[UPDATED] Not surprisingly, CNN's Piers Morgan used last Friday's indiscriminate murder of an Australian student in Oklahoma to push for more gun control. His shilling for stronger gun laws has become a tired story.
On his Tuesday night show, Morgan lamented "What is wrong with America that it has to be partisan? That you have to be if you're pro-gun, you're Republican so therefore you can't bring in gun control. If you're anti-gun outrages as I am, apparently you're some liberal freak. What is wrong with the argument in America that makes it so nonsensical?" He also took his outrage to Twitter.
He also cited Australia's gun laws as an example for America to follow: "Australia brought in dramatic gun control after the 1996 Port Arthur massacre. That's why Americans don't get randomly shot over there."
And America's "gun crisis" is now "the world's problem":
When an innocent Australian student is shot dead in Oklahoma for 'fun' - America's gun crisis becomes the world's problem.
NewsBusters originally reported the shooting took place on Tuesday, August 20. It actually occurred on Friday, August 16. The blog has been updated to show the actual date.
Morgan's guest, attorney Star Jones, agreed on Tuesday that gun control needs to happen:
"The Constitution of the United States provides us with the right to bear arms. It does not provide us with the right to bear arms under all circumstances. Every single right under the Constitution has some sort of provision to it where there are some limitations. And we have to have good, common-sense gun control as it relates to the Second Amendment."
Below is a transcript of the segment, which aired on Piers Morgan Live on August 21 at 9:22 p.m. EDT:
PIERS MORGAN: We have this going on here in Oklahoma. We have it in every major city. Every (Unintelligible). Where does it end? In Australia they had this massacre in '96 and it changed everything, and the people that drove the change were all conservatives. They were Republicans.
It was no political partisan thing over there. What is wrong with America that it has to be partisan? That you have to be if you're pro-gun, you're Republican so therefore you can't bring in gun control. If you're anti-gun outrages as I am, apparently you're some liberal freak. What is wrong with the argument in America that makes it so nonsensical?
STAR JONES, attorney: It's not a partisan issue, especially when there is a dead kid on the ground or -- or in the ground. In this particular situation, it's not about being conservative or about being liberal. The Constitution of the United States provides us with the right to bear arms. It does not provide us with the right to bear arms under all circumstances. Every single right under the Constitution has some sort of provision to it where there are some limitations. And we have to have good, common-sense gun control as it relates to the Second Amendment. You were talking about how young these defendants are, 15 to 17. And the senseless nature of the randomness of the murder.
I actually tried a homicide case where a guy sat on a park bench, and said, I'm going to kill the next person that talks to me. And another man just happened to walk by and said, can I get a light? And the guy shot him dead in Brooklyn, New York. I tried a case – I tried the first 13-year-old in New York state that was convicted as an adult for murder in New York. And I want you to know that nothing has changed, which makes me very, very sad. But very experienced in this regard.
MORGAN: I mean, you know, you look at this school shooting incident today where luckily nobody was hurt, but there you've got a kid of 20. He apparently said he was off his meds, just he was clearly having some kind of treatment for some kind of mental health issue. Five months ago apparently he'd been detained by authorities after making offensive terrorist-style threats. So you've got a known attachment there to law enforcement people. You've got a known attachment to mental health issues, and he's got an AK-47.
JONES: And you have no -- and you have gun laws that say that we can't do a true background check on people with those specific qualifications. If we had some sensible gun control laws in place, each and everything that you have alluded to as it relates to this particular suspect would have been caught before he would have had access to some sort of semiautomatic rifle. I mean, it makes no sense whatsoever. But you and I can go around and around, because we're already on the same side in this debate.
MORGAN: Yeah, I agree. I agree.
JONES: The real debate is with people who try to say to you that having access to weapons is just a fundamental right and we need to have as many weapons on the street as possible, and the only way to stop gun violence is with more people having guns. That's what's nonsensical. And this young man being killed in such a horrific way just so that people can have some fun showed a lack of core values that should trouble us as Americans that we have now reduced our young people to basically sit around and say, you know, I have no hope, no dream for where I fit in society, that I would take the life of someone that I don't know with all callousness, without any thought whatsoever as to the impact that'll have on my family, the impact it'll have on the victims' family. The impact it'll have on my community.
Why – where is the responsibility to your fellow man? We have stopped instilling that in our young people and that's the debate that we should be having.
MORGAN: I completely and utterly agree with you, Star Jones. Stay with me. I want to come back after the break and talk about "The Butler," the movie that's gripping America. I want to get your thoughts on – well, I had a fascinating conversation last night with Lee Daniels and Lenny Kravitz and Cuba Gooding, about whether America is more or less racist since it's got its first black president. I want to get your view on that.
