Cory Booker Tells Seth Meyers That U.S. Must Unite On Gun Safety

U.S. Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) took his message to a national TV audience Monday night, reminding Americans that “reasonable gun safety legislation” will require a collective will.

“We forget the power that we have to make change,” Booker told host Seth Meyers on “Late Night.” “We didn’t get civil rights legislation because [former South Carolina senator] Strom Thurmond sat there and said, ‘OK, yeah, I’m gonna do that, I’m gonna give equal rights to folks.’ No, it was Americans demanding it, fighting for it, getting up every single day.”

In the wake of the Las Vegas shooting massacre, Booker and other Democrats introduced a bill that would ban “bump stock” modifications used in the killings that make semi-automatic weapons fire rounds more rapidly. But on the show, Booker focused on the overall problem of gun violence and how citizens can arm themselves with the resolve to make a difference.

“The opposite of justice is not injustice, it’s indifference, it’s inaction,” he said.