Maybe it will benefit the gun control issue that actor Matthew McConaughey spoke at the White House today. It can’t put the issue any further behind the eight ball, that much is certain. McConaughey’s home town is Uvalde, Texas and he and his wife returned there after last week’s shooting. The Hill:
Camila Alves McConaughey sat with a pair of green Converse shoes on her lap belonging to one of the victims, Maite Rodriguez. The 10-year-old girl had hand drawn a heart on the shoes because it “represented her love of nature.”
McConaughey said the shoes were the “only clear evidence that could identify” Rodriguez following the massacre.
“We want secure and safe schools, and we want gun laws that won’t make it so easy for the bad guys to get these damn guns,” McConaughey said.
One thing that the NRA never wants to talk about his how butchered the bodies are after they’ve been chopped up by machine gun fire. When a little girl’s shoes — and in some cases DNA — are all that can identify her body, the brutality of the situation comes to light. People don’t have an image of how bad this is. This is why it’s been suggested that maybe some of the coffins be left open, like Emmett Till’s coffin was left open back in the day after his brutal murder, to show people how horribly these children died.
“As divided as our country is, this gun responsibility issue is one we agree on more than we don’t. It really is. But this should be a non-partisan issue,” the 52-year-old performer, who last year publicly weighed a Texas gubernatorial run said, before turning his focus to Congress.
“There is not a Democratic or Republican value in one single act of these shooters. None. But people in power have failed to act.”
Republicans and Democrats, McConaughey said, need to see “beyond the political problem at hand and admit that we have a life preservation problem on our hands.”
Lawmakers can’t “truly be leaders” if they’re “only living for reelection,” he said.
Truer words were never spoken. Here’s a short clip and also the full clip beneath it, if you want to hear the whole thing.
Matthew McConaughey calls for "responsible gun ownership" at the White House briefing, following the Uvalde school shooting.
"Responsible gun owners are fed up with the Second Amendment being abused and hijacked by some deranged individuals." pic.twitter.com/BcsfEcC2dj
— CBS News (@CBSNews) June 7, 2022
There are a few good things here: McConaughey is identifying as a Texan and as a member of the Uvalde community and he’s making a sane, bipartisan plea. Maybe he’ll be listened to. Maybe Uvalde will be the turning point.
