Samantha Bee is far too angry about Orlando to be nice about gun violence

Samantha Bee is furious about the Orlando shootings

(Image credit: Full Frontal)

last updated 14 June 2016

At some point, mass shootings became so frequent and horrible in America that even the comedians of late-night TV are now expected to offer solace or succor. On Sunday's Full Frontal, Samantha Bee went more for profane fury. "Now, after a massacre, the standard operating procedure is that you stand on stage and deliver some well-meaning words about how we will all get through this together, about how love wins, about how love conquers hate," she said, "and that is great, that is beautiful. But, you know what? F--k it — I am too angry for that. Love does not win unless we start loving each other enough to fix our f---ing problems!"

For Bee, the most obvious problem is that military-style high-capacity semiautomatic rifles are legal and easily available. There are a lot of hard questions about balancing freedom and safety, she said, and maybe "it's a lot easier to accept that going to a public place carries a non-zero risk of dying in a hail of bullets." That seemed to be Marco Rubio's argument when he said this mass shooting was just "Orlando's turn." "Mass shootings now are so normalized now that we're taking turns?!?" she asked. Unlike Australia, which hasn't had a mass shooting since it instituted strict gun laws in 1996, Bee said, "we can't, constitutionally, get rid of all guns, but can't we get semiautomatic assault rifles out of the hands of civilians?"

The AR-15 and other assault rifles "are a shitty choice for hunting and home protection, but perfect for portable mayhem," Bee said, and "unlike handguns, it can be bought in Florida with no waiting period." She railed at Gov. Rick Scott (R) for loosening Florida's gun laws and suggesting America just pray for Orlando, then brought it home: "There is no shortage of troubled 20-somethings out there, and whether they're radicalized by ISIS or homophobia or white nationalism or a dislike of movies, we are making it far too easy for their derangement to kill us. So until we as a nation find the political will to reject a mass shooting per day as the price of freedom, I'm just gonna pray." She does, too. The entire clip is filled with uncensored NSFW language, but if that doesn't bother you, watch below. Peter Weber