Without mentioning the National Rifle Association (NRA), Counsel of Foreign Relations President Richard Haass on Wednesday blamed "special interests" like the AARP for the death of an Arizona shooting instructor who was accidentally shot to death by a girl with an Uzi.
MSNBC host Joe Scarborough's outrage was on point at the beginning of a segment about a 9-year-old girl who accidentally killed her shooting instructor with an Uzi.
"A 9-year-old girl!" he exclaimed. "What is wrong with these people? What is wrong with these people? The first time I saw it, I was so shocked. I say this as the father of an 11-year-old girl! Who would put an Uzi in the hands of a 9-year-old girl? What is wrong with these people?"
"What is wrong with this culture? Why would they do that? What right is advanced by doing that?" he asked. "A man is dead, and they've ruined a little girl's life. For what?"
"NRA will tell you they have a perfect right to use them in the home," MSNBC contributor Mike Barnicle noted.
Scarborough argued that there was "no reading" of Supreme Court rulings "that would suggest that this has anything to do with the Constitution."
But as they do almost every morning, the Morning Joe panel found a way to blame "both sides" of the political spectrum for the problem.
"It's special interests versus collective interests," Haass opined. "And the collective interests of this society, the potential, as you say, is unlimited. But we've got a problem. We've got a problem in our political process where narrow special interests dominate."
"Whether it's in this or the AARP with retired people," he continued. "The dysfunctionality of American politics is there's no one out there who's powerful, who's speaking for the collective interests."
Scarborough added that "idiots" had complained on Twitter because he quoted a Bible verse.
"We've got a nation of paranoid people on the far left and the far right, and it's time that the rest of us take control of this situation, and this country, and take it back from paranoid extremists on both sides," the MSNBC host declared.
Watch the video below from MSNBC's Morning Joe, broadcast Aug. 27, 2014.
