The Patriot Post® · Hollywood's Gun-Violence Hypocrisy

In the wake of the horrific school shootings at Sandy Hook and Parkland, Hollywood responded with public service announcements denouncing “gun violence” and supporting gun control efforts such as the March for Our Lives rally. But in both instances, instead of doing some serious soul-searching and accepting responsibility for creating a culture of violence, prominent actors lashed out at the Second Amendment, the NRA, and Republicans.

Simply observing that the Left engages in hypocrisy on this issue doesn’t go nearly far enough. The Hollywood elite and their mouthpieces have been peddling violence for decades while decrying America’s “obsession” with guns and violence.

Americans have let them get away with it for too long, and we need to start calling them out for promoting the violence they sanctimoniously claim to deplore.

Now that President Joe Biden is in the White House, the Left is aggressively pushing for more gun control. A report by the NRA’s Institute for Legislative Action details a list of priorities that Democrats hope to realize in Biden’s first term.

In order to gin up support for these efforts, the entertainment industry is hell-bent on making sure Americans know who to blame for gun violence.

As the esteemed John Lott writes, “CBS is in a full-court press for gun control on its evening entertainment television shows. The bad guys are always white supremacists who use machine guns — supposedly AR-15s — to commit mass public shootings. Criminals in Mexico supposedly get machine guns from the United States. A father’s desire to protect his family only leads to tragedy when his daughter gets into the gun safe and uses the weapon in a mass public shooting. And guns in the home pose a danger for children. Gun registration is necessary for solving crime.”

The Leftmedia often claims that movies and television have no influence on the way media consumers think and act. If this were true, though, CBS and other networks wouldn’t be trying to turn their viewers into gun control advocates. Instead, they’d be producing movies and television programs with less violence.

Instead, they claim, Americans just can’t get enough of what they’re selling.

A position paper by the American Academy of Family Physicians concludes, “While multiple factors can lead to violent actions, a growing body of literature shows a strong association between the perpetration of violence and exposure to violence in media, digital media, and entertainment.” The paper highlights some troubling statistics when it comes to the prevalence of violence in movies, TV shows, and video games.

But the push to get Biden to implement a broad anti-gun agenda isn’t going to be easy, and that’s causing some on the Left to criticize his lack of action. “Any attempt to repeal liability protections for gun manufacturers will initiate a war with Second Amendment proponents who will look to block any such proposal in court,” says Rick Moran. Fortunately, he adds, “With the Senate currently at 50-50, Biden isn’t likely to get anything done on guns.” At least not legislatively.

One reason for the hesitation among some legislators is the lack of broad public support for gun restrictions. A Gallup poll this past November showed the lowest support for such onerous regulations in four years. Undeterred by this reality, Democrats are pushing Biden to use executive action to bypass the legislative process.

Although censorship and cancel culture are becoming a fashionable way to silence and punish conservative viewpoints, no one is calling for the censorship of the entertainment industry. But the industry’s self-proclaimed concern over “gun violence” would carry more weight if it weren’t continuously promoting violence.