“The Daily Show” host Trevor Noah on Monday said the NRA of all organizations should be outraged by the death of Philando Castile, after a jury acquitted the police officer who fatally shot him last year.
“There’s a group you would expect would be losing their goddamned minds about this: the NRA,” Noah said. “For some strange reason, on this particular case, they’ve been completely silent. And yet, according to their rhetoric, this is everything that they stand against, right? An officer of the state depriving a citizen of his life because he was legally carrying a firearm.”
Castile was shot during a traffic stop by Minnesota police officer Jeronimo Yanez. Castile said he had a licensed firearm when he was pulled over; the officer told him not to reach for it, and then opened fire. In a Facebook Live video recorded at the scene by Castile’s girlfriend, Castile said he wasn’t reaching. A jury found Yanez not guilty of second-degree manslaughter last week.
Noah played a clip from NRA Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre speaking to the Conservative Political Action Conference and saying, “There is no greater freedom than the right to survive and protect our families with all the rifles, shotguns and handguns we want.”
“Unless you’re black, is what it should say,” Noah said. “It’s interesting how the people who define themselves by one fundamental American right, the right to bear arms, show that once race is involved, the only right that they believe in is the right to bear arms.”
