Stephen Colbert defends 'thoughts and prayers' after mass shootings, but....

The Late Show was on break last week, and Monday night was Stephen Colbert's first opportunity to address the shootings in Colorado Springs and San Bernardino. He started by offering his thoughts and prayers for the victims.

"Of course, these days, even thoughts and prayers have become controversial," Colbert noted, holding up a copy of the New York Daily News from last Thursday, with "God Isn't Fixing This" on the cover. "First, I'd just like to defend thoughts and prayers, as someone who occasionally thinks and prays. The reason you keep people in your thoughts and prayers is admittedly not to fix the problem, but to try to find some small way to share the burden of grief." Still, he said, "the Daily News is right that if we really want to fix it, we can't just stop there." So what to do? Colbert didn't really have an answer, but he did have some questions. Like: "Why is it so easy to buy bullets when I have to show three forms of ID to buy Sudafed?"

President Obama called the San Bernardino shooting an act of terrorism on Sunday night, and motive matters, Colbert said. When it is terrorism, the U.S. does something about it, "sometimes too much about it," but "when it's not a terrorist attack, we do nothing. Why can't there be anything in between?" Watch below. Peter Weber

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