Last week the jury returned the verdict in the case of Philando Castile’s murder trial: the police officer who shot and killed Castile was acquitted on all three charges.
Castile’s death was live-streamed on Facebook by his girlfriend after the officer shot Castile multiple times. The case was similar to many other police brutality cases, except for one thing: Castile was legally carrying a gun and alerted the police as such.
This detail did not go unnoticed by Trevor Noah who addressed the case on The Daily Show. He said,
“Every time I watch that video the question I ask myself is ‘How?’ Just how? How does a black person not get shot in America? Because if you think about it, the bar is always moving. The goalposts are always shifting. There’s always a different thing that explains why a person got shot.”
He continued,
“In a story of a man being shot because he was lawfully armed, you would think that one group — one powerful group in America — would say something about this. There is one group you’d expect to be losing their goddamn minds about this: The NRA. But for some strange reason on this particular case, they’ve been completely silent.”
Well, we can certainly guess what “strange” reason has kept the NRA silent. There’s really no explanation, no defense of why it was ok to shoot a man who was legally armed, announced that he was armed, and did not reach for his gun.
Check out the video below for Noah’s full statement on the NRA and Philando Castile.
