“Morning Joe” opened on Tuesday in a solemn mood with Joe, Mika and the rest of the gang digging deep into the massacre in Las Vegas on Sunday that left at least 59 people dead.
In the show’s second hour Scarborough took a swipe at his former Fox News rival Bill O’Reilly for suggesting that the carnage perpetrated by 66-year-old Stephen Paddock was simply “the price of freedom.”
“Bill O’Reilly tweeted yesterday, said yesterday, this is the price of freedom. No, no,” said JScar.
“Oh my god,” said Mika in faux protest. “Please, please.” But Joe continued.
In a conversation with Wall Street Journal Op-Ed columnist Peggy Noonan, the MSNBC host said the real reason some Americans owned high powered weapons was fear about government intrusion and the “lunacy” of thinking they could fight against the government’s military might.
“They need [guns] in case the government comes. And they think that they’ll have to use them to protect themselves against government,” said Scarborough reflecting on his own former constituents as a GOP Congressman from northwest Florida.
He then riffed in disbelief and warned gun toters than the federal government could “melt” them if it wanted to.
“They’re not going to knock on your door. They’re going to put a drone over your head and its going to float there for three days and then they’re going to give you three of four days to let your children and your wife come out and then you come out with your weapon, your AR15, aim it up at the drone, they’ll melt you. This is the lunacy of it.”
Watch the whole thing above.