June 28, 2018

Stacey Abrams Schools Republicans on Guns During a Pointed Interview with Seth Meyers

“As someone who learned how to shoot when I was growing up in Mississippi, the first thing you learn is you don’t do that.”

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Brian Kemp, who is vying to be Georgia’s next governor, really wants everyone to know he is a hardcore Republican and he really likes guns.

But that doesn’t mean he knows how to actually handle them—at least, he doesn’t according to Stacey Abrams, the Democrat running against him (and Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle until a Republican run off next month).

Kemp has made something of a national name for himself thanks to a series of over-the-top TV ads. One features him playing up the biggest tropes of Trumpian conservatives: threatening to catch migrants at the border in his pick-up truck, promising to take a “chainsaw to government regulation,” and posing with a small arsenal of pistols and shot guns.

Another notorious ad features Kemp playing the all-American protective dad confronting a poor dude named Jake, a clean-cut white guy who has designs for one of his daughters.

In the ad, Kemp points a gun at Jake as her nervously sits in a chair next to him—a theme the candidate returned to in another ad featuring Jake that was released this week.

But Abrams, on Late Night With Seth Meyers Tuesday, couldn’t help but point out how ridiculous his behavior is, and not necessarily in the way you’d think. Unlike Kemp, Abrams is a staunch advocate of gun safety, aiming to limit access to assault rifles and expand government regulation over the sale of other firearms. But, unlike Kemp, she says, she also knows how to behave with a gun.

“As someone who learned how to shoot when I was growing up in Mississippi, the first thing you learn is you don’t do that. That Firearm 101 is you don’t do that,” Abrams told Meyers. “That Firearm 101 is don’t point it at people, because Firearm 102 is you go to prison.

“So you keep it pointed down … it is an interesting approach to try to convince people they can trust you with their lives.”

Watch the whole hilarious exchange here:

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