As anyone who’s watched the Daily Show regularly can attest, it’s been a running joke on the show for a while now that every time they go on hiatus, something huge happens. Lo-and-behold, Jon Stewart and his staff took off for the holidays and the Newtown shootings went down the next day.
At some point in the wake of it all — I think it was the day the NRA’s Wayne LaPierre finally spoke about the tragedy and made an ass of himself — I remember thinking a) how badly I’d love to hear Stewart’s take on things, and b) how it must be eating him up inside to not have his show on the air during that time to voice his opinions.Well, if you watched the Daily Show last night, it’s easy to see that Stewart had thought long and hard about what he was going to say when he came back, and damn was it a powerful, intelligent monologue.
Once again, this country’s most reasonable voice is that of a late night satirist. Stewart’s main takeaway: this country is being held hostage by a few squeaky wheels, deranged idiots like Alex Jones (who now claims the NYPD and the mafia are conspiring to kill him, btw) who truly believe that any attempt to regulate guns opens the door wide for the next Hitler to take power in America.
“Now I get it, now I see what’s happening,” Stewart said. “Their paranoid fear of a possible dystopic future prevents us from addressing our actual dystopic present.” We’re paralyzed, he concluded, because right-wing lunatics are obsessed with “imaginary Hitler.” And you know what? He’s spot-on correct.
Here’s part one…
And here’s part two…
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If the NRA plans to keep blaming movies and video games, would it hurt for them to update their Netflix queue and Gamefly accounts?
Like any of the old white men in the NRA know what either of those things are …
I find it odd they want to blame movies and video games, since “The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun” is the exact fantasy many violent movies and video games operate under.
even if they created the goriest violent movie or video game ever if the guns weren’t present they wouldn’t be able to act. It doesn’t matter if you think your duke Nukem or charles fucking Bronson. if you block access you’ll prevent a lot of these issues
Was a gun even used in American Psycho by the serial killing protagonist? I don’t remember one.
@Leigh: Bateman used a gun near the end of the movie to kill someone in the lobby of either his apartment or office building. This of course pales in comparison to all of the other murders he committed during the film, although he [spoiler]
How about focusing on the issue that isn’t headline grabbing like the shitty mental health care these people aren’t getting and just make sure that the laws regarding guns on the books are actually being enforced?
God forbid the government deals with the far more complicated issue which is more at the heart of the problem.
If someone is truly out to hurt themselves and others, very little is going to stop them. Can’t get a gun? Doing some reading on chemistry and strapping yourself up Swordfish style is comparatively easy to getting a gun.
Why not both? Is it so hard to believe that we can’t take steps to improve gun control laws and mental health laws in this country?
It would actually be easier to improve mental health laws, because crazy people don’t have a billion dollar lobby fighting for their right to shit in public and cross the street at inappropriate times.
Well, first of all, it’s pretty easy to get a gun. We need to have a long, looooong conversation about gun control, although I should note here that my personal beliefs are that this debate needs to be reframed substantially and that the idea of taking all the guns away from everybody is neither reasonable nor feasible.
Secondly, yes, we do need to have a conversation about mental health and building a mental health system that finds, supports and treats mental health sufferers, many of whom are the victims of violence themselves. But that involves actually spending tax dollars and treating mental health professionals with the respect they deserve, so, really, good fucking luck with that one. We can’t even get most of the country to admit a teacher is allowed to have a glass of wine.
Did I miss the national epidemic of suicide chemistry-bombers?
Did something happen in Swordfish other than Halle Berry taking her top off?
Don’t talk about big pharma what ever you do. Keep talking about guns as people go nuts buying more and more guns. Good luck getting all those guns. It will be as successful as the War on Drugs except less so.
At the very least we can introduce things like universal background checks for all gun sales. We can create new measures to keep the mentally ill from getting guns. These things benefit all Americans, especially gun owners because every massacre makes harsh gun control measures more attractive to people.
We need to include measures at all levels. Mental health, prison reform, maybe think about ending the drug war because I’m pretty sure most gun deaths result from organized crime.
Um, last time I checked, most of the same people who are anti-gun control are also the ones screaming loudest about “nationalized healthcare”. How do you propose we improve the state of mental health care in the US without expanding Obamacare?
Look dude, this isn’t HuffPo. I’m more interested in finding solutions than bashing on Republicans.
