Premium

Alec Baldwin issues tone-deaf call for more gun control

AP Photo/John Minchillo

Actor Alec Baldwin has been in a lot of movies over the years. I loved The Hunt for Red October, for one. He’s a good actor and I’m not about to say otherwise.

However, as an activist for gun control, he’s probably not the best spokesperson the movement could have right about now. I mean, after the incident on the set of the film Rust, he’s not really someone anyone should be hearing from on the topic.

That doesn’t mean he won’t say something anyway.

Actor Alec Baldwin pushed gun control Friday just months after Rust cinematographer Halyna Hutchins was killed in an on set sequence in which Baldwin was holding the gun.

In a Friday Instagram post, the Boss Baby star wrote “We regulate many things in this country in the interest of public health and safety. Drugs, cars, professional licenses, etc. We need gun control reform. Now.”

Alec Baldwin did not describe the kinds of “gun control reform” that he wants to see, but he did post video in which numerous shots rang out near a South Carolina little league baseball game on Monday. The players paused when the gunfire began, looking for the source, and then ran off the field. None of the baseball players were struck by gunfire.

Of course, I addressed that same video previously. Short-short version? It was a bunch of teens who are already restricted from having handguns, but had them anyway. It was a gun control failure.

But the truth of the matter is that I don’t want to hear Baldwin say a damn thing about gun control, about restricting gun ownership, or anything of the sort.

After all, guns in his control have killed more innocent people than guns under my control. I’m pretty sure everyone else reading this can say as much, too.

So why should we have our rights further restricted when it’s obvious the restrictions already in place didn’t stop a bunch of thugs from getting guns and shooting at one another in a way very reminscent of the kind of movie Baldwin might well appear in?

Sounds like Hollywood might be more to blame than the Second Amendment.

Honestly, I’m sick and tired of people like Baldwin who will take a paycheck that involves them using a gun without blinking, yet then has the audacity to sit there and try to tell us we need “gun reform” simply because he can’t comprehend that criminals keep breaking all the laws he’s demanding.

Meanwhile, the people being impacted are folks like you and me, people who aren’t a problem.

As I noted, Baldwin is responsible for more innocent people being killed than any of us. We clearly need more Alec Baldwin control.

Of course, we know he’d have a problem with this. Who wouldn’t? No one likes being blamed for things.

The difference is that he did have a hand in the death of an innocent women while most of us aren’t responsible for anything, much less a shooting in South Carolina that, while scary, didn’t seem to actually do anything besides be scary.

Then again, people in Hollywood have to signal its virtue. He has to make sure everyone knows he holds the right opinions, especially in light of what happened. He can’t afford for people not to think he’s the right sort.

Otherwise, he has to fear that someone might think he’s insufficiently fervent in his desires for a gun-free America.

The only person whose hand I’m nervous about seeing holding a gun right now, though, is Alec Baldwin’s. He’s one I know doesn’t follow safe handling practices, after all.