Jamie Foxx is a tremendous actor. I’ve loved his work for ages now, long before the bulk of his talent was recognized by most of Hollywood.

However, he’s an actor. His job is to pretend to be other people in front of a camera.

Despite that, people, and reporters in particular, always want to know what he and his colleagues think about political issues that have nothing to do with the film and television industries.

And they’ll answer.

Foxx, for example, opened up about his thinking on gun control.

Actor Jamie Foxx is urging politicians to table vitriol toward opposing political parties when it comes to gun violence and to come together in the face of tragedy as was seen in the deadly wildfires in California in late 2018.

“You wish that everyone would have cooler heads and just erase the lines in the sand when it comes to politics, and just really get into a room and try to figure out how can we live in our society, protect our rights and protect ourselves and not be so overly ambitious or overly, ‘It’s about our side versus your side,’ Foxx told reporters Sunday at the California Strong Celebrity Softball game at Pepperdine University in Malibu, Calif.

The “Beat Shazam” host addressed the topic of gun violence and last year’s Borderline Bar & Grill shooting in nearby Thousand Oaks before taking the field. He urged policymakers to “adjust” to the times.

“It doesn’t have to be an argument. It doesn’t even have to get as high as the way I’m speaking right now, but that really troubles you. To live in the fourth safest city in the world and to watch things like that happen — and anywhere it happens,” he said.

“This is the one time I can say in our history that nobody on either side of the political whatever, has taken a step towards saying, ‘Hey, we’re smart enough — how do we prevent these things from happening?’”

It’s an easy sentiment to have.

But the problem is that the sentiment almost always boils down to “shut up and do what I want.”

This sentiment isn’t just a Democrat thing. Republicans can be just as guilty. Calling for bipartisanship is easy, but no one wants to alienate their base to do so, and for a good reason. That voter base is who elected them.

Furthermore, on a topic like guns, there’s not really any way to compromise. One side wants to infringe on our right to keep and bear arms while the other wants to protect that right. The party that wants to take away our rights also doesn’t want to listen to any other ideas about how to stop mass shootings. It’s either guns or nothing with them.

So, we give them nothing.

Honestly, I’m OK with that.

It’s not that I’m not heartbroken every time another mass shooting happens. I am. But I also recognize that these are still rare occurrences and while they’re high-profile, they’re not nearly as prevalent as some make them out to be. They’re not an epidemic that needs a complete dismantling of our Constitution to stop.

If the anti-gunners were serious about doing anything to stop mass shootings, they’d join people like me in calling for an intensive study to find just what causes people to become mass shooters. What collection of experiences makes someone want to slaughter people wholesale?

For example, we know that mass shooters come overwhelmingly from single-parent homes. Is the problem a lack of male role models in people’s lives?

We don’t know.

But because anti-gunners are laser-focused on guns, we can’t even get a good discussion going on anything else.

That, Mr. Foxx, is why we can’t get together and find a solution.