Liam Neeson might be brandishing a gun on posters for Taken 3 all around town, but in light of the recent Charlie Hebdo attacks in France, and ongoing protests against police brutality in America, the actor told tabloid! he’s still firmly in favour of gun control.
“First off, my thoughts and prayers and my heart are with the deceased, and certainly with all of France, yesterday. I’ve got a lot of dear friends in Paris,” the 62-year-old said.
“There’s too many [expletive] guns out there,” he continued. “Especially in America. I think the population is like, 320 million? There’s over 300 million guns. Privately owned, in America. I think it’s a [expletive] disgrace. Every week now we’re picking up a newspaper and seeing, ‘Yet another few kids have been killed in schools.’”
Asked whether or not he thinks this issue extends to police responsibility, he said: “Let’s not get into it. Let’s put it this way: I think a light has been shone on the justice system in America, and it’s a justifiable light.”
It may seem a tad hypocritical for an actor who is most famous for killing people who take his kidnap his family members, however Neeson does not think that cinema is the problem:
“A character like Bryan Mills going out with guns and taking revenge: it’s fantasy. It’s in the movies, you know? I think it can give people a great release from stresses in life and all the rest of it, you know what I mean? It doesn’t mean they’re all going to go out and go, ‘Yeah, let’s get a gun!’,” he added.
I actually agree with that. After all one of the most popular movies of all time is the Lord of the Rings trilogy and yet you don't hear of too many cases of people killing each other with bows and arrows.
I personally am a huge fan of action movies, and have watched literally hundred, yet I own no firearms and have never brandished one in anger.
People kill people with guns because guns are plentiful and because we are taught from infancy that they are a source of prestige and power in this country.
I have always seen that as a sign of weakness, not strength.
It is outrageous. In the UK people own hunting rifles and handguns are banned. Why does anybody need a handgun? One also has to wonder why some people have an obsession with guns? What is that about?
ReplyDeleteWatched Taken 2 the other night and we couldn't believe it when we heard there was a Taken 3! We were joking during Taken 2, like what's gonna happen next? They take his housepets? Rob Roy says "give my daughter back her Ferret and Kitty or I will shoot you!"
ReplyDeleteSeriously, they've milked the hell out of this franchise, and you'd think he'd have been embarrassed to even have made the second one, but a third?
He could put his money where his mouth is and simply not do these violence laden films, but as long as he does, and obviously for a paycheck and not for the artistic integrity of the projects, he can just shut up.
Those of us who live in the country or have farms do sometimes need firearms. Some people legitimately hunt for subsistence living.
ReplyDeleteLots of people in the out back (Alaskans) surely do need weapons for self defense from predators of the animal kind, especially angry mama grizzlies
(real ones, not that idiot grifter from Wasilla)
Oh, and O/T the outright insanity of the C4pee Pond today
is just out of control
Two of the inmates over there are 100% convinced that President Obama is building a secret army to commit genocide against rill 'Muricans:
Quote:
Tread 7:
obama is now, openly through the State Dept., bringing thousands of muslims from Syria every month and has already imported hundreds of thousands in an effort to build that civilian army he promised to create.
Mark 1955
Obama is also helping to build his "Envisioned National Security Force", with the Mexican,Guatemalan and El Salvadoran convicts in order to be Trained and equipped in American Military gear, to Try and help Obama and company commit Genocide against us!...
Of course they can't even agree on WHO President Obama is importing to enslave all the white Christians in FEMA camps, they just know it has to be happening, they read it on the interwebz!
I have no faith any more that most of my fellow humans have any more common sense than Michelle Bachmann
Good thing I speak Spanish, I may just have to join with the "Great Brown Forces" and stamp out the TeaParty Stupidity forever :-)
DeleteOne of my favorite classic movies was The Handmaid's Tale
ReplyDeletehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Handmaid%27s_Tale
with Mrs. Liam Neeson (Natasha Richardson). Both great actors.
BTW IT MUST BE PAST TIME TO BOYCOTT CNN.
Jeremy Scahill to CNN: You and Other Networks Use ‘Frauds’ as Terror Experts
http://www.mediaite.com/tv/jeremy-scahill-to-cnn-you-and-other-networks-use-frauds-as-terror-experts/
French PM: We’re at War Against ‘Radical Islamism,’ Not Islam
http://www.mediaite.com/online/french-pm-were-at-war-against-radical-islamism-not-islam/
It's really past time to boycott all Cable News Networks, any of 'em and all of 'em. Seek out your news on the web, instead of only seeing on TV what the corporate overlords want you to see.
