U.S.A. -(AmmoLand.com)- Gun control advocates are once again pushing the entertainment industry to produce anti-gun propaganda with the explicit goal of advancing failed firearm legislation. The renewed overt effort will strike some as superfluous, given Hollywood’s lengthy track record of anti-gun agitprop and left-wing political monoculture.
In early January, entertainment industry magazine Variety published a lengthy interview with former congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords of the eponymous gun control organization Giffords. The piece outlined the group’s plans to influence Hollywood, noting,
One of Gabby Giffords’ priorities for 2021 is to forge relationships with writers, producers, celebrities, and decision-makers in Hollywood who can leverage their powerful platforms to speak out against gun violence, call for commonsense laws and support local community efforts to raise awareness about gun safety.
The Giffords organization came about as the result of a 2016 merger between gun control groups Americans for Responsible Solutions and the San Francisco-based Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence (formerly Legal Community Against Violence). In 2008, as Legal Community Against Violence, the group submitted a brief in the District of Columbia v. Heller case that argued the Second Amendment does not protect an individual right to keep and bear arms in the home for self-defense.
Giffords explained the “importance” of her group’s efforts in the following exchange with Variety,
Interviewer: Do you believe that the entertainment industry can play an important role in helping address the nation’s cultural and political divide?
Giffords: Stories are important. Elected officials use them to help get their points across, and for centuries artists have used them to inspire, make us understand points of view different than our own and bring people together. Hollywood and the arts are vitally important to helping us through a period of isolation, bitterness and divisiveness.
It’s not quite clear how pampered Hollywood elites belittling the lifestyle choices and attacking the fundamental rights of America’s 100 million gun owners would help to resolve the nation’s “bitterness and divisiveness.”
Of course, this isn’t the first time gun control advocates have sought to directly influence a receptive entertainment industry.
Since 2000, the Entertainment Industries Council, whose purported goal is “Encouraging the entertainment industry to more effectively address and accurately depict major health and social issues,” has urged content producers to explore anti-gun scenarios and talking points in their television programs and films. The messaging effort was developed with the participation of Brady (formerly Handgun Control, Inc.) and handgun prohibitionist organization Violence Policy Center. For a time, anti-gun benefactor the Joyce Foundation even granted awards for television programs and films that most faithfully followed their anti-gun directives.
In an April 27, 2016 item, Variety detailed the ongoing efforts of Billionaire Michael Bloomberg’s Everytown for Gun Safety and Brady to use Hollywood to condition the American public against guns.
Sadly, many so-called “creatives” appear all too eager to take artistic direction from a septuagenarian Wall Street tycoon.
The Variety piece pointed to an NRA-fueled storyline in the Netflix political drama “House of Cards” as one example. Everytown President John Feinblatt consulted with the show’s writers, supposedly in order to “make sure they got it right.” As is often the case with propaganda, Feinblatt and the show’s writers did not get it right when it came to their characterization of federal gun laws or NRA’s grassroots activism. Everytown also arranged that the website for the show’s fictional gun control group redirects to their own.
Illustrating the scope of Everytown’s effort to conscript the entertainment industry, the Bloomberg front group has several employees devoted to this effort, including a “Director of Cultural Engagement,” a “Senior Manager of Cultural Engagement,” and a “Senior Director of Cultural Engagement.” On her Linkedin page, Senior Director of Cultural Engagement Noelle Howey described her duties to include “Manage storytelling endeavors, including the creation of digital assets, collateral, and a wide variety of activations that bring together artists and cultural creators with advocates for gun safety.”
The gun-control group has also attempted to marshal Hollywood’s support through its “Everytown Creative Council.” Established in 2015, the Everytown website describes this campaign as “a group of actors, directors, musicians, artists, designers, producers, and writers, along with other partners and allies in the entertainment industry” intent on “using their communications skills and the power of culture to galvanize Americans” to support further gun control.
Not content to indoctrinate the public with television and film, Bloomberg’s lackey’s have even sought to pervert the culture through literature. According to Everytown, its “Authors Council” “is open to authors, illustrators, and editors; agents; and others deeply connected in the literary community” and “is designed to harness the power of the literary community to amplify” the gun control agenda.
Detailing an example of the Brady organization’s efforts to re-educate the public, the April 2016 Variety piece explained how officials from the gun control group consulted with the writers of CBS’s legal drama “The Good Wife” on an episode advocating the organization’s position on gun dealer liability and the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act. In a press release that accompanied the episode, Brady noted their ongoing efforts to engage “celebrities and partners in the entertainment industry,” and explained the “valuable role Hollywood and cultural influencers can play in facilitating essential conversations.” Additionally, Brady worked with “Grey’s Anatomy” writers to interject an anti-gun message into an episode of the ABC medical drama, titled, “Trigger Happy.”
