Kurt Russell has been in Hollywood a long time. I’ve always been surprised at the various places he’d turn up, from old Disney movies about the Civil War to a documentary about a minor league baseball team that, it turned out, his father owned and he played for. He just pops up everywhere.

Since he surprises me so often, it shouldn’t be too shocking that he did it again.

It seems an interview from him where he dismantles the gun control argument has gone viral.

The short version of Kurt Russell on gun control is basically "you’ll take it from my cold, dead hands buddy".

He was on 🔥 with this woke writer.

Didn’t know he was this cool but it makes sense since Tombstone is the best western film in human history. pic.twitter.com/Z0siGcGg7z

— Robby Starbuck (@robbystarbuck) January 30, 2024

Over at American Thinker, they provided a transcript.

UNKNOWN VOICE (“UV”): We all know that right now guns is a trope. It’s a I mean, it’s not a trope. It’s a, it’s a totem. It’s a metaphor that disenfranchised white guys need. It makes them feel good. Because they’re being surrounded.

RUSSELL: You can say what you want. I don’t agree with that. So, it’s not my thing.

[snip]

If you think that, if you think gun control or something like that is going to change a terrorist point of view, I think you’re, like, out of your mind, I think you’re, like, I think anybody is, I think I think it’s absolutely insane.

[snip]

The problem we’re having right now is, is that we don’t have the concepts of how to turn out and say, you know, “Uou may think you’ve got me worried about what you’re going to do. Dude, you’re about to find out what I’m going to do, and that’s going to worry you a lot more.” And that’s what we need.

That will change the concept of gun culture, as you call it, to something of reality, which is [for example], if I’m [on] a hockey team and I got a guy bearing down on me as a goaltender, I’m not concerned about what he’s going to do. I’m going to make him concerned about what I’m going to do to stop him. That’s when things change, you know.

…

UV: Just put some controls.

RUSSELL: [Laughs] Just put some controls. What? So the people, so the people who want to defend themselves can’t?

UV: No. No so you can’t. Just so the idiots can’t get hold of them. That’s all.

RUSSELL: Do you really believe they’re not going to? Are you, are you serious about that? Are you seriously…? What good will that..? Oh my God. You and I just disagree. You and I just disagree.

I understand that you think that you can control the behavior of people that are dead set on taking your way of life away from you. I think you think you can control that…

UV: [mumbles] No, I didn’t say that…

RUSSELL: …and there’s only one thing you can do with that, and say, “No, dude, that’s not going to happen. That’s just not going to happen.

Now, let’s understand that this dates from 2015. It’s entirely possible that Russell’s views on the subject have changed, but I haven’t seen any evidence of that.

What we have here, though, are perfectly reasonable points raised in response to calls for gun control. It’s nothing we haven’t said here a thousand times or more.

The difference is that this is coming from a Hollywood Icon.

This is coming from Jack Burton and Snake Plisskin. This is Wyatt Earp and R.J. MacReady.

When we think of actors, we typically see their anti-gun side. They tend to live in a brain cloud that doesn’t allow anything but progressive talking points get through, including that gun control is the answer to all of society’s ills.

In the 2015 interview, they’re specifically talking during the environment after San Bernardino, but the talking points themselves could have come from two days after Lewiston or Uvalde. They haven’t changed, and that’s part of why that interview has gone viral nearly nine years later. It’s because they haven’t changed and neither has the truth.

Russell’s always been a bit more libertarian than the average Hollywood actor, and I respect that. Yet many people call themselves libertarian not because they love liberty but because they want to smoke pot legally or something of the sort.

My man here, though, is different. It seems he means libertarian to mean libertarian, and that includes supporting the right to keep and bear arms.

I don’t know about you, but I can’t help but love it.

If only more of the Hollywood elite would recognize that not only do they sell movie tickets with the help of guns but that our rights to tell whatever stories we want without government interference is protected by those same guns, and not in the hands of the police or politicians, but in the hands of we the people.

The right to keep and bear arms matters. It’s always matters and it always will.

At least Russell is an actor who doesn’t try to take the gun out of your hand while making a living with a gun in his own–*cough* Alec Baldwin *cough*. More than that, though, he’s willing to stand up during interviews and actually defend it to the press.

Again, I can’t help but love it.