Samantha Bee Wants Political Action After Orlando

After the shooting in Orlando, Samantha Bee is angry, and she's not afraid to admit it — in fact, on Monday night, Bee devoted the entirety of the opening monologue on her late-night show, Full Frontal, to her anger at the lack of gun control laws in America. In her seven-minute monologue, Bee chastised politicians who refuse to pass gun control legislation and instead suggest passive responses like prayer as the best way to confront and prevent mass shootings. Samantha Bee wants political action after Orlando — not excuses from conservative lawmakers who, often due to ties with the National Rifle Association, refuse to acknowledge that weak gun control legislation (at least in part) allows mass shootings to keep happening.

Anger is not usually considered the best way to respond to well, anything; however, Bee made a good case for the sentiment in the wake of the shooting in Orlando. Bee opened Full Frontal on Monday night, saying:

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 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 until we start loving each other enough to fix our fucking problems.

Bee makes a good point: Mass shootings will most likely continue in the United States if something is not done — how many shootings need to take place before political action is taken? As Bee showed, it does not seem as if the Orlando shooting will do much to mobilize conservative politicians. Full Frontal played clips of Florida Sen. Marco Rubio saying that the shooting at Pulse nightclub, "could have happened anywhere in the world," but that "unfortunately, today was Orlando's turn," and of Florida Gov. Rick Scott suggesting that "prayer" is the best way to respond to the shooting.

Undoubtably, Rubio and Scott do not want people to continue to die as a result of gun violence; however, they are emblematic of the politicians who are not willing to work with more liberal policy makers to pass gun control laws — mostly because of GOP ties to the NRA.

Full Frontal also shared a clip of President Obama condemning weak restrictions for gun-buyers less than two weeks before the Orlando shooting. It's probably safe to say that the president is feeling pretty angry right now, too: He knows that stricter background checks might have prevented the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history.

Bee makes it clear that the real political problem after the Orlando shooting is that politicians like Rubio and Scott refuse to show anger over the shooting, instead suggesting passive responses that will not change legislation.

Samantha Bee is right, Americans should be angry: angry that 49 people died on Saturday night, and angry that little is being done to ensure that the Orlando shooting victims are the last to die in a mass shooting. Perhaps if gun control was not such a politicized issue, both Republican and Democratic law makers would show anger about gun violence — and take the political action that Bee knows is necessary.