[cheers and applause] >> jon: that's our show. join us tomorrow at 11:00. here it is your moment of zen. >> do a jedi mind bheld these folks. >> destroy captioning sponsored by comedy central captioned by med ["the colbert report" theme music playing] [cheers and appl captioning sponsored by comedy central [crowd chanting stephen [[. [cheers and applause] >> stephen: whoo! [cheers and applause] welcome to the report. good to have you with us. folks, please, sit down, we have to get to the show. [cheers and applause] nation, the dreaded 2% across the board sequestration cuts kicked in last friday. and i say it's good. [ laughter ] it's time to put the government on a diet. [laughter] and just like a real diet, the best way to lose weight is to take a cheese grater and just shave off 2% everywhere. [laughter] looks good. looks good. no one is going to recognize you at your high school reunion. [ laughter ] folks, forcing obama to address the national debt is a moral issue. if we don't cut expensive things like head start, childhood nutrition programs, teachers, and student loans, what sort of future are we leaving for our children? [laughter] and we know austerity during economic downturns works. just look at europe. [laughter] if you can see it through the tear gas. [laughter] many of those countries still exist. [laughter] of course, everybody's playing the blame game. i blame obama for that. [laughter] [cheers and applause] because this man will not take that blame like a man. >> and i know this has been some of the conventional wisdom that's been floating around washington that somehow even though most people agree that i'm being reasonable, that most people agree i'm presenting a fair deal the fact that they don't take it means that i should somehow, you know, do a jedi mind meld with these folks and convince them to do what's right. [laughter] [cheers and applause] >> stephen: what? did you hear that? a jedi "mind meld?" he mixed up the jedi mind trick with the vulcan mind meld! [laughter] who makes that mistake? the two are as different as good kirk and evil kirk from mirror mirror. season two, episode 4. [laughter] [cheers and applause] [laughter] bhi the way i know it's not from mirror, mirror. folks, no letters. [laughter] folks, forget benghazi gate. this is ben kenobi gate! [laughter] what's next, president obama? holding the majqa' klingon rite of passage on yavin 4? [laughter] do you even know what planet yavin 4 is? [laughter] trick question! it's not a planet! it's a moon! [laughter] you're such a gorn. [laughter] but obama's sci-fi flub, should be the gop's gain. after all, republicans and nerds have so much in common. [laughter] they both live in fantasy worlds and have no idea how to relate to women -- [cheers and applause] and senate minority leader mitch mcconnell bears a striking resemblance to admiral ackbar. [laughter] nation, you know it's my sacred duty to protect you from those who would destroy our way of life. that way of life? you watching tv like you're about to do more of right now. [laughter] jim? there are those among us intent on challenging our most sacred beliefs no matter what the cost. we call them scientists. [ laughter ] >> it's alive! >> stephen: scientists like doctor skylarbehr, ph.d. >> i'm a scientist though i don't have my ph.d yet. >> stephen: she's the enemy within. ♪ here on maine's mount desert island in the village of thumbsville life on the coast has always been as god intended. >> tide goes in, tide goods out. never a miscommunication. >> stephen: until the today an hosk your miscommunication at the local red stop left developpages crying. >> who has the scallop guts. >> stephen: was it all part of the doctor's plan to destroy the human place? >> i am not trying to destroy the human race. >> stephen: oh, no? november 26, 2012. professor gail garwait was returning home when she had a shocking realization. >> having skipped lunch i was not going to make it all the way to summertime. >> stephen: it was then that she saw the thumbsville one stop. >> hopped out of car, walked around once found a bag of smartfood popcorn. >> stephen: she doesn't know she was not alone. this say legal scallop diver with a particular set of skills. >> if you crash your car drunk and you need somebody to help you hide it and everything, can i do that on a minute's notice. >> stephen: good to know but why was andy maze at the thumbsville one stop that day and why was he so desperate? >> i show up in a included of dust, circumstancing around in a panic trying to find scar throat get rid of the buckets of scallop guts. >> stephen: it seems to doctor skylar arranged a covert delivery that would go terribly wrong. >> by the time i saw andy he had driven across the street. >> i went out and said did you wring the scallops with you. >> i said i put them in your car. >> i was like it wasn't my car. the car was gone. >> gone. >> stephen: it was only a matter of time million is someone would uncover the secret. >> i said don't worry about it, this kind of (bleep) happens to me all the time. >> maybe we'll make a new friend after this, too. and i -- ah. >> stephen: meanwhile, gail was about to make a griewssome discovery. >> i see the white tubs in the back of the car. what the heck. i peer in and seat words form mald hide -- formaldehyde. >> it's what they put into the dead people. >> stephen: it was murder. >> also used to preserve. >> stephen: so it was science. [ laughter ] the situation was detearor yaight rapidly. it was time for the authorities to step in. police chief james willis filed the report. >> no, we don't do any -- >> stephen: what about the investigation? >> i wasn't a case. it was a lot of and found. we passed information along. there was nothing for policemen to do. >> stephen: with the press at a dead end gail took matters into her own hands. >> i was checking facebook and two of my friends on facebook posted this weird story anded it said who has the scallop guts. >> stephen: who? who? so gail made a call to the fisherman's wife michelle. >> at 7:00 the phone range and the voices said it's me i have your scallop guts. >> stephen: a nice connection until gail learned what was really in that bucket. >> gonadsp scallop gonads. >> stephen: you mean like balls? >> very much like balls. >> this is the gonad, the reproductive organs that is what her whole life is focused on. >> a woman obsessed. >> they have pretty large gonads relative to their body size stoonchts we get it. ladies love a huge sack. scarlet got her balls back mystery solved all wrapped up in a pretty bow or was it? >> i think that's pretty much it. >> stephen: or is it? >> it is. >> stephen: then weren't the police rode to close the case? >> we didn't close the case because we never open the case. >> stephen: so it wasn't closed? >> there is no case. >> stephen: with police in denial the key issue of motive was unanswered starting with the henchman. >> i was able to give skylar the balls and i was able to take the meat and give them to my friends and they gave me liquor. >> stephen: okay. but it doesn't explain why anyone needs a five gallon bucket of scallop naves. a mouthful. >> i'm curious. i would love to know what she's doing with it. >> stephen: once again this guy. >> her research is about improving the reproductive success of maine scallops. >> stephen: improving reproductions then maybe it's not the best idead to cut their balls off. there's a simpler explanation. >> human animal hybrids. >> i knew it. you like -- >> i'm not -- you like to play god. >> i'm not playing god at all. i'm just doing a few experiments. >> stephen: a lonely lady scientists with five gallons of scallop gonads can lead to only one horrifying reality. scallop man an invincible hard shelled monster with freakishly giant nads. [cheers and applause] >> stephen: welcome back, everybody. thank you so much. [cheers and applause] folks, it's no wonder obama doesn't have time to bother with the sequester because he's too busy grabbing our guns. well, that plan has backfired. >> gun sales have absolutely exploded. >> sales of high-capacity ammunition magazines are said to be soaring. >> gun sales have spiked around the country leaving empty shelves at some gun shops. >> stephen: yes, this gun rush is the kind of shopping frenzy you normally see on black friday, only less dangerous. [laughter] in texas, they've sold so many guns that demand for concealed weapon permits has skyrocketed. but don't worry, the state has a plan. >> the rush is on at the state capital to reduce the number of required training hours in texas from 10 to 4. leading the charge state represenative dan flynn. flynn says he wants to trim the amount of training hours from 10 to 4 in order to eliminate much of the hassle and waste. >> you spend a lot of time taking breaks. you spend a lot of time hearing stories. >> stephen: exactly, why waste time listening to dumb stories about how so and so didn't pay attention in class. who cares? he's dead now. [laughter] because representative flynn knows how valuable his constituents' time is. >> a lot of people who try to get their license they have to take a day off of work, or they have to take a whole saturday to go do this. >> stephen: yes, you can't ask people to devote a whole saturday to learning how to operate a deadly weapon. [laughter] that's time they could be spending accidentally shooting their family. [laughter] of course, the gun-haters out there don't agree that the more guns we have the