Jimmy Kimmel addressed the deadly school shooting that killed 17 in Parkland, Florida on Wednesday in an emotional and powerful opening monologue on Thursday’s Jimmy Kimmel Live!
“Welcome back to the show. Natalie Portman, Kyrie Irving, and Nick Foles are on the way, but first — as I’m sure you know and feel — this is another very sad day in America. Another senseless shooting. This time, at a high school in Parkland, Florida,” Kimmel said, his voice quivering, as he opened his late-night show.
The fatal shooting in Parkland claimed 17 lives and was perpetrated, police say, by a former student of the school using an AR-15 rifle, as well as multiple magazines.
Kimmel then played two clips from President Donald Trump, in which Trump said that no child or teacher “should ever be in danger in an American school” and “No parent should ever have to fear for their sons and daughters when they kiss them goodbye in the morning” in response to the Florida shooting.
“So I agree with both of those statements. So here’s what you do to fix that. Tell your buddies in Congress — tell Paul Ryan, Mitch McConnell, Marco Rubio — all the family men who care so much about their communities, that what we need are laws,” Kimmel said. “Real laws that do everything possible to keep assault rifles out of the hands of people who are going to shoot our kids.”
Kimmel then addressed the notion that it’s too soon to talk about gun-control laws days after a mass shooting. “And don’t you dare let anyone say, ‘It’s too soon to be talking about it.’ Because you guys said that after Las Vegas. You said it after Sandy Hook. You say that after every one of these eight now fatal school shootings we’ve had in the United States this year,” Kimmel said.
“Children are being murdered,” he said, his voice breaking. “Do something. We still haven’t talked about it. You still haven’t done anything about this. Nothing. You’ve literally done nothing.”
Kimmel ended his speech by exhorting viewers to go to everytown.org and write to their representatives to change gun laws and otherwise vote them out of office.
Kimmel has been openly emotional and serious in discussing mass shootings in the U.S. on Live! in the past, including the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in Newtown, Connecticut in 2012 and the Las Vegas shooting in 2017. Kimmel has spoken openly in these bits about stricter gun control and background screening laws for gun purchase. “What I’m talking about tonight isn’t about gun control. It’s about common sense,” he said in his monologue following the 2017 Las Vegas shooting.
Due to Olympics coverage, other late night shows were on hiatus for the week. Watch Kimmel’s monologue below.
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