It was the first episode of the new The Late Show hosted by Stephen Colbert, but the somewhere down the line someone decided to cut a question on one of the most controversial topics in the nation: gun control.
Colbert had on presidential candidate Jeb Bush and the two discussed a viewer question on gun control. It was well-thought out, cordial, and not at all heated, but the clip was still removed from the final cut.
The viewer question was:
“President Obama has said that the greatest frustration of his presidency is the lack of movement on gun control legislation. Most of the country favors a system of prudent checks. Even so, a well-organized minority has stymied all progress and almost weekly we see the deadly consequences. How do you square this with real democracy and what are you prepared to do about it?”
The question itself was enough to garner a round of applause from the audience, and Bush responded by explaining how things are set up in Florida.
“So in Florida, where I was governor, we have a requirement of background checks, a 72-hour waiting period – people – we’re not violating any Second Amendment rights. In fact Florida would be considered a Second Amendment pro-gun state. Gun violence is way down. But we have simple checks to make sure people that are criminals aren’t accessing guns. And I think the next step is to figure out ways to make sure that we can know if people have mental health issues, which is really one of the common denominators of a lot of these violent, tragic cases.”
The conversation continued a bit further before switching gears and it’s unclear why exactly the short segment was removed, but Bush’s response makes it seem he may not be leaning as far towards gun rights as many republicans would like.
(This article was a submission from freelance writer Brent Rogers)
I’m surprised Jeb isn’t leading in the polls.With over a$100 million in Military Industrial Complex money to spend.They have big plans for him.Daddy had a hand in 3 wars and spent $600 billion in Desert One. Brother George spent 2 Trillion and counting on a couple of phony wars. Jeb is the smart one according to his mother.He could probably hit the treasury for $10 trillion in four years.
It’s not a “well-organized minority” nor is there anything like a “majority” who favors gun control. Every recent study like here, http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/04/17/despite-lower-crime-rates-support-for-gun-rights-increases/ (showing 52% favor gun rights) shows that the actual majority favors keeping the laws where they are.
The only reason the controllers get any traction at all is because they continually misrepresent the truth. For example, this analysis here http://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/gun-control-myths-realities shows that “children” are not being mass-murdered by guns and, in fact, the only way controllers get to their numbers is by including 20-year old gang members, and, as they ably point out, mass shooters habitually violate dozens of laws prohibiting their actions. There is no law which will keep a crazy person from being crazy. They need help, and the only effective way to do that is to focus on mental health issues.
If the so-called “compassionate” liberals really cared about the anguish and suffering of people, they would try to help people who suffer daily from mental illness and thereby also dramatically decrease mass shootings and a number of other crimes committed by the mentally ill.
But, of course, that’s not what they really care about, is it?