A tearful Jimmy Kimmel kicked off his Wednesday night episode of Jimmy Kimmel Live! this week by passionately addressing the school shooting in Texas.
On Tuesday (May 24), an 18-year-old gunman opened fire on a class of kids at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas. The devastating attack left 19 children and 2 teachers dead.
In an emotional opening monologue, late-night talk show host Kimmel begged politicians to introduce gun laws that could prevent future shootings and told citizens that they were responsible for not demanding more action from their elected representatives.
He began by calling out Republican and pro-gun advocates for trying to depoliticize the horrendous attack. "They don’t want to speak about it, because they know what they’ve done. And they know what they haven’t done and they know that it’s indefensible. So they’d rather sweep this under the rug," Kimmel said to viewers.
The host went on to say that most Americans supported "common-sense gun laws" - but that the Senate has continuously blocked gun control legislation.
"Our cowardly leaders just aren’t listening to us, they’re listening to the NRA, they’re listening to those people who write them checks, who keep them in power, because that’s the way politics work," he said.
Kimmel then spoke directly to pro-gun lawmakers including Senator Ted Cruz, Governor Gregg Abbot, and Senator Jon Cornyn. He appealed to them to take note of successful gun control laws in countries like the UK and Australia, saying: "This is the only country where this keeps happening."
"I would like to say to Ted Cruz, the human being, and Governor Abbott, and everyone, it’s OK to admit you made a mistake. In fact, it’s not just OK, it’s necessary to admit you made a mistake when your mistake is killing the children in your state," Kimmel said.
The host concluded his monologue by addressing the American people, who he reminded had now witnessed 27 school shootings in 2022 alone.
"How does this make sense to anyone? These are our children!" Kimmel said, his voice cracking as his went on to say that people could no longer blame politicians for their inaction.
"This is now our fault. Because we get angry, we demand action, we don’t get it, they wait it out we go back to our lives," he told audiences, before concluding: "If you care about this … we need to make sure that we do everything we can, that unless they do something drastic let’s make sure that not [one of these] politicians ever holds office again.”