Kimmel Wants Trump & Congress To "Do Something" About School Shootings, But Doesn't Say What Should Be Done

Comedian Jimmy Kimmel devoted part of his monologue last night to the school shooting in Parkland, Florida on Valentine's Day which claimed the lives of 17 people, 15 students and two staff members. After playing a clip of President Trump's comments on the shooting, Kimmel said the following:

Agreed. So I agree with both of those statements. And here’s what you do to fix that: Tell your buddies in Congress, tell Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell and Marco Rubio, all the family men who care so much about their communities, that what we need are laws, real laws, that do everything possible to keep assault rifles out of the hands of people who are going to shoot our kids. Go on TV and tell them to do that.

But Kimmel doesn't say what he wants Trump to tell Congress to do. Does he want more background checks? Does he want a ban on the sale of AR-15 rifles? Or does he want the implementation of a mandatory buy back & confiscation program?

Kimmel did take Trump and Congress to task for a "roll back the regulations that were designed to keep firearms out of the hands of the mentally ill." In February 2017, Trump approved Congress' reversal of such a regulation implemented by the Obama Administration to do just that, well sort of. Following the December 2015 San Bernardino attacks, Obama issued an executive order requiring the Social Security Administration to submit information to the National Instant Background Check System of people "adjudicated as a mental defective". This regulation would have affected approximately 75,000 people. But unless the suspect in the Parkland shooting had a) applied for Social Security disability benefits and b) been deemed a mental defective then there's a good chance this regulation would have no effect. It wouldn't have had an effect in Las Vegas. Nor for that matter would it have had an effect in San Bernardino where a straw buyer was involved.

Indeed, it is worth noting that Kimmel didn't state Trump should reverse himself on repealing Obama's executive order. I suspect that Kimmel didn't get into specifics because deep down he knows that such measures don't yield any meaningful results.

I do, however, agree with Kimmel on one thing he said:

It is amazing to me that if one illegal immigrant causes a car accident, we’ve got to build a wall to keep the rest of them out. Why are you looking for solutions to that problem and not this one?

This is absolutely true. If the perpetrator in Parkland, Florida had been an illegal immigrant, Trump would not have adopted any measured tones. He and his Republican lemmings would be screaming to do something - namely building a wall. But what good is a wall when it comes to someone who has overstayed their tourist or student visa? What of the 9/11 hijackers? There are laws on the books, but they don't mean much if they aren't properly enforced.

The truth of the matter is that people on both sides of the political spectrum are guilty of either inflicting easy answers upon us or demand that we do something without saying what ought to be done. Whatever the solution there's a good chance the cure will be worse than the disease.

Of course, no parent should have to worry about whether they'll see their child again when they leave home to go to school. But I wonder how many of those parents own at least one firearm. Is Jimmy Kimmel among them? If Kimmel does own a firearm would he prepared to have the government take it away from him in the name of ensuring his child's safety away from the home? In that instance, I'm not so sure Kimmel would be so eager to say do something.