'SNL' Zings NRA: 'Only Way To Stop A Bad Roach Is A Good Roach With A Gun'
“Saturday Night Live” host and NBA legend Charles Barkley played Ned the exterminator whose sights are set on cockroaches in a comedy sketch on the program — but he was aiming for the National Rifle Association.
“Ned’s Roach Away” has an innovative way to eliminate roaches: Arm the good roaches with teeny AR-15s to take out the bad ones.
“The only way to stop a bad roach is a good roach with a gun,” Barkley explains in the sketch. That’s the constant refrain from NRA CEO Wayne LaPierre, heard most recently at the Conservative Political Action Conference last month: “To stop a bad guy with a gun, it takes a good guy with a gun.”
A horde of really bad roaches might require good bugs toting AR-15s with bumpstocks, notes Barkley’s Ned, who wears a cowboy hat.
Don’t worry, the armed roaches in “Ned’s Roach Away” are all “good character,” God-fearing bugs who regularly attend their tiny church. “And none of my roaches are gay,” says “Ned.”
Fans reactions were mixed on Twitter. Some found the sketch hilarious, while others thought it was insensitive so soon after the shooting at a high school in Parkland, Florida, that killed 17 people.
Check out the video above.
SNL nailed it. Funny n sad but stone cold truth. NRA going away
— Michael Langan (@righthooker) March 4, 2018
Wow. Lethally funny. Uncomfortably funny.
— NotABot (@NotABot7238) March 4, 2018
We get this point but that context is not funny and too soon. Laughing about rapid gunfire fr AR-15s and bump stocks is not cool at all. I’ve watched for 20 years and this is tasteless.
— Smandymandy (@smandymandy) March 4, 2018
I thought it was actually very politically risqué. The framing of gun-users as vermin, passing on their gun culture genetically, bred into them... Uncharacteristically direct
— David McKay (@dmgrand514) March 4, 2018
CORRECTION: A previous version of this story said NRA CEO made his recent comment about guns to the group’s convention. His remarks were made at the Conservative Political Action Conference.
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This article originally appeared on HuffPost.
