Liberals have good reason to love Stephen Colbert. He is unabashedly a “big government liberal.” He isn’t funny like Jimmy Fallon and Jimmy Kimmel, and he doesn’t need to be to maintain his third place ranking in the late night talk show competition.
No other late night entertainer so readily panders to any one political ideology, giving Colbert a base audience.
Sure, there are other partisan late night talk show hosts, but we’re talking about entertainers here. While The Late Show showcased David Letterman’s liberal slant on the world, it was most often couched in genuine humor.
Unlike Colbert, Jimmy Fallon doesn’t have fun at the expense of his guests or foils of his political jokes. He has fun with them.
The Late Show has changed. Colbert now lectures his usually receptive audience unencumbered by any requirement to entertain. After the Islamic State-inspired terrorist attack in San Bernardino, Colbert preached, “There has to be some way to make it harder to build up an arsenal. The San Bernardino shooters had 6,000 rounds of ammunition. Why is it so easy to buy bullets when I have to show three forms of ID to buy Sudafed?” (And the “Applause” and “Laugh” signs flash so the audience responds as though great comedy was just performed.)
Colbert also claimed that if guns were outlawed, and outlaws were then the only ones with guns, at least we’d know who the outlaws are. (Cue the audience to laugh and applaud with such deep comedic insight.)
This might feel good to the uninformed, but it’s already been tried with the opposite effect Colbert and his fellow travelers expect.
In 1976, the Washington, D.C. City Council passed a law prohibiting residents from possessing handguns and requiring all firearms in private homes be kept unloaded and rendered inoperable by taking them apart or installing of a trigger lock.
During the years in which the D.C. handgun ban and trigger lock law was in effect, the D.C. murder rate averaged 73 percent higher than it was the year the law was enacted. The nationwide murder rate averaged 11 percent lower
Homicides and non-negligent manslaughters per 100,000 people increased from 20 per 100,000 in 1976 to 81 in 1992.
The gun ban was struck down as unconstitutional in 2008 and in 2014 homicides and non-negligent manslaughters per 100,000 people was 15.9 per 100,000.
Darn. History just buzz-killed Colbert’s gun fantasy fun.
Since it’s gone this far, we might as well take an historical peek at Chicago’s gun ban “success.”
Chicago’s gun ban was introduced in 1982 when about 42 percent of all murders involved handguns.
By 1995, over 95 percent of all murders were committed with handguns.
The gun ban was very effective at proving the adage, “If you outlaw guns, only outlaws will have guns.” In fact, studies have demonstrated that criminals do not acquire their weapons legally.
In 2010, the U.S. Supreme Court declared Chicago’s ban unconstitutional.
Two years later, Illinois gun owners celebrated the passing of a bill giving them the right to carry concealed firearms.
According to Colbert, Obama, Hillary and Nancy Pelosi, this would certainly lead to Chicago becoming the Wild West.
In April 2014, the Chicago Police Department reported the lowest murder rate in 56 years.
Still, Nancy Pelosi enjoys her media tour, calling for gun laws that would not have prevented Islamic State terrorists Syed Rizwan Farook and Tashfeen Malik from acquiring their weapons.
President Obama and Hillary Clinton will continue to blame inanimate objects, not an insane apocalyptic ideology or criminal intent, for causing the deaths of innocent people.
And Stephen Colbert will continue to flash the “applause” sign after feeble attempts at gun control humor because he won’t let facts get in the way of a joke, be it good or a brick.
I wonder how Fallon will make us laugh tonight.
Contact Rick at rick@wdel.com, or follow him on Twitter @Jensen1150WDEL