Hollywood artists and actors have taken up the gun control fight with a new video sponsored by the Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence and the Mayors Against Illegal Guns. The campaign video features over a dozen major celebrities such as Jamie Foxx, Beyonce, Sarah Silverman, Chris Rock, Steve Carell and Gwyneth Paltrow all begging people to “do something”. What is that something? They don’t say specifically in the video, but they do act very concerned as they urge us to go sign a petition calling for legislation.
The Demand a Plan website encourages citizens to support legislation that would do the following:
- Require criminal background checks for ALL gun sales, including private sales
- Ban assault weapons, including high-capacity magazines
- Make gun trafficking a federal crime
Here are the problems:
1. Criminal background checks are already required for gun sales in many states. Why should citizens be required to background check their neighbors if they lawfully decide to transfer possession of a firearm to another private citizen? If you buy a gun from your father, should your father be required to do a background check on you? A private sale of a firearm from one citizen to another at a gun show is equivalent to a garage sale or any other private transfer and voluntary exchange. Requiring criminal background checks for sales at gun stores is one thing. Requiring them for private sales is overly intrusive and unlikely to add any additional layers of security. Criminals don’t always buy guns anyway. They often steal them.
2. Define assault weapons. The exact same caliber bullets are used in different looking guns and they all have the same effect. Just because one gun is painted black doesn’t make it any more powerful than one of the same caliber with a wooden stock. High capacity magazines are necessary and effective in private defense situations where citizens may suffer sustained or protracted assaults such as the Koreans in the 1992 Los Angeles riots. During the riots, Korean business owners stores were being viciously looted and dangerous gangs roamed the streets with weapons. High capacity magazines in such a situation may be the difference between life or death and free citizens have a right to protect their lives, loved ones and property from aggression using the best means necessary.
3. Americans familiar with the Fast & Furious gun trafficking scandal are fully aware that their nation is the biggest arms dealer in the world. Calls for bans on “gun trafficking” might be the most hypocritical line item from the lobbying organizations list. The Congressional Research Service has listed the United States as overwhelmingly the number one supplier of advanced weaponry to the world. In 2011, the US sold $66.3 billion dollars worth of weapons. That’s an increase from 2010 where we only sold $21.4 billion dollars worth of weapons. If the American government or lobbying organizations such as Mayors Against Guns wants to stop gun trafficking, then perhaps we could get them to pressure Eric Holder for some answers on why an American Border Patrol agent is dead from a weapon provided to cartels by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco & Firearms?
Of course the BATF & Department of Justice’s hypocrisy on the gun trafficking issue is one thing. But the fact is that many of the actors appearing in this video are guilty of glorifying the worst kind of murder and gun related violence in their own work. It’s insulting to be lectured on the dangers of guns by partially-educated, vapid artists that make millions exploiting a culture of violence. Jamie Foxx is currently starring in a bloody Western film called Django Unchained directed by Quentin Tarantino, the master of violent on-screen mayhem himself. Foxx made headlines recently for appearing on Saturday Night Live glorifying about how great it was that in the upcoming movie he got to kill all the white people. It’s assumed he uses a gun to do so. But now Foxx & friends are telling us that guns are bad and we should restrict them. Responding to criticism Foxx was quoted by the AP saying, “We cannot turn our back and say that violence in films or anything that we do doesn’t have a sort of influence. It does.” So then which is it Jamie? How can we expect anyone to take you seriously when your words and actions are as far apart as you can get?
Gun bans are the ultimate in paternalism. Actors can privately profit from the glorification of the worst kind of violence while using their acting abilities in videos such as the one below to convince the public that they don’t support gun violence. They fool people into believing that they have the moral high ground in attempting to restrict second amendment rights. But undoubtedly some number from their cult of celebrity will follow. No matter how blatantly hypocritical a star is, many in their fan base will support any cause they champion for reasons they aren’t even fully aware.
And we also should assume that these actors will expect there to be a “loophole” for private security guards to protect themselves of course. Liberal activists might be disappointed if they knew how fully armed private security agents can be for their favorite actors. Their disappointment would reside in the shadow of the hypocrisy that while many of them believe that the American government is guilty of heinous war crimes in Abu Ghraib or Guantanamo Bay, that same government should be the only one with guns.
But for the rest of the proletariat? No guns for you. Self defense is for only for the elites now. Big government and Big Hollywood will protect us and look out for our health and personal safety from here on out. They are doing it for our own good.
Why should ordinary citizens ever require an assault rifle?
The reason is simple.
In case they are ever under assault.