JTRO, I wasn’t addressing your post, I was addressing mikeybot. I agree with your post, FWIW.
“This isn’t HuffPo” Yeah this is Uproxx. We are going to get to the bottom of this issue between Brie and Uption gifs yo.
“We need to have a long, looooong conversation about gun control…”
Do you ever get tired of it, Dan? Just spouting whatever bullshit that *might* help your cause, regardless of the validity? Not just here, but every where I’ve seen you make an argument that touches remotely on politics, that’s all you do; bad-faith arguments and con-jobs.
There has never, ever, been a shortage of “conversation” about gun control. Not just whenever there’s a gun-related tragedy – although that certainly brings things to a fever pitch – but every day, there have been people pushing for new laws, or getting rid of them; there is someone, somewhere, rehashing warmed over arguments. Just the mere act of not engaging in vocal protest is speech of its own, stating you are actually ok with the status quo.
No, just like every other time a left-winger claims we need “to have a conversation,” the “problem: most certainly is *not* that we aren’t having the conversation, it’s that you’re not winning (or not winning fast enough).
Cute trick insisting we need to “reframe” the debate too – a classic con; “We have a long way to go, and a lot of work to do (until you agree in lockstep with my views)” No doubt the “reframing” we so desperately need involves gun rights advocates ceding a whole lot of their key assumptions, while you won’t really need to give on much of yours.
Welcome, Imaginary Hitler tag! Long may you be used.
I owe you a beer for noticing that.
Great, Stewart can wade in, picking the lowest hanging fruit from the other side and making himself look like the smartest guy in the room because he has a bunch of clap happy sheep in his studio audience, and then when he gets called out on it he can hide behind his “I’m just a comedian!” bullshit.
Just how often does he get called out on said bullshit, and then pull out the ‘comedian’ card? I’ve been seeing comments of this type lately about him. Am I just ignorant of it happening often (completely possible) or did it just happen once in 2011, and it’s brought up whenever someone disagrees with what he’s saying?
I like Stewart but this is one of the times when his bias has spilled overboard. If FOX had put a member of NAMBLA in a debate about gay marriage Stewart would have crucified them.
Reality has a strong liberal bias.
Also, what are the hard-to-reach fruit(s), so to speak, of this topic that Stewart is refusing to discuss?
the main target of his piece was WAYNE FUCKING LAPIERRE!!! The head of the NRA is not low-hanging fruit. You’ll notice he never mentioned Alex Jones’ name.
Listen, I’ll readily agree that Alex Jones isn’t the best spokesman for gun rights. He’s clearly insane, insisting on some deeply batty conspiracy theories, and he’s quick to anger, shouting at his opponents and denying their basic humanity.
But guess what? This nutjob gets to own all the fucking guns he wants.
You can insist that he’s a bad spokesman for the gun rights cause, but if the gun rights absolutists insist we can’t do anything to regulate guns in this country, then they’re saying that people like Alex Jones — and, more important, people who are a hundred times crazier — should be allowed to buy cop-killer bullets at WalMart.
Also, I love the fact that the pro-gun crowd thinks we need to screen who’s allowed to talk about guns on TV, but doesn’t think we need to screen who can actually buy guns in real life.
@Lunchbox
WAYNE FUCKING LAPIERRE is meant to be a diversion. He doesn’t represent me–I refuse to join the NRA–he represents the gun manufacturers. He did a nice job coming out and saying some batshit crazy things and all of the sudden he’s the target and the real issue got clouded. That’s how these lobbying groups survive. they change the conversation and make themselves the scapegoat while obscuring the real issues that, frankly, there’s probably some true agreement on.
I own a number of assault rifles, most of them older. I take them to the range and I enjoy myself. It’s a hobby. If that hobby had to disappear in order to save literally ONE life I’d sign up for it. If I was forced to register my weapons I’d do it, because the government is so fucking incompetent that I’m really not concerned if my name ends up on some list somewhere. The problem is that you cannot demonstrate that such a ban would conclusively work. “It worked once before” is an invalid argument because there are a dozen other factors that also led to a decline in violence. Doing nothing is not an answer, but doing something, anything just for the sake of looking like you found a solution doesn’t work either. There needs to be a real discussion and it cannot continue if one side is crazy gun nuts and the other side is a comedian on basic cable.
