“The Late Show with Stephen Colbert” is reportedly being cancelled at the conclusion of its eleventh season next May. Stephen Colbert, the eponymous host of the show, has espoused a wide range of views, but it is his takes on our Second Amendment freedoms that we’ll focus on here.
Everytown, the anti-gun group bankrolled by billionaire and former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg (D), was quick to thank Colbert for his messaging once the announcement was made. “Thank you, Stephen Colbert, for always using your platform to call attention to our nation’s gun violence crisis. We’ve banned assault weapons before and it saved lives. We can do it again,” posted Everytown on Facebook.
The post noted Colbert’s advocacy for a ban on this nation’s most-commonly owned rifle, which he has called for numerous times. “We’ve had [an ‘assault weapons’ ban] before, from 1994 to 2004, and it worked,” said Colbert in 2023.
Just a year earlier, Colbert made a similar false claim. “Americans have witnessed gun tragedy after gun tragedy. And while it can be argued that there are many reasons, we all know the biggest reason for the tragedy is the gun,” said Colbert. “There is a simple, if extremely difficult solution, reduce the number of guns. We’ve done it before and it worked. Joe Biden knows that.”
The clip then cut to Joe Biden, who said, “When we passed the assault-weapons ban, mass shootings went down.”
As we’ve reported before, this is patently false. “His statement that the ban ‘worked’ is, indeed, a lie. A congressionally mandated study of the federal ‘assault-weapon ban’ of 1994 to 2004 found that the ban had no impact on crime. It concluded: ‘Should it be renewed, the ban’s effects on gun violence are likely to be small at best.’ Additionally, research conducted later by the Rand Corporation found no conclusive evidence that banning so-called ‘assault weapons’ or ‘large-capacity’ magazines had an effect on either mass-murder events or violent crime,” wrote America’s 1st Freedom contributor Mark Chesnut in 2021.
Aside from advocating for a ban on commonly owned semi-automatic rifles, and gun ownership as a whole, Colbert has also endorsed so-called “universal” background checks. “Congress can be heroes by doing literally anything—‘universal’ background checks, or come up with a better answer,” said Colbert in 2017.
As the NRA Institute for Legislative Action has reported, “Deceptively marketed to the public as a way to keep guns from dangerous people, "universal" background check legislation is instead a broadside against lawful firearm ownership in America, setting cruel traps for common and innocent firearm-related conduct and banning an entire class of law-abiding adults from certain gun purchases.”
Colbert has blamed anyone but himself for his pending cancellation, despite the claim by CBS that his show has reportedly been losing $40-50 million annually for the network. Predictably, others in the media elite have come to his defense. Many of these figures, predictably, express similar views.
Two notable figures among this group of Colbert defenders are Jimmy Kimmel and Jon Stewart, both of whom lambasted CBS for its decision to cancel “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert,” and both of whom have repeatedly shared similar anti-freedom sentiments.
“It would have been more productive if these show hosts either tried to heal us through comedy—after all, they are ‘comedians’—or if they had really tried to get to the truth about the issues related to violent crime in America. Apparently, that’s too much to ask,” wrote America’s 1st Freedom Editor in Chief Frank Miniter in 2017, while discussing the anti-gun views of several late-night “comedians.”
The bad news is that Colbert will undoubtedly be spouting such poor takes for the final 10 months of the show’s run. The good news is that after that, his show and his bad takes will be relegated to the dustbin of history.
