Matthew McConaughey’s emotional White House speech
Actor Matthew McConaughey appeared overcome with emotion as he issued a plea during a surprise White House speech.
Actor Matthew McConaughey went from the big screen to the White House to make an impassioned plea for compromise on new gun control measures from the briefing room podium.
Declaring that responsible gun owners like himself are “fed up with the Second Amendment being abused and hijacked by deranged individuals,” the Oscar-winner delivered emotional remarks that included personal tales of heartbreak about last month’s mass school shooting in his hometown of Uvalde, Texas.
While the 52-year-old insisted he wasn’t anti-guns, and that “Uvalde is where I learned responsible gun ownership”, he said new gun laws were needed.
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“We need to restore our American values and we need responsible gun ownership,” he said defiantly during his 20-minute speech, after which he left without taking questions from the assembled members of the press.
“We need background checks, we need to raise the minimum age to purchase an AR-15 rifle to 21, we need a waiting period for those rifles, we need red flag laws and consequences for those who abuse them,” he said.
“These regulations are not a step back, they’re a step forward for a civil society and the Second Amendment.
“Is this a cure all? Hell no. But people are hurting, families are, parents are.”
In his speech, McConaughey also described the lives of some of the victims of the May 24 Robb Elementary School shooting in which 19 children and two teachers were killed.
He said he had met with many of the families of victims after the massacre – recalling that one girl had to be identified by her green Converse shoes.
In a statement to the press pool, the White House described McConaughey as “a native of Uvalde, father, and gun owner”.
The A-list actor was joined by his wife Camila Alves on his Washington D.C. trip, where he also visited the Capitol and met with US President Joe Biden. However his handlers shielded him from reporter questions throughout.
McConaughey decided last year against running for Texas governor as a centrist after briefly flirting with the idea.
The White House briefing room cameo comes after Mr Biden met with Senator Chris Murphy on Tuesday to discuss the status of bipartisan gun control talks.
Mr Biden has called for a ban on AR-15-style weapons in the US, but it’s possible there could be enough support for narrower restrictions, such as an increased age limit for semiautomatic guns.
The Uvalde shooting was committed by 18-year-old Salvador Ramos with a legally purchased AR-15-style rifle. Just 10 days earlier, 18-year-old Payton Gendron allegedly murdered 10 people at a Buffalo, NY, grocery store with an AR-15-style rifle that he legally purchased.
In 2018, former president Donald Trump endorsed raising the AR-15 age limit after 19-year-old Nikolas Cruz used a legally purchased AR-15 to murder 17 people at a high school in Parkland, Florida.
This story originally appeared on Page Six and is republished here with permission
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