Ah, John Stewart, King of Taking Shots at Amazingly Easy Targets. Must be tough to complain about something everyone else is complaining about, only on TV and for a pile of money as compensation.
Seems to me he did a pretty good job saying “we need some rational discussion on this topic, not just these freaking nutjobs going on FoxNews.”
Stewart seems to be trying to point out that we’ve got to do a little of this, and a little of that, and maybe we can lower the numbers of deaths. That seems like the right approach to me.
The man seems to have a very well thought out and articulate opinion on this subject so to say that he is just doing it on TV for a pile of money seems a little like someones King of Taking Shots at Amazingly Easy Targets as this is like the 10th comment saying the same thing.
You’ll note that I was in fact the second person to make such a comment. It also clocked in behind the first comment by literally seconds. So I wasn’t piling on, I was simply making a statement that, evidently, is supported by many others.
When I saw the link image for this article I thought Alex Jones was Michael Keaton, and while I’m glad it’s not, I’m sort of surprised/bummed Jones’ rant didn’t end with “I’ve seen the Exorcist 157 times, and it keeps getting funnier every single time I see it”
+1
Dystopian present? Murder and all violent crime have been declining rapidly for decades. Even as comedic hyperbole, that’s total malarkey.
The left keeps demanding we have a “national conversation about gun control”, but they only want to talk to hack lobbyists, paranoid conspiracy theorists, and downright idiots.
Actually, murder by guns has been INCREASING annually … by some strange coincidence the year that the assault weapons ban expired was the first year of the now steady increase in gun murders. What’s even more interesting is that the rapid decrease that you were referencing started with the passage of the Brady Bill.
So to review – Gun Control Law starts rapid decline in gun murder. Allowing Gun Control Law to lapse starts slow increase in gun murder.
[www.wallsofthecity.net]
No, they want to talk about assault weapons bans, large capacity magazine bans, a national registry, better back ground checks.
and “declining rapidly for decades” is a dumb way to say something dumb.
It’s not our fault that the NRA and GOA have decided to elect paranoid conspiracy theorists and downright idiots as their representatives.
@Carl Spacklee
My point, which you failed to address directly, is that it is intectually dishonest to refer to the present day as a dystopia, even hyperbolically. Why? Because murder and violent crime have been decreasing for decades.
This is an irrefutable fact.
Here’s a link for the FBI proving my point. I think that’s just a bit more credible than something called wallsofthecity.net
[www2.fbi.gov]
The thing is, Roman, that no one wants to talk about anything.
Jon Stewart tries to highlight absurdities that we’ve simply come to accept as an unavoidable part of life. A lot of the things said by those dudes he made fun of said are absurd things to say, by many measures.
Accepting that 429.4 people per 100,000 died due to violent crime and not trying to find a way to lower that number still further is a terrible error.
429 is better than 430, certainly, and much better than 729, but 428 would be still better. And I believe that if anyone, anywhere, was having a conversation instead of bitching because a comedian who is trying to highlight absurdities used the hyperbolic – by your admission – phrase “dystopian present” to describe kids being killed by a clinically insane person with an assault rifle, then we could lower that number just a few points.
But no. No, Jon Stewart is enemy number one. Jon Stewart’s turn of phrase is important in some way.
He didn’t start the hyperbole, Roman. He most certainly did not start the hyperbole.
If anyone, anywhere, cared more about those kids than they do about having all the things they want, then that number could go down even more than a few points.
I’m fucking sick of this. These people have no place in our society. They contribute nothing except to fuel the fear that they’ve swallowed hook, line, and sinker.
You think Alex Jones or anyone that listens to him is willing to have their taxes go up so we could maybe improve the mental health system in this country? Fuck you no!
You know what the problem truly is?? Middle-age white American males are by and large the most selfish demographic I can think of. They refuse to concede anything, demand they get everything, and act like everything they do have is about to be taken away any second.
Obviously this doesn’t apply to everyone, but it damn sure accounts for the vast majority of red states. This is coming from a 36 year old white guy born and raised in AZ.
There’s nothing wrong with agreeing to disagree on this highly emotional and difficult issue. But most of the debates I get into over gun control end up like this: nothing but hatred and bigoted invective.
It doesn’t matter how many good-faith, rational arguments I make…in the end, I’m nothing but a dumb redneck to guys like you.
