Piers Morgan slimed yet another gun rights advocate, on his Tuesday night show. He lectured and insulted a Virginia restaurant owner who offered discounts to gun-toting customers, calling the promotion "cynical" and "idiotic."
"Mr. Laze, good luck with your promotion. I hope it fails spectacularly," Morgan snarled at the pizza shop owner Jay Laze. Like other Morgan "interviews," he spent his time belitting his guest rather than hosting a real debate. [Video below the break. Audio here.]
For instance, Morgan offered this wild exaggeration of Laze's promotion: "You are quite happy for American civilians to march into your restaurant with rocket launchers, arriving in armed tanks and perhaps carrying a few Uzi submachine guns, is that your position?"
And he lectured his guest like a White House press secretary. "Because the point is if you see President Obama doesn't want to take away anybody's gun. It's a complete myth," he mocked Laze's fear that Obama will eventually try to confiscate guns.
Perhaps the funniest moment came when Morgan sneered that "that's why you're doing it, to make money, isn't it?" Somebody forgot to tell Piers he was talking to a business owner, apparently.
"And that is why I called you an idiot the other night because it's an idiotic premise to work off that somehow going from no shootings in your restaurant to encouraging everybody in the area without any way of checking who they are to come in armed to the teeth is going to make your restaurant safer," Morgan smeared his guest.
A transcript of the segment, which aired on February 26 on Piers Morgan Tonight at 9:06 p.m. EST, is as follows:
(Video Clip)
MORGAN: So, Mr. Laze, explain to me why this is not as dumb as I think it is.
(...)
MORGAN: Actually, what he's doing, as you well know, is trying to shut down the loopholes precisely for the reasons that I put to you that you haven't got a clue who is bring these guns into your pizza place. You don't have a clue. Do you know anybody under President Obama right now – who is the president, as you know. Do you know anybody that he's asked to remove their gun, to confiscate their gun?
JAY LAZE, owner of All Around Pizza and Deli: Personally, I don't know them.
MORGAN: Right. Because the point is you see President Obama doesn't want to take away anybody's gun. It's a complete myth. There's not a single proposal –
(Crosstalk)
LAZE: Right. He might not want to –
MORGAN: – confiscation of a single weapon. Well, the point is, he's the President and the law he's trying to put through --
(Crosstalk)
LAZE: Right. He might not want to take away the guns, but –
MORGAN: Not one of them involves confiscation.
LAZE: But future presidents might want to take away our guns.
MORGAN: You are quite happy for American civilians to march into your restaurant with rocket launchers, arriving in armed tanks and perhaps carrying a few Uzi submachine guns, is that your position?
(...)
MORGAN: I would imagine that the profits you're making from this extremely cynical commercial exercise involving armed people who you have no idea who they are coming to your restaurant will perk up your profits nicely. And that's why you're doing it, to make money, isn't it?
LAZE: I am trying to make money because, how it's supposed to work is I can save money and then I could use it later in life to support me when I put my work into society.
(...)
MORGAN: How many people have been shot in your restaurant since you've owned it?
LAZE: Zero.
MORGAN: Zero. So actually there's been no gun threat to your restaurant whatsoever. The only threat now is because you're encouraging all these people who may or may not be criminals or mentally insane people to come in armed to the teeth with weapons, the likelihood of there being an accident in your place or somebody doing something stupid has just massively increased. So actually, rather than making your restaurant safer going from zero shootings, you have now increased a massively higher probability of there being a shooting in your restaurant.
And that is why I called you an idiot the other night because it's an idiotic premise to work off that somehow going from no shootings in your restaurant to encouraging everybody in the area without any way of checking who they are to come in armed to the teeth is going to make your restaurant safer. And it's exactly the kind of attitude that is unfortunately causing America the most hideous gun violence problems. Mr. Laze, good luck with your promotion. I hope it fails spectacularly. Thank you for joining me.
