Did @ChrisMurphyCT & Stephen Colbert say the quiet part out loud?
We’re not surprised. It’s pretty clear anti-gunners aren’t just coming for AR15s—they want basic hunting rifles too.
They want to talk about a “line in the sand,” but we’re past ours. SHALL NOT BE INFRINGED. pic.twitter.com/WmM6NmHaaH
— Gun Owners of America (@GunOwners) September 26, 2025
In a revealing moment, Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) and late-night host Stephen Colbert exposed gun control advocates’ evolving strategy during Murphy’s September 24, 2025 appearance on The Late Show. Their discussion, occurring just hours after a tragic shooting at a Dallas ICE facility, highlighted what Gun Owners of America called “saying the quiet part out loud” – the real intention to target not just handguns, but America’s traditional hunting rifles and shotguns.
On September 24, 2025, Joshua Jahn used an 8mm bolt-action rifle – a World War II-era German Mauser legally purchased just a month prior – to attack a Dallas Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility, killing one detainee and wounding two others before taking his own life. Investigators found ammunition marked “ANTI-ICE” and notes indicating Jahn’s goal was to “terrorize federal agents,” writing: “Hopefully this will give ICE agents real terror, to think, ‘is there a sniper with AP rounds on that roof?’”
Despite the assailant’s use of a bolt-action hunting rifle similar to those owned by millions of American hunters, Murphy and Colbert used the tragedy to advocate for broader restrictions on what Colbert termed as “long guns.”
During their televised conversation, Murphy stated:
We are obviously amidst a moment with an increase in political violence and it just shouldn’t matter. It shouldn’t matter whether the radicalization comes from the right or the left or some non-ideological place in the deep, dark recesses of the internet. This president, our entire political process, could make a decision to draw a line in the sand.
Colbert then responded:
There really hasn’t been much movement to reign in the access to the long guns and many of the weapons that are used in these killings. But I mean, hopefully maybe there could be a political sea change in the United States.
Gun Owners of America immediately seized on this exchange, posting:
We’re not surprised. It’s pretty clear anti-gunners aren’t just coming for AR15s—they want basic hunting rifles too. They want to talk about a ‘line in the sand,’ but we’re past ours. SHALL NOT BE INFRINGED.
This apparent pivot represents the latest chapter in a nearly century-long campaign that began with explicit calls for handgun prohibition. The National Firearms Act (NFA) of 1934 originally targeted the registration and regulation of all handguns in America. As AmmoLand’s Dean Weingarten observed:
The original target of the NFA of 1934 was to register and regulate the ownership of all handguns. Short barreled rifles and shotguns were included to prevent circumventing the regulation of handguns by cutting down rifles and shotguns.
Only successful lobbying by the NRA stripped handguns from the final legislation, leaving machine guns, silencers, and short-barreled rifles and shotguns regulated. Weingarten added that the NRA “did not contest that part of the law because silencers, machine guns, short-barreled rifles, and shotguns were less commonly owned.” The organizational DNA of modern gun control traces directly to the National Council to Control Handguns (NCCH), founded in 1974 and eventually becoming today’s Brady United Against Gun Violence.
NCCH’s early literature called for:
Strict federal laws that will effectively restrict the possession of handguns to only the police, the military, licensed security guards, licensed pistol clubs, and registered collectors.
Founder Nelson T. “Pete” Shields III laid out their long-term strategy in a 1976 New Yorker interview:
The first problem is to slow down the increasing number of handguns being produced and sold in this country. The second problem is to get handguns registered. And the final problem is to make the possession of all handguns and all handgun ammunition—except for the military, policemen, licensed security guards, licensed sporting clubs, and licensed gun collectors—totally illegal.
Shields estimated this would take seven to ten years to achieve “total control of handguns in the United States.” He outlined the overall process behind eventually banning handguns: “The first problem is to slow down the increasing number of handguns being produced and sold in this country. The second problem is to get handguns registered. And the final problem is to make the possession of all handguns and all handgun ammunition…totally illegal.”
The strategic shift from handguns to long guns is indicative of an undeniable feature of American gun culture: handgun ownership has become thoroughly normalized in American society. According to 2021 National Firearms Survey data, handguns account for 171 million of the 415 million civilian-owned firearms. Demonizing and trying to outright ban handguns faces the reality of mass acceptance.
This normalization has forced gun control advocates to seek new targets. Long guns – rifles and shotguns owned by millions of Americans for hunting, sport shooting, and home defense – represent the next frontier in their incremental strategy. The focus on “assault weapons” over the past three decades was merely the opening salvo.
The Murphy-Colbert exchange reveals this evolution. By discussing “long guns and many of the weapons that are used in these killings” in the context of a shooting involving a traditional hunting rifle, they exposed the movement’s intention to expand beyond semi-automatic rifles to include bolt-action, lever-action, and single-shot firearms.
GOA’s response highlights the need for Second Amendment advocates to recognize this strategic pivot. Historically, regulation of “problematic” firearms expands to broader categories of ownership. The 1934 NFA led to the 1938 Act, and then the 1968 Gun Control Act—all points on a slippery slope of Second Amendment infringements.
The Murphy-Colbert exchange reminds us that the movement’s goal remains unchanged from Pete Shields’ vision of “total control.” Only the tactical approach, shifting from prohibition to incremental restriction and now from handguns to long guns, has changed with the times. Second Amendment supporters must stay vigilant. Handgun normalization forced gun controllers to seek new targets; sustained resistance and advocacy will be just as critical to protect the rights of millions of gun owners.
What Murphy and Colbert revealed is that the endgame has never changed, only the order of battle in the war against the Second Amendment.
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About José Niño
José Niño is a freelance writer based in Charlotte, North Carolina. You can contact him via Facebook and X/Twitter. Subscribe to his Substack newsletter by visiting “Jose Nino Unfiltered” on Substack.com.