Co-sign.
For a party that recently ran a presidential campaign on the theme of “Country First” their real motto sure does seem to be “I Got Mine, Fuck You.”
Roman, I don’t think you’re a dumb redneck, I honestly don’t. But you said that the left only wants to talk to conspiracy nuts and lobbyists, that’s just not true. The people that are important to the discussion on the right have been dodging it for years. restricting magazine size won’t do anything, banning assault rifles won’t do anything, a national registry will make it easier for the gov’t to take our guns, etc. etc.
The only solution that the right has proposed to the problem of gun violence is MORE GUNS. Tell me I’m wrong and then tell me how that in any way constitutes a discussion or could even serve as the foundation for a serious discussion.
Hey, Lunchbox thinks I’m a credit to my race!
He just hates my family, friends, and hometown. Oh well, can’t win ‘em all!
Seriously dude: don’t lecture me about serious discussions right after you say I have no place in society.
You mean like the good faith, rational argument from above where you outright lie about gun violence decreasing?
It’s exactly that kind of good faith, rational argument that prevents any meaningful dialogue from happening.
Otto Man seems to sum it up pretty succinctly. I am going with that.
@Carl Spackler
I clearly mentioned TOTAL murders and violent crime, with FBI stats to back up my claim. I never said anything about what weapons were used, because quite frankly I don’t know.
Please tell me how this is an “outright lie”.
@Lunchbox
You say you don’t think I’m dumb…yet earlier you called me dumb twice in one sentence! That’s why I am skeptical of your sudden goodwill towards me.
@Roman – Smart people do and say dumb stuff all the time.
you: Dystopian present? Murder and all violent crime have been declining rapidly for decades. Even as comedic hyperbole, that’s total malarkey.
1) You can’t quantify “rapidly” so don’t use it in an argument.
2) “decades” is misleading as your link shows that you are referring to the last two decades. If you bothered to go back you would see that since 1950 the murder rate actually increased until it peaked around 1980, and has since declined. If I were so inclined I could say that murder rates have gone up since the 1950′s and I’d be right. We get it, you can use stats to prove anything.
3) dystopian refers to people leading dehumanized or fearful lives, and as such I think it is a very appropriate term for our country right now.
I know what you were trying to say, but you didn’t say it well. And that’s what I said, that it was a dumb way to say something dumb. I disagree with your assertion as well as your wording.
“Smart people do and say dumb stuff all the time”
They sure do…like making bigoted generalizations about half the country and saying people who express a contrary opinion have no place in society.
You just called me smart, fuck yeah!
The majority of the rest of the world would probably side with Stewart on this subject and his rational points of view, if only americans would wake up and listen to what the rest of the world thinks of them and their insane love for their weapons and guns. By commenting negatively against what Stewart is saying, you’re giving out the feeling that there truly is a very small minority of americans who actually don’t believe in violence…whats coming across in the news is that there are few compassionate, and well-educated, non violent people who believe guns should be banned. Why are you american’s so overly protective of your guns, you seem to prefer having more of a relationship with your guns and meds rather than knowing who your neighbor is. Take a page out of most European countries and learn that PEACE and less violence comes from treating each other respectfully; and actually given a shit about other people and not solely about yourself. Spoilt! Keep your guns as play toys, what a sad reality.
Honestly, what you’ve said here is ridiculous. Or I guess Russian, the Baltics, the Balkans, and Northern Ireland don’t count as “Europe” (speaking only of the last two decades). Let’s not forget that widespread peace in Western Europe is a very recent development, and hasn’t yet gone on as long as the relative peace between the Napoleonic wars and WWI.
In other words, your talk about “PEACE” is bullshit because you are assuming that Europe has finally evolved into a peaceful equilibrium that will endure forever. That assumption is further discredited by the fact that there has been a hell of a lot of violence in Europe in the last 20 years alone.
Seriously, even in these comments many of you are choosing to shoot the messenger rather than address the message.
this is brilliant
Serious question. Can anyone point me to any evidence of any nation, after having banned guns, that saw a decrease in violent crime overall?
