During his HBO program on Friday, Lefty Bill Maher said, “Now that liberals have forwarded their agenda by inserting a mass gay wedding into the Grammys, conservatives must match them tit-for-tat by having a mass shooting at the Country Music Awards.”

An image of Carrie Underwood holding an AK-47 in one hand and a handgun in the other is displayed as he speaks.

Bill's ill attempt at a joke comes after the mass wedding performed by Queen Latifah during Macklemore and Ryan Lewis's song "Same Love" at the Grammys last Sunday. During the "ceremony," both heterosexual and homosexual couples tied the knot.

As you may know, Maher has been a vocal proponent of gun control. He refers to conservative gun-rights activists as "gun nuts."

He also cracks down on Democrats for being "weak" on the gun control issue, at one point saying - “I’m sorry, but this is the problem with the gun debate is that it’s a constant center-right debate. There’s no left in this debate. Everyone on the left is so afraid to say what should be said which is, ‘The Second Amendment is bulls-—"

Now, everyone knows that Bill Maher crosses the line of decency all the time.  No topic is off limits on his show - not even mass shootings. He appeals to a niche audience that revels in his offensive behavior on his HBO show “Real Time with Bill Maher." So why do we all get up in arms about him saying such a thing? Don't we expect "jokes" like this to fly out of his mouth?

It was really insensitive. Personally I think it was a terrible, unnecessary attempt at a joke. But, he gets paid to be funny, controversial and offensive. He doesn't get paid to be sensitive.

Was what he said funny? No. Was it inappropriate? Yes. Am I surprised? No. Are you?

I mean, God forbid someone takes him seriously.  No one should joke about mass shootings.

Howard Stern, Don Imus, Rush Limbaugh, Bubba the Love Sponge, Bill O'Reilly, and those types of characters all seem to do this every now and again. They say something completely inappropriate. They piss off entire groups of people, they relish in the aftermath, and they get even more famous.

So, are we just feeding into the frenzy? Are we giving him exactly what he wants by discussing it? Or, does it need to be discussed?  Is joking about mass shootings crossing the line? Should he be stopped? Fired? Prosecuted?

What do you think?

Here's the clip -

Photo by Frederick M. Brown/Getty Images
Photo by Frederick M. Brown/Getty Images
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