This feature appears in the February ‘17 issue of NRA America’s 1st Freedom, one of the official journals of the National Rifle Association.
Americans are apparently sick and tired of the constant push for more restrictive gun control laws.
In November, gun owners and other freedom-loving voters gave Hillary Clinton—who had become one of the most outspokenly anti-gun presidential candidates in history—her walking papers, finally driving her out of the public limelight. It was a tremendous victory for NRA, law-abiding gun owners and America in general.
But it didn’t stop there. In December, Americans once again rejected gun control in a big way—this time at the box office.
“Miss Sloane” was a much-hyped gun-control drama starring Jessica Chastain. In fact, her role as a crusader for a progressive cause—facing impossible odds as she switches sides to fight the “powerful gun lobby” and pass a “universal” background check bill—is the stuff anti-gun dreams are made of.
Turns out, though, that the moviegoing public is apparently just as sick of being told what’s best for them by anti-gun liberal elites as American voters are. “Miss Sloane” brought in a mere $1.9 million on its opening weekend, making it one of the worst openings ever—in fact, it was the 79th worst in the last 35 years!
To see how financially disastrous the film has been, simply consider the vast amount of money it has lost. At the time of this writing, not counting advertising expenses, the losses for the movie exceeded $14 million dollars.
True to form, however, Hollywood gun haters tried to make this defeat seem like a victory—just as they did after the election of President Donald Trump. Chastain received a Golden Globe nomination for Best Actress, the only nomination the movie received. (Too bad they don’t have an award for Best Actress In One Of The Worst-Received Films Ever.)
A well-known gun-ban group also got in on the action of trying to turn a flop into a blockbuster. The Brady Campaign—formerly called Handgun Control Inc.—shamelessly bragged about its “partnership” with Hollywood, despite that “partnership” birthing such a giant box office flop.
“‘Miss Sloane’ marks another chapter in Brady’s partnership with Hollywood to integrate the realities of gun violence into entertainment,” boasted Brendan Kelly, Brady’s press secretary. “While I’m not qualified to forecast how a film will perform, I can tell you that its production alone, with our input, is the success.”
While we admire Kelly’s glass-half-full attitude, playing any role in the making of one of the biggest box-office bombs in decades isn’t exactly something to brag about. Hopefully Hollywood investors will realize that gun control is a losing proposition even in the movies, and spare us any more liberal, feel-good films aimed at curtailing the rights of law-abiding American gun owners.