Gun control groups have made clear their intent to use a willing Hollywood to indoctrinate the public against the Second Amendment. Therefore, it is NRA members and other gun rights supporters’ duty to help neutralize this brainwashing campaign by alerting their family and friends to gun control groups’ wide range of propaganda techniques.
About NRA-ILA:
Established in 1975, the Institute for Legislative Action (ILA) is the “lobbying” arm of the National Rifle Association of America. ILA is responsible for preserving the right of all law-abiding individuals in the legislative, political, and legal arenas, to purchase, possess, and use firearms for legitimate purposes as guaranteed by the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Visit: www.nra.org
The Hollywood Hypocrites love guns in movies and TV. But do not want us to have them!
They already push enough. Because of movies, suppressors are still banned because idiot politicians think the guns are silent
That is the reason for knife laws, such as switchblades. They watched West Side Story, and that was that for our knife laws. @SEMPAI, as to John Wick movies, there’s still a lot wrong with those, especially that one scene where Keanu’s character and a “bad guy” (the “former” assassin Wick, isn’t really a “good guy”) are in a crowded subway station shooting at each other and no one sees nor hears anything. Keanu might know how to shoot, but that is the only “realistic” part of those movies. I surely would not call an extremely violent movie with bad… Read more »
Remove any and all armed Police and security from all awards shows and their residences–lets see how long it takes them to change their minds
It’s time for peaceful civil disobedience. I know Democraps and gun control freaks are brain dead zombies and don’t care about reason or laws, or peace; their ANTIFA and BLM goons have shown that. But nevertheless. We all must remind ourselves constantly that civil disobedience is not only a right, it’s an obligation. If it’s unconstitutional, then it’s illegal. If it’s illegal, it has no place in America. No matter what unconstitutional laws they may pass, civil disobedience is never illegal if the fight is to protect out Constitution and BoR original intent. The majority of legal gun owners are… Read more »
There ought to be a bounty on Antifa and BLM terrorists
PAF145,
No need for that, just make it open season with no bag limit.
Yes. Just like for feral hogs in Texas!
I agree that it is proper to start with “peaceful” civil disobedience… but we all know that such initial steps are only appropriate for Republics and free societies, but will NOT be successful against tyrants or Leftist control freaks. Eventually, stronger steps will be required, if only to get through TO those socialistic asses [hey, I can call them that – accurately – because the DemocRat Party icon really IS a donkey!!].
Obtain a copy of the US Constitution and read it, study it and understand it, as it is written. You can’t go wrong following it.
Leftists/DemocRats/Socialists… CAN’T READ!! (And they’re too damned stupid and prideful to ask anyone to read it to them.) Thus, the only thing they can do is to “go wrong.”
But, but, but… (as Ocrazio-Cortez complained) the Constitution is written in cursive!!!
You mean like the whole john wick series?
I’m guessing keanu didn’t get the e mail or Hollywood’s full of shit.
Yup! Hollyweird is full of shit! Most actors can’t even act. When they open their mouths, we know they either playing a role, lying, or spewing crap. But not everyone in the movie industry is a brain dead zombie. Many are law abiding patriots that believe in the 2nd A and in Liberty and stand for the right to own and bear arms.
There’s just not enough of them to school the others.
Keanu is pro gun though.
If Hollywood is so dead-set against guns then they should quit USING guns in all their movies. Many times the movie glorifies gun use!
Or are they just a bunch of typical Leftist snot-nosed hypocrites, that say one thing and practice another?
We ALL know the answer to that question!
One question…
WHOSE version of “commonsense”??
[That of 100 million rational, responsible, knowledgeable gun owners? Or that of an idiotic, deceitful hoplophobe who irrationally fears and hates inanimate and non-sentient chunks of metal and plastic? I know which I would choose.]
For people like me who have never heard of the word Hoplophobia:
Hoplophobia is a political neologism coined by retired American military officer Jeff Cooper as a pejorative to describe an “irrational aversion to weapons.” It is also used to describe the “fear of firearms” or the “fear of armed citizens.” Hoplophobia is listed simply as a phobia in some medical dictionaries as a fear of weapons or firearms.
Thank you… I occasionally forget that not all citizens (gun owners and non-gun owners alike) are familiar with Colonel Cooper, or his writings.
Giffords isn’t explaining or even commenting on anything. She a brain damaged puppet of her scumbag husband and now Senator from Arizona, Mark Kelly.
As a generous soul, I give any TV series I start watching 3 strikes. After the third instance of anti-gun messaging (ever notice how bad the dialogue is in these episodes?) I permanently and irrevocably drop the show from my watch list. Since it is endemic, I now spend a lot less time in front of the tube and have more time to read Ammoland!