On Friday's Real Time on HBO, liberal host Bill Maher was again hitting the issue of race from the left as he promoted claims that the purpose of the Second Amendment was to help keep the slave population under control, rather than to give the population a right to self-defense.
Additionally, he played the game of finding racial double standards in the treatment of whites and nonwhites with regard to guns and mass shootings. And, for his part, MSNBC Republican Steve Schmidt ridiculously claimed that "It is harder to buy cough medicine than it is to buy an AK-47 or 50 of them."
As he raised the issue of race, Maher claimed that Alabama Republican Senate nominee Roy Moore could not have held a gun on stage if he were black, and then asserted that white mass shooters like the Las Vegas gunman are treated differently after the attacks than if they were minorities. Maher began:
I know it drives Republicans crazy when liberals say everything is about race and everything isn't about race. But I feel like guns is the one area where, if you can't see a giant difference between the way black and white are treated in America with guns, I think there's a little racism in you. I mean, show the Roy Moore video. Here's a politician waving a gun at a rally.
The HBO host turned to former Tennessee Democratic Rep. Harold Ford Jr. -- who is black -- and asked: "Could you get away with doing that?"
After Ford answered in the negative, Maher continued:
There you go. And the Vegas shooter himself, you know, it seems like when the shooter -- if he was Muslim, certainly it would have been about, "Let's -- we got to get the ban going." If he was a Mexican, it would be about the wall. And I feel like, when it's the white guy, it's like, "We don't know how this happened." But they don't, you know, we don't --
Maher then had to pause for his liberal audience who broke in with applause.
He then added:
I feel like it never gets to be an isolated incident if you're a minority. They always drag in the, you know, and this guy was from a broken home, his father was a criminal, you know, that would be big on Fox News, I feel like.
Regarding Senate candidate Moore holding a gun on stage, NewsBusters has previously documented that Sheriff David Clarke has held a rifle at right-leaning events on more than one occasion, and is a big hit within the conservative movement.
Additionally, Maher conveniently forgot that when high-profile mass shooters Vester Flanagan, Seung-Hui Cho, and Esteban Santiago -- all of whom were minorities -- committed their attacks, mental illness was heavily implicated in their cases.
After Olivia Nuzzi of New York magazine and MSNBC's Schmidt voiced agreement, Maher went on trying to tie the Second Amendment to slavery. Maher:
All right, let me quote Garry Wills because I've read something he wrote in the New York Times on the Fourth of July about the Second Amendment which I had never been aware of this. And I feel like I was waiting for the moment when I thought people would be paying attention to this issue, and it is apropos to this issue we're talking about.
Reading a quote that seemed like it might have come from a DailyKos account of the New York Times write-up, Maher continued:
Because he says the Second Amendment "shows just how far the poison of slavery pervaded the Constitution. It was intended to protect slave holders who used militias to keep a firm grip on their slaves. It wasn't meant to let individuals prevent federal tyranny. How could it? It was meant to guarantee the legality of well-regulated militias to handle the states' internal problems, especially the problem of a large slave population."
The HBO host added: "Says a lot, doesn't it?"
After Rep. Ford gave his reaction, Schmidt jumped in to insert the kind of left-leaning analysis that one expects from self-identified Republicans who appear regularly on MSNBC, as he oddly claimed that it is "harder to buy cough medicine" than to get an AK-47:
I do think the Founding Fathers, though, they could no more conceive of an AK-47 or an AR-15 firing on full automatic than they could have conceived of a space ship, okay?
These weapons were not conceived of, we not understood, were imagined in the context of the time when the amendment was authored, and we ought to have a real debate in this country about whether we want military weapons -- military weapons -- weapons of war in the hand of every Joe who wants to go in and buy 30 of them. It is harder to buy cough medicine than it is to buy an AK-47 or 50 of them.
Below is a transcript of the relevant portion of the Friday, October 6, Real Time with Bill Maher on HBO:
BILL MAHER: I know it drives Republicans crazy when liberals say everything is about race and everything isn't about race. But I feel like guns is the one area where, if you can't see a giant difference between the way black and white are treated in America with guns, I think there's a little racism in you. I mean, show the Roy Moore video. Here's a politician waving a gun at a rally. Could you get away with doing that?
FORMER REP. HAROLD (D-TN): In succinct? No.
MAHER: There you go. And the Vegas shooter himself, you know, it seems like when the shooter -- if he was Muslim, certainly it would have been about, "Let's -- we got to get the ban going." If he was a Mexican, it would be about the wall. And I feel like, when it's the white guy, it's like, "We don't know how this happened." But they don't, you know, we don't --
(Audience applause)
I feel like it never gets to be an isolated incident if you're a minority. They always drag in the, you know, and this guy was from a broken home, his father was a criminal, you know, that would be big on Fox News, I feel like.
OLIVIA NUZZI: President Trump would already be out there with his own motive for the shooter if the shooter were nonwhite. He does this any time there is any type of attack perpetrated by someone who is nonwhite. He doesn't take the whole "It's too soon to talk about it, that we should speculate before we know the facts." He only does that in very specific cases.
STEVE SCHMIDT: A hundred percent accurate. There's an absolute double standard.on this stuff.
MAHER: All right, let me quote Garry Wills because I've read something he wrote in the New York Times on the Fourth of July about the Second Amendment which I had never been aware of this. And I feel like I was waiting for the moment when I thought people would be paying attention to this issue, and it is apropos to this issue we're talking about because he says the Second Amendment "shows just how far the poison of slavery pervaded the Constitution. It was intended to protect slave holders who used militias to keep a firm grip on their slaves. It wasn't meant to let individuals prevent federal tyranny. How could it? It was meant to guarantee the legality of well-regulated militias to handle the states' internal problems, especially the problem of a large slave population."
Says a lot, doesn't it?
(...)
STEVE SCHMIDT: I do think the Founding Fathers, though, they could no more conceive of an AK-47 or an AR-15 firing on full automatic than they could have conceived of a space ship, okay?
These weapons were not conceived of, we not understood, were imagined in the context of the time when the amendment was authored, and we ought to have a real debate in this country about whether we want military weapons -- military weapons -- weapons of war in the hand of every Joe who wants to go in and buy 30 of them. It is harder to buy cough medicine than it is to buy an AK-47 or 50 of them.
