Longtime interviewer Jon Stewart was attracting a new round of attention online in recent days for an interview he did for a show he has on an Apple streaming service with Oklahoma GOP state Sen. Nathan Dahm on the subject of gun policy.
Dahm tried to defend to Stewart notions like that forcing registration in association with gun possession is some kind of unallowable infringement on the rights to firearms outlined in the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Dahm also placed special emphasis on how that amendment says gun rights made available under the document “shall not be infringed,” as though such a directive isn’t able to be reasonably inferred — and applied in a way that still maintains safety and security — when dealing with other rights, like that of accessing a ballot. Stewart noted, and got Dahm to admit, that registration is ordinarily accepted in association with voting.
Stewart also discussed some of the safety implications of Dahm’s stance, which is an approach shared by other Republicans. In states like Texas and Georgia, GOP leaders have enacted opportunities for carrying firearms without a permit, and in Florida, such a proposal was also recently put under consideration. With Republicans controlling both chambers of the state legislature in Florida and Ron DeSantis at the helm, that’s likely to pass, adding to the list of destructive policies put into force there like restrictions on abortion and limits on discussing gender identity and sexual orientation in schools — both of which are restrictions to which Republican officials there might soon be adding.
As for Dahm, Stewart confronted him about the actual reality of what’s posing a danger to people, too, whether they’re police officers trying to respond to a domestic disturbance in which firearms are present or some of the children killed by firearms yearly around the U.S. “What’s the leading cause of death amongst children in this country — and I’m gonna give you a hint,” Stewart said. “It’s not drag show readings to children.” Dahm replied dismissively, eventually remarking: “I’m presuming you’re gonna say it’s firearms.”
“No — I’m not gonna say it like it’s an opinion,” Stewart said. “That’s what it is. It’s firearms — more than cancer, more than car accidents. And what you’re telling me is, you don’t mind infringing free speech to protect children from this amorphous thing that you think of. But when it comes to children that have died, you don’t give a flying fuck to stop that, because that ‘shall not be infringed.’ That is hypocrisy at its highest order.”
It was honestly a pretty blunt take-down. Stewart had also gotten Dahm to admit that government has a role in protecting people — like the kids and other people dying from guns. Watch below:
