A passionate and tearful Jimmy Kimmel addressed the Texas school shooting on Wednesday’s episode of Jimmy Kimmel Live!, beginning his monologue in a mournful and resigned manner by saying, “Here we are again, on another day of mourning in this country.”

Wednesday was the first time Kimmel was able to talk about the tragedy. Tuesday’s show had already been taped before news broke of the shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, that saw an 18-year-old gunman murder 19 children and two adults.

Visibly shaken by sorrow and anger, Kimmel appeared without a studio audience and addressed the camera directly. From the beginning of the segment, he struggled to compose himself, and he teared up when he spoke of “the little boys and girls whose lives have been ended and whose families have been destroyed.”

The host began by laying out the by-now-predictable playbook of Republicans and pro-gun advocates seeking to depoliticize the shooting. “Our leaders on the right, the Americans in Congress and at Fox News and these other outlets warn us not to politicize this,” Kimmel said, before adding, “they don’t want to speak about it, because they know what they’ve done. And they know what they haven’t done and they know that it’s indefensible. So they’d rather sweep this under the rug.”

Kimmel then spoke about most Americans supporting “keeping guns out of the hands of criminals and children,” citing polls that support “common-sense gun laws.” He pointed to the Senate blocking gun control legislation like The ​​Enhanced Background Checks Act and the Bipartisan Background Checks Act, which were both passed by the House in 2021.

“Our cowardly leaders just aren’t listening to us, they’re listening to the NRA, they’re listening to those people who write them checks, who keep them in power, because that’s the way politics work,” said Kimmel.

The late-night host then appealed directly to Texas pro-gun Republicans Sen. Ted Cruz, Gov. Greg Abbott and Sen. John Cornyn to consider gun control laws, citing successful examples from abroad such as the U.K. and Australia, which both enacted stricter measures after mass shootings. “This is the only country where this keeps happening,” the host said.

“I would like to say to Ted Cruz, the human being, and Governor Abbott, and everyone, it’s OK to admit you made a mistake. In fact, it’s not just OK, it’s necessary to admit you made a mistake when your mistake is killing the children in your state,” Kimmel said.

He continued, “It takes a big person to do something like that. It takes a brave person to do something like that. And do I think these men are brave people? No, I don’t. But man, I would love it if they surprised me.”

Kimmel, sounding bereft, then said Americans can’t continue to ignore this problem. “This is not a time for moments of silence, this is a time to be loud and to stay loud and not stop until we fix this,” he said. He said there had been 27 school shootings so far in 2022, at which point his voice began to crack, “How does this make sense to anyone? These are our children!”

If Americans did continue to ignore it and not hold politicians to account, an angry Kimmel said the public is culpable. “This is not their fault anymore, this is now our fault. Because we get angry, we demand action, we don’t get it, they wait it out we go back to our lives.”

He concluded, “If you care about this…we need to make sure that we do everything we can, that unless they do something drastic let’s make sure that not [one of these] politicians ever holds office again.”