Action movies have long been a Hollywood staple. From westerns to buddy cop movies, the firearm has cemented its place in cinema history. After all, blockbusters aren't those movies about a touching romance or a tender coming of age story. They're the ones with butts getting kicked and guns getting shot.
However, according to one article published recently in the American Journal of Preventative Medicine, movies are the problem with so-called gun violence.
The 1990s called and wanted their talking point back, but alas, here we are.
This time, though, the author wants Hollywood to treat guns like they did smoking.
Efforts to reduce firearm violence and injury in the US focus mainly on policies that deter persons at risk of unjustified firearm use. These programs attempt to prevent those who might use firearms from harming others or themselves. What has been overlooked are more universal strategies to reduce the demand for firearms, especially handguns, which are the most frequently used weapon for violent purposes. It is also the weapon that is cited by the Supreme Court as sufficiently popular to justify its protection under the Second Amendment. Here it is argued that the widespread portrayal of firearms in entertainment is closely related to the increase in the sales of handguns and their use specifically for assaults rather than for suicide, especially in young people. The public health approach to the reduction of demand for cigarettes provides a useful model for reducing the appeal of handguns. Such a universal strategy can add to the selective and indicated strategies that are currently highlighted in efforts to control firearm use.
To prove his point, that there's a high correlation between guns in films and so-called gun violence, the author provides this graph:
Notice anything about it?
That's right, it cuts off right at the worst of the post-pandemic homicide spike, yet doesn't follow through with the next four years, where there have been tons of guns in films and tons of homicides not happening.
The information is out and easily found, so why leave it out? To make a point, and that point is that it's somehow bad to actually like firearms. After all, he wants Hollywood to stop treating firearms favorably in films, right? That's why it needs to be treated like cigarettes, in his mind.
The difference is that cigarettes don't save lives. They're not saving somewhere between 600,000 and 2.5 million lives per year. Cigarettes are cancer-causing things that hurt not just the user, but everyone around them, and have no redeeming qualities. And for what it's worth, smoking in movies and TV shows appears to be making a comeback.
While the author may try to downplay the benefits of firearms, the truth of the matter is that he knows good and well that those benefits sell guns. He doesn't want people thinking guns are cool, so he wants Hollywood to somehow only let guns be portrayed as evil.
Because he's apparently not done much in the way of looking at how armed citizens are portrayed in film and television.
Regardless, I think we can rest easy, because while Hollywood will never be our ally on guns, despite making massive profits because of them, the reality is that those profits are going to keep them from kowtowing to this particular jackwagon.
Editor’s Note: The radical Left will stop at nothing to enact their extreme gun control agenda and strip us of our Second Amendment rights.
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