Jimmy Fallon began Monday's Tonight Show with some sober words about the back-to-back mass shootings that killed at least 31 people in El Paso, Texas, and Dayton, Ohio, over the weekend.
He slipped a few related jokes into his monologue. "Over the weekend, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell tripped at his house and broke his shoulder. On the bright side, it will be harder for him to shrug off gun control," Fallon deadpanned. "July was the hottest month ever recorded on Earth. Right now, Democrats are blaming global warming while Republicans are blaming video games."
Stephen Colbert's Late Show elaborated on that last joke.
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The Daily Show's Trevor Noah explored various proffered theories on what causes mass shootings: "Is it the internet? Is it video games? Is it Trump? Is it mental illness? You know what's sad and frustrating about America is that after every mass shooting, lawmakers want to identify the one thing that causes all mass shootings, and if they can't agree on what that thing is, nothing gets done. But the truth is, when it comes to any individual shooting, the cause could be any one of those factors if not more. But there's one thing that every mass shooting has in common: Whatever motivated it has to be combined with a gun."
"We know there's a clear correlation between the number of guns we have in this country and the number of gun-related deaths we have in this country," Seth Meyers said at Late Night. Republicans "have to pretend this is some sort of unsolvable problem because they're beholden to powerful lobbies like gun manufacturers and the NRA," but "blaming video games? You do know that other countries have video games, too, right? Japan has a huge gaming culture and very few gun deaths. If video games were so influential, they should make one about Congress and call it 'F#@!ing Do Something.'" Peter Weber