safer we'll be. they have this crazy theory that if there are fewer guns, fewer people will be shot. [laughter] but they have no evidence, other than a harvard study from the 1990s compiling data from 26 developed countries which found that "where guns are more available, there are more homicides." come on, that was the '90s. [laughter] i'm supposed to listen to some scientist with a rachel haircut? [laughter] luckily, one man is out to prove, once and for all, that guns make us safer. kyle coplen, a graduate student at the university of houston is conducting an experiment which will definitively settle this debate. >> a social experiment ub like any other. giving away guns in high crime areas in an effort to reduce crimes. >> for about a month now coplen's been on a mission. >> we're looking at deterring crime by empowering citizens by offering up free 20-gauge shotguns. he says he wants to give away shotguns to test whether it helps reduce crime. >> stephen: the original plan was to give out batman costumes, [cheers and applause] but in texas, copyright laws are much stricter than gun laws. [laughter] now, some have questioned how coplen feels testing out his pro-gun theory so soon after the unimaginable tragedy of newtown. >> makes me feel great. i get up every morning with a pep in my step, giving out guns. living the dream. it's not like we're giving out cigarettes or alcohol, we're giving out guns. i don't see what the big deal is. >> stephen: yeah, he's not giving out cigarettes or alcohol. once you have the gun, you can get those for free! [laughter] but sadly, this experiment does have one flaw. he's given people guns only after they pass a background check and complete a safety and tactical course. >> stephen: background check? safety course? that could take up a whole saturday. [laughter] besides, if he really wants to test the impact of guns on crime, it's gotta be a bigger study. first of all, you're gonna need a control group who are given placebo guns. [laughter] they look identical to real guns, but shoot sugar bullets, so they don't kill anyone. they just give you type 2 diabetes. [laughter] then, create another neighborhood that's nothing but guns. i'm talking chock-full o' glock. [laughter] guns slipped under doors like thai delivery menus and every store has a "take a gun leave a gun" tray. [laughter] then, if gun deaths go down, we'll know definitively if more guns really make us safer, and everybody gets to keep their guns. and if gun deaths skyrocket, then everybody still keeps their guns. 'cause what are you gonna do, d applause]spheench welcome back, everybody. my guest tonight is a former death-row inmate who was exhonorated by dna evidence. you know what they say: if the deoxyribonucleic acid don't fit, you must acquit. [laughter] please welcome kirk bloodsworth! thanks so much for coming on. all right. sir, you were the very first inmate to be sentenced to death but exonerated through post conviction dna testing. it's all written about in the book "bloodsworth" which has been out nine years. that's not really why you are here tonight. you are they're talk about your quest to get rid of the death penalty state by state. >> that's right. >> stephen: how many states strilt death penalty? it's 33 right now. that's counting maryland, the state i'm in steerchghts now, while your case is compelling, let's ignore it for a moment because -- [laughter] -- the facts 6 your case will prejudice the jury. [laughter] how can you get rid of the death penalty completely? it is a known deterrent because everyone who kills someone thinks ahead of time i wonder what will happen to me if i get caught. why do you want to get rid of it? >> as i know, and i work for an organization called witness to innocence. i'm the advocacy director for them. we've found 142 exonerated death row surrifors in the -- survivors in the united states. >> stephen: they were on death row and exonerated through the use of dna? >> not all of them but through other mans. people falsely confessed to crimes. >> stephen: do you mean witness identification problems? >> i'll give you an example. in my case it was -- they said the person was six foot five, curly blonde hair, tan skin and skinny. when we finally caught the real perpetrator of the crime some years later was five foot six and 160. >> stephen: no way he just lost weight and height? [laughter] >> no. >> stephen: just asking. >> no one. >> steve: people want to know. if maryland gets rid of the death penalty isn't that like a house telling everybody it doesn't have guns? because if i'm going to go on a kill spree, i'm going to go to maryland now. >> no. >> stephen: because i know there's no death penalty. >> you know, it's been found out for -- [laughter] -- f