Actor Matthew McConaughey (Anadolu)
WASHINGTON – Renowned actor Matthew McConaughey took to the White House podium Tuesday to issue an emotional plea for greater US gun control after a devastating school shooting rocked his hometown of Uvalde, Texas.
The shooting at the Robb Elementary School on May 24 is the deadliest in Texas and the third deadliest in US history. A gunman fatally shot 19 students and two teachers with an AR-15-style assault rifle.
The Dallas Buyers Club and True Detective star fought back tears as he recounted meetings with victims' families, saying that in light of the gruesome violence inflicted on innocent children "it feels like real change can happen."
"How can the loss of these lives matter?" he asked.
Camila Alves McConaughey, Matthew's wife, held a pair of green Converse shoes on her lap that were used to identify one of the victims, because Maite Rodriguez, the 10-year-old girl who wore them, had drawn a heart on the right foot to represent her love of nature.
The shoes "turned out to be the only clear evidence that could identify her after the shooting," the actor said, slamming the White House podium. "How about that?" he asked.
Most of the victims' bodies, McConaughey said, were "so mutilated that only DNA tests or green Converse could identify them."
"Many children were left not only dead, but hollow," he said, emphasizing the sheer devastation wrought on the victims by the shooter's AR-15 rifle.
"We want secure and safe schools, and we want gun laws that won’t make it so easy for the bad guys to get these damn guns,” added McConaughey.
He pointed to several gun control reforms being mulled by lawmakers, including background checks, raising the minimum age to purchase an AR-15-style rifle to 21, a waiting period for those rifles, red flag laws "and consequences for those who abuse them."
"Responsible gun owners are fed up with the Second Amendment being abused and highjacked by some deranged individuals. These regulations are not a step back, they're a step forward for civil society and the Second Amendment," he said. "As divided as our country is, this gun responsibility is one that we agree on more than we don't. This should be a nonpartisan issue." (Anadolu)
