John Oliver returned to TV on Sunday night for the fifth season of “Last Week Tonight” and started the show by addressing last week’s school shooting in Parkland, Florida, that left 17 people dead.
“These events are now so familiar, we basically automatically know how each side will play out,” the host began. “‘Thoughts and prayers.’ ‘F**k your thoughts and prayers.’ ‘It’s a mental health problem.’ ‘Yeah, but it’s also a gun problem.’ And then someone says, ‘Now’s not the time to talk about gun control’ and everyone moves on until it inevitably happens again.”
“But this time felt slightly different,” Oliver continued, “because when the ‘now’s not the time’ argument came out, the kids from that school said, ‘You know what? Yes it f**king is.'”
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The TV host then played clips from various news interviews and rallies featuring Parkland High School students who have demanded change.
“We’re done with that,” one student said when discussing the attempt by politicians to dodge the topic of gun control. Another girl questioned how it was possible that someone not old enough to buy alcohol was able to purchase a “war weapon.”
The footage also included a speech from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School student Emma Gonzalez, whose recent “We call BS!” statement has become a viral call to arms.
“It’s a little ironic that the people who are acting with the most maturity in this horrifying situation aren’t even old enough to say ‘bulls**t’ in front of their parents,” Oliver joked.
Many of those students have already announced plans for a nationwide demonstration next month, which will demand action on gun control. “March For Our Lives” will take place on March 24 across the U.S.
“But they will be up against it,” Oliver added. He demonstrated his point by showing a clip of former South Carolina Lieutenant Governor Andre Bauer on CNN, who said we live in a “different time.”
“When I grew up, it was Andy Griffith, you never had school shootings, we still had prayer in school, and we drove to school with guns in the car,” Bauer stated. He then put the blame on the “movie industry,” “the rap industry,” and “radio in general,” for “desensitizing” children. “Now we have kids eating Tide pods instead of discipline.”
“I call BS on that,” Oliver quipped, before hammering home his point with an appropriate clip from “The Andy Griffith Show.”
Watch the segment in the video above.