DeleteStill pushing gun control eh?
ReplyDeleteGood luck in 2016.
You seem to forget that well over 80% of the nation's population feels the same way. Eventually your bought politicians will lose. Probably right after it is PROVEN they are bought off by the like of the NRA and the Cocks! (NOT to be confused with the Gamecocks!)
DeleteI'm for gun control in the sense that people need to be tested and licensed and all ammunitions and gun purchases need to be from lawful organizations that enter owners and gun and ammo purchases into a database, just like cars. License, registration and insurance. Is that too much to ask? I mean, really, I don't care if the lower echelons of our society keep picking each other and themselves off with guns, but the rest of us, the reasonable segment of society, would feel much more comfortable if there was a responsibility on the part of the gun owner, a liability, so to speak, and a proper vetting process prior to these people being able to own weapons.
DeleteGuns = Dick extenders
DeleteKeep up that sensless joke 4:25. It does nothing but make the gun control advocates look petty and childish, and generally ignorant.
DeleteNo, 5:07. I'll repeat as often as I can. It's not a joke, it's a simple fact: Gun fetishists are the living embodiment of overcompensation.
DeleteAwesome 5:55. You go ahead keep up that arguement. No doubt you will be taken seriously and have a huge impact on convincing gun owners to give up their rights.
DeleteWay to go bro!
And you keep uselessly denying that overcompensating isn't integral to gun fetishism, 8:19. I get why you're doing it; it's an embarrassing thing to admit to. That's why you're trying to shame those who point it out, although really, it's so, so obvious that pointing it out is redundant.
DeleteThats right 8:39, you've got all the gun owners by 'the balls'. You are totally right. Keep up the arguement, joke, or whatever it is, because it is very witty, logical and intelligent. It gets funnier every time too. Most jokes don't do that when they are overused, but not the dick-gun joke. It just stays fresh. You are awesome champ.
Delete"... and because we are taught from infancy that they are a source of prestige and power in this country."
ReplyDeleteYou don't think the endless supply of hideously gratuitously violent (or as you euphemistically refer to them, "action") movies - which usually also include utterly routine gratuitious sexism and misogyny - or, like the LOTR movies, very few female characters at all, and certainly none in lead roles - teaches anything?
I beg to differ.
People don't kill other people with bows and arrows because carrying bows and arrows is impractical. But the movies do make them look pretty cool, if old school. Guns are practical, but they're also glamorous, in large part because of entertainment media. Neeson's position is hypocritical. He makes money off of the "sexiness" of guns, but then decries their abundance in the country. We all know people carry weapons more for psychological need than physical need. These open-carry folks think of themselves as Rambo, because Rambo was awesome cool, and they need that (because otherwise they're not really anything special). Neeson needs to start making and calling for media entertainment that de-glamorizes guns. When he stops getting rich off of brandishing weapons on screen, I'll start listening to his opinions on guns.
ReplyDeleteBingo.
DeleteI've seen enough of the spoils of "gun culture" to last me a lifetime. I've seen autopsy photos that have caused me to wretch, I've read coroners reports, police paperwork, witness statements and "exhibits" shown in courts. Sorry, it's nothing close to what people imagine, a small hole entering and exiting and a few lines of blood. The words "gun culture" are an oxymoron, and we need fewer, not more. I've cut back on helping with that work because they're real people to me, and rarely find the outcome of the trials, or I'd be glued to the television and police department.
ReplyDeleteI do realize there ARE situations where guns are needed to survive, but people in cities can survive pretty well without them. We need to allow the guns our forefathers spoke of, the ones where you packed the barrel with gunpowder then shot one bullet. Clean out your gun, repeat, shoot. This gives the gun owner time to think if it's worth the work involved to pull a trigger and fire one shot.
Some of the photos of gun shot victims are indistinguishable from rhorschack tests. A magnum and hollow point bullets? Assault weapons with clips? What and how many are they protecting themselves from?
UBER GUN FLICK
ReplyDeletehttp://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/jan/06/real-american-sniper-hate-filled-killer-why-patriots-calling-hero-chris-kyle
I have to confess: I was suckered by the trailer for American Sniper. It’s a masterpiece of short-form tension – a confluence of sound and image so viscerally evocative it feels almost domineering. You cannot resist. You will be stressed out. You will feel. Or, as I believe I put it in a blog about the trailer, “Clint Eastwood’s American Sniper trailer will ruin your pants.”
