Amy Schumer Perfectly Skewered US Gun Culture In Her First Hosting Gig On ‘SNL’

In many ways, Amy Schumer is the perfect host for Saturday Night Live. Her background in stand-up means she’ll always deliver an incredible opening monologue. Her work in sketch comedy almost makes her overqualified for the show’s skits (Inside Amy Schumer recently kicked SNL‘s butt at the Emmys). And, having starred alongside SNL alum Bill Hader and current player Vanessa Bayer in Trainwreck, she’s practically already one of the team.

But, as she hosted her first show overnight, there was one other thing that made her really stand out: her activism against guns. Just two months after the comedian called for stricter gun laws after a mass shooting in a screening of her film — and just a couple of weeks after the latest mass shooting at a community college in Oregon — SNL have partnered with her to add their own satirical take on the hotly-debated issue.

In what seems like a wholly appropriate gesture, the official video can only be accessed from the US.

As The Atlantic have since pointed out, it’s actually relatively rare for SNL to take such a strong stance on the issue of gun control having previously opted for riffs on particular politicians or knowing asides during Seth Meyer’s tenure at Weekend Update. However, to reinforce the message in last night’s episode, the group skit was paired with a discussion between Update hosts Colin Jost and Michael Che.

“You can’t have whatever you want,” Che said. “I know the forefathers said you had the right to own a gun, but they also said you could own people. Which, by the way, if I owned a field of jacked Africans I’d probably want a dozen or so guns too.”

“The constitution is a lot like our grandfather. He’s wise, we love him, and he means well, but he’s getting really really old. Every once in a while he says something crazy and we’ve got to go the other room and discuss what we’re gonna do about him.”

"Now, the issue of gun control has been debated a lot in the news this week…" —@TheColinJost #SNL https://t.co/hvsb5sMX7E

— Saturday Night Live (@nbcsnl) October 11, 2015

–

Alongside all this, Schumer smashed it with some her usual fare.

In an eight-minute monologue notably devoid of the songs or novelties others have leaned on in the past, she ran through her experience as a role model to young girls, her take on the Kardashians, and Hollywood more generally. She also re-used a bit about “dating” Bradley Cooper that she first tested out in her Australian show earlier this year.

Then, as is now apparently customary in all her public outings, she eventually finished the whole thing with an ecstatic human pyramid. The life this woman leads…

Pyramid!!! @nbcsnl pic.twitter.com/qksgNNzJSx

— Amy Schumer (@amyschumer) October 11, 2015