Former Rare Staff
On Tuesday night, talk show host Jimmy Kimmel broke down in tears as he introduced his show and spoke about the deadly shooting during the Route 91 Harvest Festival in Las Vegas.
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Kimmel, who is from Las Vegas, said, “Here we are again, in the aftermath of another terrible, inexplicably shocking and painful tragedy.”
He then went through the background of some of the victims.
“We lost two police officers; we lost a nurse from Tennessee, a special ed teacher from a local school here in Manhattan Beach.”
“All these devastated families who now have to live with this pain forever, because one person with a violent and insane voice in his head managed to stockpile a collection of high-powered rifles and used them to shoot people,” Kimmel said.
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“Of course, there’s something we can do about it. There are a lot of things we can do about it. But we don’t. Which is interesting, because when someone with a beard attacks us, we tap phones, we invoke travel bans, we build walls,” Kimmel stated. “We take every possible precaution to make sure it doesn’t happen again. But when an American buys a gun and kills other Americans, then there’s nothing we can do about that … the Second Amendment … Our forefathers wanted us to have AK47s, is the argument.”
During his heartfelt monologue, Kimmel made reference to the increasingly serious nature of his program.
“I want this to be a comedy show. I hate talking about stuff like this. I just want to laugh about things every night, but that — it seems to be becoming increasingly difficult lately,” Kimmel said.
“It feels like someone has opened a window into hell. And what I’m talking about tonight isn’t about gun control. It’s about common sense,” Kimmel opined. “Common sense says no good will ever come from allowing a person to have weapons that can take down 527 Americans at a concert. Common sense says you don’t let those who suffer from mental illness buy guns.”
Fifty-nine people were shot and killed in the Las Vegas attack. Over 500 people were wounded.
Stephen Paddock, believed to be the sole perpetrator of the attack, killed himself before police could intervene, authorities say.
The CMG National Content Desk contributed to this report.
