Amy Schumer hosted Saturday Night Live this week and took on America’s obsession with guns. The skit features Schumer and SNL cast members engaged in the everyday life — running, having a baby, eating dinner, flirting. As the bit continues, a common theme appears in each scenario: Guns.
The punchline: “Whatever you’re waiting for. Whatever you face. Whatever you’re looking for. There are things we all share. Love. Family. Connection. A sense of purpose. And also — guns.”
Schumer became and outspoken advocate of stricter gun laws when a gunman in Louisiana opened fire at a screening of her romantic comedy, Trainwreck, killing two people. She appeared with her cousin Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) to promote a slate of modest reforms designed to curb gun violence.
Most gun owners — even members of the NRA — support the kind of restrictions included in Schumer’s legislation.
At the introduction of the legislation, Amy Schumer contested the idea that nothing could be done to combat gun violence:
For me, the pain I share with so many other Americans on the issue of gun violence was made extremely personal to me on Thursday, July 23 when — I’m not even going to say his name, when this — when he sat down for my movie Trainwreck at the Grand Theater in Lafayette, Louisiana.
Two lives were tragically lost and others injured, and I have thought about these victims each day since the tragedy. Jillian Johnson, 33, a mother, daughter, sister, and a wonderful wife. She was an artist. I think we would have been friends. And Mayci Breaux, who was 21, who planned on marrying her high school sweetheart. She was an honor student at Louisiana State University where she was studying to become a radiology technician. She was kind and loved her family very much and she always made time for them.
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We need a background check system without holes and fatal flaws. We need one with accurate information that protects us like a firewall. The critics scoff and say well, there’s no way to stop crazy people from doing crazy things but they’re wrong. There is a way to stop them. Preventing dangerous people from getting guns is very possible. We have common-sense solutions. We can toughen background checks and stop the sale of firearms to folks who have a violent history or history of mental illness. We can invest more in treating mental illness instead of slashing funding.
These are not extreme ideas and what Chuck is describing are sensible measures and restrictions and no one wants to live in a country where a felon, the mentally ill or other dangerous people can get their hands on a gun with such ease. The time is now for American people to rally for these changes.
These are my first public comments on the issue of gun violence, but I can promise you they will not be my last.
By one count, there have been 92 mass shootings in America since July 23, the date of the mass shooting at the Lafayette theatre.