Whoever decided that people should take the political opinions of comedians seriously forgot to tell the comics that their opinions should be worth serious consideration. Take Trevor Noah (please).
According to Huffington Post, he opined on the Nov. 27 Daily Show that “... the Second Amendment is not intended for black people” because any black person exercising that right will inevitably be killed by police. The event that led Noah to this wild conclusion was the fatal shooting of Emantic Bradford Jr., a young black man, after a gunfire incident in an Alabama mall. Police later admitted that Bradford shooting was a case of mistaken identity.
Of course, Noah sprung to accuse the officers of racism: “How does this s*** keep happening? Cops are called into a situation, they see a black person and then immediately they shoot.” The host also argued that armed whites regularly receive different treatment, rhetorically asking “... how many times have we seen a shooter who is white, and a man, get talked down?” before listing some examples.
Noah may watch a little too much CNN, as the data don’t necessarily bear out his words. Not only are police significantly less likely to shoot armed black suspects in simulated threat scenarios, but analyses of crime statistics from across the country often reveal that police, as a matter of fact, do not show racial bias towards any group when dealing with armed suspects, even in diverse urban areas.
Noah’s blunder makes a mockery of people like former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice’s father, who she claims “would fire [his] guns in the air when 'night riders' with the KKK would come through the neighborhood” because the police of her native Birmingham, Alabama were aloof. Rice claims those experiences taught her the importance of gun rights and didn’t send her on outright denunciations like Noah.
