Samantha Bee Perfectly Voices the Rage We've All Been Feeling About Orlando
"Hey, is it okay if, instead of making jokes, I just scream for seven minutes until we go to commercial?"
After 50 people were gunned down in the largest mass shooting in U.S. history, Americans were devastated, sad, and grasping for answers. But on this week's Full Frontal, host Samantha Bee channeled another universal feeling: anger.
"Hey, is it okay if, instead of making jokes, I just scream for seven minutes until we go to commercial?" she asked the audience. She then launched into a segment about how these mass shootings keep happening, and people simply offer niceties like prayer while politicians simultaneously make guns easier and easier to get:
"Can't we get semiautomatic assault weapons out of the hands of civilians? 'Sam Bee wants to take your guns away!' Yes, the ones that mow down a room full of people in seconds? Yes, I do want to take those guns away! These high capacity penis substitutes are a shitty choice for hunting and home protection, but perfect for portable mayhem."
But it was these words, about the futility of phrases like "love wins," that truly hit home. When it's so easy to just change your profile picture and think you're helping, it's an important reality check to know that taking action is the only way to prevent these tragedies from happening:
"After a massacre, the standard operating procedure is that you stand on stage and deliver some well-meaning words about how we will get through this together, how love wins, how love conquers hate. And that is great. That is beautiful. But you know what? Fuck it. I am too angry for that. Love does not win unless we start loving each other enough to fix our fucking problems."
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Megan Friedman is the former managing editor of the Newsroom at Hearst. She's worked at NBC and Time, and is a graduate of Northwestern's Medill School of Journalism.
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