Stephen Colbert Blasts Senate’s Inaction on Guns After Orlando: ‘It’s Easy to Feel Hopeless’

“I’m upset,” Stephen Colbert said when he sat down at his desk Tuesday night. ‘We all have jobs to do, right? I’m doing my job right now, and I’ve got these cameras in here to prove it. And after the attacks in Orlando, Florida, I thought maybe the government might do their job and pass any kind of law, even a fig leaf to justify their existence. Well, for thinking that, I owe myself an apology.”

As the Late Show host explained, the Senate did manage to hold a vote this week on a few different moderate gun control measures that would have made strides in the effort to keep guns out of the hands of potential terrorists, but perhaps unsurprisingly, they all failed to pass. “They couldn’t even agree to keep people on the terror watch list from buying high-powered assault rifles,” he said, adding that it was “easy to feel hopeless” when the media predicted nothing would come of the various partisan bills.

“I don’t understand you senators,” Colbert said. “Ninety-two percent of Americans want to expand background checks for gun buyers, and you just ignore them. Since when does 8 percent of the population get to have total control of an issue? That’s like taking your entire family on a cross-country car trip and letting grandma choose all the music.”

For a moment, it seemed like Colbert might continue down the overly reasonable and deferential path he went down during his post-Orlando interview with Bill O’Reilly, but then he stopped himself. “You know what? Fuck that. I’m going to take the gloves off,” he said.

“Hey, Senate, I’ve seen bugs trapped in amber move faster than you,” Colbert said, mic in hand. “Hey, you guys think a terrorist watch list is when you put Homeland on your Netflix queue. You know what? You might as well ask the gun lobby to check for a hernia, as long as they’ve got your balls in their hand.”

Even worse, he added, “You accomplish so little that Kylie Jenner wants to know what the hell you do for a living” and “You are so divided, you couldn’t come together if you had 30 hours and a reach-around from Sting.”

As the host said at the end of the segment, he was “still upset” but he felt a “little better” after giving Congress a piece of his mind.