As she appeared as a guest on Monday's All In with Chris Hayes show, MSNBC host Melissa Harris-Perry described the conservative "red" parts of her home state of Lousiana as "not thinking about or caring about the 10-year-old children in my neighborhood who are shot while walking down the street" as she and host Chris Hayes discussed a recent mass shooting at a parade in New Orleans and advocated more gun control.
After Hayes described two distinct perspectives on guns as being the background of people grew up hunting and the point of view of people who have been shot, Harris-Perry added:
But let me be clear. New Orleans is both of those America's at the exact same time, so we live here in the 7th Ward, we live in the city. We also live in Louisiana in the sportsman's paradise where, in a place where, you know, going to the gun show is actually a pretty regular occurence on Saturday before Sunday second line.
She added:
So, actually, New Orleans is a perfect example of both of these America's at the same time. So when you have people talking about common sense gun control procedures in a place like New Orleans, it's not because they don't understand gun culture, it's not because they haven't grown up around guns, it's not because they've never, you know, gone hunting with their granddaddy. They actually have done all of those things and they recognize that those things have nothing to do with the madness that occurred on Sunday.
Harris-Perry then accused rural Louisiana of not "caring about" children being shot:
And we recognize that we can pass laws that should protect us. The problem is our state legislature is, of course, dominated by the red parts of the state who are thinking of Louisiana as a sportsman's paradise and not thinking about or caring about the 10-year-old children in my neighborhood who are shot while walking down the street.
Harris-Perry is the MSNBC host who famously recorded a promo for her show in which she advocated for children being thought of as belonging to the state, rather than simply belonging to their parents. Harris-Perry: "[W]e have to break through our kind of private idea that kids belong to their parents or kids belong to their families, and recognize that kids belong to their communities."