The UK banned (or heavily restricted anyways) gun ownership in 1997 (following a school shooting no less). Homicides by any means surged, peaking in 2002, but it has since dropped to a lower number than 1997, 892 in 1997 compared to 724 in 2009. However, gun homicide (while it has been less than 1 per 100,000 historically) is now at half of what it was in 1998 (.03 compared to .06). But, on the flip side, Honduras has also enacted restrictive gun laws. They began regulation in 2000, enacted a registry in 2002, and finally banned public carrying in 2007. Yet their homicide rate has exploded since 1998 from around 11 per 100,000 to 86 in 2009. And around 90% of their homicides are firearm related. Finally, as a contrast, Switzerland issues an automatic rifle to all men aged 20 to 34 (as they all must serve time in the military and then serve in a militia afterwards, keeping their weapons on their property). While they have some of the lowest homicide rates among NATO nations (.7 per 100,000, fourth lowest), they also have some of the highest gun homicide rates (.52 per 1k, tied for 4th with Estonia, behind Greece- .59, Turkey- .72, and the good ole US of A- 2.59).
It would appear that there are a myriad of factors which play into whether or not gun control works. Examples exist in the data that both support and refute gun control advocates, so don’t look to the statistics for help.
As an outsider, from Europe, who lived for many years in the US, I have been trying really hard to listen to NRA’s point of you. I won’t bother you with my life experience being born and raised in a country where is simply to difficult almost impossible to get a gun. BTW, I grew up in what you call an housing project.
Here I want to focus on the main point related to the fear of regimes.
My question is this: even if I understand and share your fear of totalitarian regimes…. and trust me, every family in Europe carries some heavy memory of regimes taking control of gun power…. what in hell would stop, let’s say those crazy white supremacist groups, with so much gun power, to take control of the streets and your society when they have formed organized paramilitary groups, let’s say because they do not want an intercultural society? True, this happened over and over and it will again, but why do I have the feeling that these arguments about the right to own a gun and have the right to kill a thief are the same kind of people who have created military regimes in other countries?. That’s why you guys should be very concern about who own a killing machine. Again, maybe this is a superficial argument, but I am raising this point because I am tired to hear Hitler, or Stalin every time you want win an argument no matter what. Instead start to have a serious debate at least about background checks, not just mental, or criminal, but also political.
I read something before Christmas that said there are other countries with MORE guns per person, but fewer violent deaths, with the implication being there is something … off … about US society. I wish I knew where I read that, because I’d like to look into it – if anyone knows what I read, let me know, hey?
I really wish that there was an actual conversation happening. This is the thing we need useful fucking government for. Republicans and Democrats in the Senate and House should be discussing – are there ways that we can improve gun control? Not increase gun control, not take away all the guns, but IMPROVE gun control.
I would argue that a few decent laws which manage things like who can buy guns, magazine size, “assault weapon” availability, etc, a little more, could go a long ways towards decreasing the number of firearm related deaths. And as Stewart said, some laws, some programs, which help people who need it, folks with one kind of mental illness or another, could also help a lot.
This is what the Senate and House are supposed to be for, but all they apparently do is parrot the words of guys like LaPierre and Allen Jones, and nothing ever changes. And maybe we need someone to look at something like what Clusterfunk is asking, because that might give us some more information, but ALMOST no one is talking about banning guns. SOME OF US want to talk about way to decrease the availability of the most deadly kinds of weapons to most people.
That’s the real thrust of Jon Stewart’s work, people: highlighting the fact that guys like Allen Jones have any kind of platform, ever. There should be someone that walked in from the back room and shot him, then arrested everyone who thought it was ok to put that guy on TV.
If there was any kind of accountability at the national level (i.e. for Senators and Reps), we would be having a conversation about this, not spewing hyperbole at one another. That fact that we cannot have such a conversation means more people are going to die than have to.
Let’s just test the two extremes on the American population. Everyone gets a gun for a year (small sample set, I know). Following that is a year where no one is allowed to have a gun (besides our socialist fascist government, of course), and see what happens.
“That’s the real thrust of Jon Stewart’s work, people: highlighting the fact that guys like Allen Jones have any kind of platform, ever. There should be someone that walked in from the back room and shot him, then arrested everyone who thought it was ok to put that guy on TV.
If there was any kind of accountability at the national level (i.e. for Senators and Reps), we would be having a conversation about this, not spewing hyperbole at one another.”
Read those two thoughts back to back and then come back and tell me what’s incongruous.