Liam Neeson: Gun Ownership ‘Is A F*****g Disgrace’
Actor Liam Neeson is reportedly bashing U.S. gun ownership again.
In the past decade or so, Neeson has rebooted his career by starring in movies, primarily such as the Taken franchise, that feature lots of gunplay and hand-to-hand combat.
In a prior interview with the Independent of London, Neeson expressed strong support for gun control and an outright handgun ban. In the same interview, he deemed the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, the right to keep and bear arms, as “the problem.”
Neeson, 62, became an American citizen about five years ago and lives in New York City.
In a visit to Dubai this week to promote Taken 3, after first expressing his condolences for the victims of the Charlie Hebdo terror attack in Paris, Neeson revisited the subject of firearms in a press conference.
Said Neeson, according to GulfNews.com.
“There’s too many [expletive] guns out there. 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.'”
The action star also insisted that his violent movies bear no relationship to real life:
“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 [the viewers] are all going to go out and go, ‘Yeah, let’s get a gun!'”
Taken 3 has taken in about $39 million at the box office so far in its opening week.
NewsBusters took a dim view of Neeson’s anti-gun comments.
“To sum up, disturbed, marginalized people are never tempted to emulate violence they see glamorized in movies and TV. They are driven to their crimes by the sheer abundance of inanimate objects known as guns. That’s pretty stupid. Even by Hollywood standards.”
Breitbart added the following.
“Lost in the tirade was the fact that the discussion began with a focus on the attacks on Charlie Hebdo–attacks which took place in France, a country rich in gun control, yet one in which gun laws were impotent to spoil the plans of dedicated and well-trained attackers.”
You may recall that in the aftermath of the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting rampage in Newtown, Connecticut, a bunch of Hollywood A-list celebrities who already made a fortune from movies and TV shows, at least some of which portrayed gun violence, launched a gun control campaign called “demand a plan to end gun violence.”
When it comes to guns and gun control, do you think Liam Neeson is a concerned citizen or a Hollywood hypocrite, or maybe a little of both?
[image via Shutterstock]
