Comedian Jon Stewart had a nice riff going on “The Daily Show” Wednesday night (Sept. 24) until he scolded Joe Biden as being “crazy reckless” about his gun facts. But in this case, Biden knew what he was talking about, and Stewart didn’t. (You can view Stewart's comments on the Comedy Channel website, if you don't mind watching the commercial that precedes it.)
Stewart starts off making fun of Biden’s remark about FDR “going on television,” which is OK. We did the same earlier that day. But then, one minute into the routine, Stewart launches into this blooper:
Stewart: A factual error, all right, a little reckless. But it wasn’t crazy reckless, like, uh:
Biden: (video from Sept. 21, Castlewood, Va): I guarantee ya, Barack Obama ain’t taking my shotguns, so don’t buy that malarkey, don’t buy that malarkey. They’re going to start peddling that to you. I got two! If he tries to fool with my Beretta he’s got a problem.
Stewart (after pausing incredulously): Two things. Uh. One, the Beretta, I believe, is a handgun. Not, not a shotgun. And two, and this may be more important, you appear to possibly be threatening gun violence against your own running mate.
We’re just guessing here, but it appears that Stewart and his Manhattan-based crew of writers may be getting their information about firearms mainly from James Bond novels. (The fictional Bond used a Beretta .25 calibre automatic pistol until switching to a Walther PPK). The fact is, Beretta is also famous for shotguns. Lots of them. Field guns, over-and-under models, side-by-side models, some with fancy engraving costing several thousand dollars per copy. Enough to fill a very large gun closet with all the different models. Here are just a couple:
Beretta 3901 Citizen model shotgun
Beretta 687EL Gold Pigeon model shotgun
There are lots more where those came from on the Beretta USA Web site.
We’ll be watching Stewart’s show again Thursday night. The nice thing about a “fake news” comedy show is that when you have to make a correction you can make a joke out of that, too.