Maher: Liberals are too scared to say 'the 2nd Amendment is bullsh-t'

Real Time host Bill Maher castigated liberals on Friday for not standing up for themselves in what he called the constant "center-right" debate on gun safety issues.

"Everyone on the left is so afraid to say what should be said," Maher told his panel. "Which is, the Second Amendment is bullshit. Why doesn't anyone go at the core of it?"

To Maher's pleasant surprise, somebody from the right -- David Stockman, former budget director for President Ronald Reagan's administration -- was willing to back him up on that, saying that the world has moved on since it was conceived in 1787.

"People who believe in liberty, like I do, we're up against a 21st-century state equipped with drones, hundreds of satellites in the sky, watching everything we do," Stockman said. "Why would you believe that an 18th-century civilian militia equipped with the equivalent of muskets has anything to do with liberty? It doesn't."

The only way to protect liberty, he continued, was by making use of voting and the First Amendment.

But Maher complained that the "Public Safety and Second Amendment Rights Protection Act," (PDF) introduced this week by Senators Joe Manchin (D-WV) and Pat Toomey (R-PA), goes too far in protecting gun owners' rights.

"It allows you to have relations with friends with guns," Stockman said.

"What? That sounds dirty," Maher said in response.

Before the House of Representatives has even "lifted its leg" on the bill, Maher said derisively, the bill would allow for exemptions for gun loans and sales between relatives, friends, neighbors and co-workers.

"That pretty much includes anybody, doesn't it?" he said, before imitating a potential loophole. "'I don't know you. Oh, you want to sell me a gun? You are my friend, thank you very much.'"

Watch Maher and his panel discuss the Second Amendment and their problems with the new gun compromise in video posted by Mediaite on Friday below.