Bill O’Reilly: Hey, Mass Murder Doesn’t Happen All That Often, So No Big Deal, Amirite?

Over the past few days, Fox News host Bill O’Reilly has spent a large amount of airtime criticizing President Obama and Democrats for “politicizing” the gun control debate in the wake of yet another mass shooting. On the Monday evening broadcast of The O’Reilly Factor, Papa Bear utilized his ‘Talking Points’ segment to claim that liberals were “demagoguing” the discussion on guns in this country. Bill-O also interviewed a resident of the Oregon community where Thursday’s tragic killing of nine people occurred. The man claimed that he did not want Obama to visit the town due to his remarks on guns in relation to the tragedy.

After the interview and ‘Talking Points’ commentary, O’Reilly hosted a panel discussion with Fox News token liberal Juan Williams and monotone voice enthusiast Laura Ingraham. Of course, the main purpose of this conversation was for Bill and Laura to gang up on Juan over the total ineffectiveness of any and all gun control laws. And gang up they did.

The segment had all of the familiar hallmarks of an O’Reilly debate on guns. Chicago and its tough gun laws were brought up. Freedom and the Second Amendment was tossed around liberally. Mental health issues were discussed over and over. Debunked ‘research’ on guns was thrown around just for the fuck of it. It was a movie we’ve seen many times before.

During the five-plus minute conversation, O’Reilly let loose with a comment that was pretty callous and short-sighted, even for him. While speaking with Ingraham, she mentioned that the laws Obama and Democrats would like to pass would only lead to a small decrease in gun violence, based on the research she cited. O’Reilly agreed and added, “Mass murder is very small, I mean it doesn’t happen very much.” Of course, it happens in the United States WAY more than any other developed country, but I guess that wasn’t Bill-O’s point, right?

Sure, I get what he might have been trying to say. As a whole, mass shootings only count for a small percentage of the total number of gun deaths in our country. Still, when we see these kinds of events happen in our country regularly while other places in the world — where guns are much scarcer and heavily regulated– almost never see them, well maybe you shouldn’t say that “mass murder is very small,” ya know?

Below is video of the segment, courtesy of Media Matters: