an award-winning Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News, the host of the Breitbart podcast Bullets with AWR Hawkins, and the writer/curator of Down Range with AWR Hawkins, a weekly newsletter focused on all things Second Amendment, also for Breitbart News. He is the political analyst for Armed American Radio. Follow him on Twitter: @AWRHawkins. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com. Sign up to get Down Range at breitbart.com/downrange.
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