Guns, Hollywood and the Second Amendment - Part 2

Henry Payne

Since our recent post about guns and media hypocrisy, a few things are getting clearer.

A new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll finds that the National Rifle Association is more popular than the entertainment industry.

• Forty-one percent of adults see the NRA -- the nation's top gun lobby -- in a positive light, while 34 percent view it in a negative light.
• By comparison, just 24 percent have positive feelings about the entertainment industry, and 39 percent have negative ones.

The Journal News in Westchester County, New York, has taken down its controversial online map with the names and addresses of legal gun permit holders after the New York State Legislature passed a new law making such information confidential and protected from the Freedom of Information Act. Yet, publisher Janet Hasson delivered an unapologetic and sanctimonious defense of the paper's decision to publish the map. A quick scan of the readers' comments section makes clear no one's buying it.

And, Anthony Lane, the film critic at The New Yorker, wrote about Hollywood's complicity in gun violence. Lane explains that the film Gangster Squad deleted its scene of a shootout in a movie theater after the real carnage at the screening of The Black Knight Rises in Aurora, Colorado, and then the film Jack Reacher was delayed one month after the school shooting in Sandy Hook. Lane calls these decisions "respectable and responsible." Read more of his Hollywood apologia here:

"To claim that all due respect has been paid, however, or that all ethical responsibilities have been fulfilled, would be disingenuous. The issue of screen violence carries far less weight, in such fathomless horrors, than that of gun control; the connection between what a disturbed and resentful young man used to watch, or play on his computer, and what he then wreaks in public with an assault weapon wouldn't matter if he couldn't lay his hands on such a weapon in the first place. Yet the connection, however oblique, exists. You can argue that evil will seek a blueprint and find a way, but we are still obliged, I think, to pass beyond the pathology of a madman and pose a vaster and no less vexing question. What does it mean for the majority of us, the nonviolent millions, that year after year, we should observe such a rising flood of fictional savage acts that, after a while, we barely notice or mind? And is there anything that a filmmaker could or should do to stem the flow?"

Guns, Hollywood and the Second Amendment

The New Yorker - Threshold - Chris Ware

Since the tragic December 14 school shootings in Newtown, Connecticut, battle lines are being been drawn on possible new gun laws restricting Second Amendment rights. It's an emotional and constitutional issue no matter which side one takes. Surely some changes should be made, especially better background checks, but more gun laws by themselves won't change America's violent culture.

And you have to question the role and responsibility the media and Hollywood play in informing and inflaming public opinion and behavior. Much has been written about how both, in their zeal for ratings and revenue, sensationalize mass killings and murderers, real and fictional.

A local newspaper here in Westchester County, New York, claiming Freedom of Information rights, has published an online map of pistol permits under the headline: Map: Where are the gun permits in your neighborhood? A click on each red dot reveals the name and address of the legal owner. These aren't sexual predators mind you, they're decent, honest citizens with gun permits. Some are neighbors and friends.

Not surprisingly, the Journal News, a Gannett publication, got strong criticism for their actions. But instead of taking the map down, they doubled down and are seeking similar FOI rights to publish a second map of permit holders north of Westchester in Putnam County. Putnam County officials have refused to share the information. One Katonah retailer is suing for defamation.

Meanwhile, the newspaper invoked its Second Amendment rights and hired armed guards to protect employees at its offices.

Even more irony abounds in Hollywood. Earnest celebrities implore us in a new PSA to Demand a Plan to restrict gun rights. The commercial opens with actor Jamie Foxx, the star of the latest Quentin Tarantino revenge fantasy bloodfest, Django Unchained.  Last Saturday Foxx yucked it up as host of Saturday Night live, explaining that in the movie he "kills all the white people" with a gun. The SNL crowd roared with laughter.

Watch it and the rebuttal clip that follows (and apologies for the unneeded text insults at the end). That's right, enough, you can't have it both ways.