But however effective it is as a piece of cinema, even a cursory look into the film’s backstory – and particularly the public reaction to its release – raises disturbing questions about which stories we choose to codify into truth, and whose, and why, and the messy social costs of transmogrifying real life into entertainment.
Chris Kyle, a US navy Seal from Texas, was deployed to Iraq in 2003 and claimed to have killed more than 255 people during his six-year military career. In his memoir, Kyle reportedly described killing as “fun”, something he “loved”; he was unwavering in his belief that everyone he shot was a “bad guy”.
The real American Sniper was a hate-filled killer. Why are simplistic patriots treating him as a hero?
http://img.scoop.it/6Wh-G0DxYgAP7jk64wZlXjl72eJkfbmt4t8yenImKBVvK0kTmF0xjctABnaLJIm9
This is a very enjoyable read, Gryphen!
ReplyDeleteDear Don Lemon: Thanks for Making Me Famous
...After nearly 15 years of journalism and thousands of media interviews, I can honestly say that I have never become more “famous” than after this latest Don Lemon gaffe. It is a sincere honor to be added to the litany of famous “Malaysian-black-hole-penis-biting” Don Lemon media gaffes which can be added to his audition tape for his next job at FOX News Channel.
So from the bottom of my heart, I want to publicly thank Don Lemon for making me famous with his patently offensive racist dumb-ass question.
http://www.theislamicmonthly.com/dear-don-lemon-thanks-for-making-me-famous/
Republican Congressman Randy Weber Apologizes For Comparing Obama To Hitler
ReplyDeletehttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/01/13/randy-weber-obama-apology-hitler_n_6464860.html?utm_hp_ref=politics
Too many guns everywhere, without question. Loaded topic, especially in America. If you travel abroad, you'll find people of many nations are aghast at American gun culture. I don't oppose gun ownership per se. I eat meat, so it would be hypocritical to condemn hunting. Like most moral issues, it's multi-factorial.
ReplyDeleteGuns kill people. Over and over we learn this lesson. In my small town, a man was killed on New Year's Day because he was drunk and loud. He was shot dead by an Army Ranger, one of two such armed military men who chose to involve himself (for reasons still unclear) in a family altercation. The DA is investigating, but the police have called it self-defense.
I've never used a gun. My husband did, many times, as an Army Ranger himself, Vietnam, 199th Light Infantry, "Ranger Patrolling Committee," 1969-70. He's 160% disabled (under the VA rating system) due to his exposure to concentrated Agent Orange in III Corps. (Poetic justice is deeply, relentlessly morbid. He survived his steel pot being shot off his head, a VC pongee stick booby-trap injury to his thigh, and other horrors in-country.He was awarded for his brave service. No good deed goes unpunished.)
He would never allow a gun in our house. He was adamant about it. It took me years to realize how strong and true his attitude was.
Our gun culture kills people. Even in families in which guns are intended just for hunting, the kids may see guns as a viable solution to personal and social problems--as in the Marysville-Pilchuck HS shooting in Washington State a few months ago.
Guns kill people, but beyond that, a gun culture kills people. We are all at risk, and our children are especially vulnerable. What I pray is that it's not too late for us to redeem ourselves.
Helluva story, but to each his own. It is a free country.
DeleteSo exactly how "free" is your country when the vast majority of your citizens want effective gun control legislation and an organizations like the NRA and your bought-and-paid-off politicians say "No way"? How free from gun violence are your citizens when they're in school, in a shopping mall, walking down the street, attending religious services, or even in their own homes? You call that freedom? I call it enslavement. The rest of the developed world is aghast at what is happening in your country. You should be too. You obviously don't know what the word "free" means.
DeleteWell Maple I don't think you know how serious people take the rights instilled by the 2nd amendment, who want no part of giving up those guaranteed freedoms and security due to people like you, who would exchange liberty under the guise of false safety.
DeleteYou Maple, do not understand.
Try re-reading your 2nd amendment and tell me how many "well-organized militias" it applies to. Back when it was written, the US was still afraid of the Brits attacking (oh, and those pesky native peoples too), so it behooved the populace to form a defence in the manner of well-organized militias. Now you have the world's largest armed forces to do the job. So tell me, what part of the original 2nd amendment still applies?
DeleteI worry about a society that thinks actors should be telling the rest of us how to live.
ReplyDelete