Virtue Signaling Matthew McConaughey Could Learn a Lesson From this 1960s TV Show
Hollywood has made hundreds of films featuring shooting human beings billed as entertainment...
First, let me begin by saying that I am a staunch supporter of our Second Amendment Rights and understand that guns are necessary to preserve law and order in our society. I have made my position clear in this recent post.
In early June of this year, Hollywood actor Matthew McConaughey went on a thoughtless anti-gun rant while at the podium in the White House briefing room.
I’m confused...
McConaughey has made millions producing and starring in movies and television shows using guns. In True Detective’s first season of his crime series, he featured six handguns, two “assault rifles”, two submachine guns, a shotgun, and one hand grenade.
This pattern is not limited to Mr. McConaughey. For decades, Hollywood has made hundreds of films featuring the shooting of human beings that is billed as “entertainment”. Guns are almost always shown as the preferred solution to every situation imaginable. Examples abound... from Indiana Jones to the Matrix, to Dirty Harry, Die Hard, and Predator.... the list is endless.
The problem lies in the fact that young people who see these movies (often multiple times) can become conditioned to the idea that firearms are a hero’s solution to one’s frustrations, problems, and perhaps even unhappiness. Witness the exponential rise in shootings all across our country over the last 20 years or so.
It wasn’t always this way. In the 1960s TV series, The Andy Griffith Show, Griffith played Andy Taylor, a sheriff who didn’t carry a gun. Some episodes featured potentially violent situations that the sheriff diffused rather than shooting first and asking questions later.... what a concept!
When asked why Griffith’s character did not carry a gun, he answered this way:
“When a man carries a gun all the time, the respect he thinks he’s getting might really be fear, so I don’t carry a gun as the Sheriff because I don’t want the people to fear a gun... I’d rather they respect me.”
Maybe the sheriff was thinking of Psalm 11:5...
“The LORD examines the righteous, but the wicked, those who love violence, he hates with a passion.”
Hollywood no longer seems to value any moral principles including respect for authority. There is a time and place for the appropriate use of firearms, and a time and place for negotiation and de-escalation. Guns are not the answer to every problem as Hollywood would have us believe.
Anyone trained in the proper use of firearms knows that your first response must be to try to de-escalate the situation… and if all else fails then and only then pull the trigger to save your life or that of innocent bystanders.
I wonder if Mr. McConaughey would be willing to do at least one of these two things...
Permanently stop the glorification of gun violence in his own movies.
Take some of the millions he’s made from those movies to provide for school security in his own hometown of Uvalde, Texas.
Until then, no one needs to listen to him...
Indeed, the first response must be to try to de-escalate the situation and only then pull the trigger to save yourself or the lives of others. Griffith’s character’s response about why he did not carry a gun demonstrates a kind of decency that some fear has been lost in our society today.
Hollywood should be rather termed as the Hellytrannywood. It's one of the most wicked and dissolute organizstions in the history of the humankind.