On the Thursday edition of MSNBC’s All In, liberal host Chris Hayes trumpeted the need for gun control measures after the deadly community college shooting in Roseburg, Oregon by comparing the impediment to enact such policies to the “scale of the response” the world deployed during the 2014 outbreak of the Ebola virus.
Speaking with Hayes, Democratic Congressman Chris Van Hollen (Md.) hyped that the “time for action is way overdue” because: “If this were a disease, if this were a virus that was killing tens of thousands of Americans, we would have the scientists at the National Institutes of Health, we would have the folks across the country at the CDC, we would have all hands on deck.”
Expanding upon Van Hollen’s point, Hayes reminded viewers that the U.S. “one year ago today had the first American who got Ebola” and then asked everyone to recall “scale of the response, of the things that were motivated to make sure that disease did not spread, the absolute terror that people would be stalked by Ebola, and compare that to the way we shrug off gun violence.”
At the top of the show, Hayes played President Barack Obama’s full comments on the tragedy from just over an hour and a half beforehand that he gushed was “a blistering response to today's events, one that may be remembered as one of the most powerful and angry speeches of his presidency.”
The relevant portions of the transcript from MSNBC’s All In with Chris Hayes on October 1 can be found below.
MSNBC’s All In with Chris Hayes
October 1, 2015
8:00 p.m. Eastern
CHRIS HAYES: Today, this country experienced its 45th school shooting in this year alone and the 294th mass shooting of the calendar year of 2015 according to the broadest definition of the term. A massacre at a community college in a remote part of southwestern Oregon which left ten people dead and seven wounded. There is still at this hour a lot we don't know about what happened. We do know the gunman, a 20-year-old male, is now deceased. Not long ago, President Obama came to the White House Briefing Room to deliver a blistering response to today's events, one that may be remembered as one of the most powerful and angry speeches of his presidency.
(....)
8:16 p.m. Eastern
DEMOCRATIC CONGRESSMAN CHRIS VAN HOLLEN (Md.): People should be angry and this is – time for action is way overdue. If this were a disease, if this were a virus that was killing tens of thousands of Americans, we would have the scientists at the National Institutes of Health, we would have the folks across the country at the CDC, we would have –
HAYES: That's right.
VAN HOLLEN: – all hands on deck and yet, we have this epidemic that's killing Americans and nothing's being done.
HAYES: Congressman Chris van Hollen, thank you very much for your time. You know, the congressman mentions if this were a virus, if this were a disease, we one year ago today had the first American who got Ebola and everyone can remember the scale of the response, of the things that were motivated to make sure that disease did not spread, the absolute terror that people would be stalked by Ebola, and compare that to the way we shrug off gun violence.
