The Colbert Report Season 5 Episode 33

Stephen: This is an outrageous invasion of privacy that has me coming out with my guns blazing…if I have a gun, and it brings us to tonight's Word: Locked & Loathed. Folks, this paper has no right to reveal who has concealed gun permits. Now sure, in Tennessee these permits are a matter of public record, but you don't put public records on the internet. ( Unless a Nigerian princes asks for them) No, that undermines the long tradition of going to a government office and waiting patiently until any desire for information is crushed by nameless bureaucrats who measure their workdays in geologic time. (They're packing tedium) Now some will say this newspaper is just exercising its right under the First Amendment, well the gun owners are exercising their rights under the Second Amendment. (For some, their only exercise) And if you know your multiplication, you know that's worth twice as much. (Guns are better at subtraction)

Now thankfully, as always, the NRA is on the case. Executive vice president Wayne LaPierre pointed out that: "A normal person wouldn't say, 'My right to information is more important than someone's fear and safety.'" No, Wayne LaPierre knows that a normal person would say something like: "…I don't care if their butts pucker from here to the Potomac, our Founding Fathers understood that the guys with the guns make the rules." But it's not just Wayne "Puckerbutt" LaPierre, as payback for the newspaper posting public records, gun owners in Tennessee have posted newspaper employees personal information and threatened newspaper staff, which has led to some fairly obvious editorial cartoons. Now I am with the gun owners here. The reason we get concealed carry permits in the first place is because we value our privacy. (Also explains silencers) In fact, everybody knows that we're very shy, (Why they wear camouflage) we can barely find the courage to put our pro-gun beliefs on the back of our cars. Now there's a reason we hid our guns, (Terms of parole) because the anti-gun nuts out there make us feel like outcasts. (The love that dare not shoot its name) I mean even I, Stephen Colbert, feel the pressure.

Now, everyone knows that I have a healthy, long, loving relationship with by gun Sweetness. I mean, Sweetness and I go everywhere together, but at Thanksgiving I tell by grandmother we're just roommates. (Gun isn't Catholic) Now I long for a day when gun owners no longer have to hide their relationships with their concealed weapons. (Can come out of their shells) But until that day, threatening the people who work at this newspaper is a good start. You see, it helps to dispel the image of gun owners as crazy zealots, (Well adjusted zealots?) and I say to protect the privacy of people with concealed gun permits, we need to issue a new concealed permit permit to conceal their permit to conceal their guns. (Printed in disappearing ink) Now of course some newspaper out there would just publish that list, so the only surefire way to keep people from knowing whether you do or do not have a gun is to have a gun that may or may not exist. (Heisenberg's uncertainty pistol) [pulls out "invisible gun"] Like the Phantom here. Isn't she a beaut? Now this could be a semi-automatic with an eight round magazine and a homemade recoil dampener. (Imaginary serial number is filed off) Or I might just have a cramp in my finger, let's find out. Um, you sir.

Audience Member who always gets Shot: Yes?
Stephen: Do you think that this newspaper should be able to publish who has a concealed gun permit?
AMWAGS: Well, there is freedom of the press.
Stephen: And you have the right to your opinion. [Shoots him with Phantom]
AMWAGS: Agg, you shot me! Oh, you hit an artery!
Stephen: No sir, [invisible gun goes away] someone shot you. In the interest of my privacy, we may never know who. And that's the Word. (Locked & loathed)