How Hollywood Abuses Firearms

by
posted on March 27, 2019
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You can probably name more than a few movie stars who have made anti-gun statements recently and called for infringements on Second Amendment rights, but you probably haven’t realized the full spectrum of how the Hollywood movie industry is responsible for promoting senseless gun violence.

Hollywood depicts firearms as mere “props” to sell movies. How many guns have you seen used to market high-budget films in recent decades? Guns appear in posters, trailers and other marketing materials as gimmicks to sell movies to wide audiences.

Using firearms as selling points, Hollywood displays them as cheaply and as often in film advertisements as sunglasses or jeans. No understanding is imparted, no training shown. Hollywood promotes gun carelessness and desensitization—not gun safety.

Firearms in Hollywood are portrayed in films as killing machines, instruments of power or simply “cool-looking” objects for people to pose with. Firearms in movies are used like magic wands with a careless effort depicted like the mere push of a button. No understanding is given about the real and legitimate purposes for which guns are legally used by law-abiding American society.

Hollywood uses firearms in movies to amplify and glamorize fake violence—simply to advertise and sell movies to the public. The old Roman practice of selling “bread and circuses” to people for profit has, in modern times, taken on a whole new level as entertainers have sought to manipulate the image of the firearm.

Hollywood has hijacked the gun to sell its glossy fake violence to viewers. For example, Hollywood violence often depicts a single glamorous individual using firearms against “opponents”—often stuntmen whose identities are obscured to create a sense of meaninglessness. Ask yourself what effect those lies in images have on an impressionable human mind. 

In Hollywood movies, criminals wielding firearms are nearly always depicted as sleek, smart and powerful individuals—although, as televised police surveillance videos show us, that is a far cry from the truth.

Absent from Hollywood films are responsible ordinary law-abiding gun owners who use firearms to hunt game and protect themselves and others.

It is violent mindsets and thoughts that can create criminals—not guns. It goes without saying that minds, especially young ones, are influenced unduly by the images and suggestions they see constantly in Hollywood movies and film advertisements.

Those who bear responsibility for creating an environment in America conducive to violence are not law-abiding gun owners or outdoorsmen fighting to uphold their Second Amendment rights.

The real culprits are studio executives sitting in luxurious offices in Los Angeles—increasing filmed images of violence in human minds to increase dollar amounts in their bank accounts.

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William A. Bachenberg
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