Actors Alec Baldwin and Michael Douglas are joining forces with Democratic vice presidential candidate Tim Kaine to support the anti-NRA film, Making a Killing: Guns, Greed, and the NRA.
The film — hailed as an “Oscar contender” by online Hollywood trade outlet Deadline — also has the backing of California Lt. Governor Gavin Newsom (D), an ardent gun control proponent.
Baldwin, Douglas, and Newsom lent their support to Making a Killing via video appearances promoting the film, while Kaine offered a “promotional quote.” Kaine’s quote gets to the crux of the film’s contention; namely, that the NRA and gun companies oppose more gun control because they do not want to lose “power” or money.
Kaine said:
Making a Killing shines a light on the inordinate power that gun manufacturers and the NRA exert on our political system and the countless tragedies that occur because of politicians’ unwillingness to stand up to that power. The stories of the victims of firearm loopholes are instrumental in exposing what’s wrong with our gun laws. I hope my colleagues in Congress will hear the voices in this film and find the courage to side with citizens over the gun lobby.
Douglas uses his video to suggest his family could be safer if the NRA would support more gun control. In so doing, he wrongly claims “over 33,000 Americans were killed by guns [in 2013].” Hillary Clinton made this same claim in April and has made it repeatedly in the months since, but Breitbart News has reported that the number of Americans who died due to gun violence in 2013 was actually 11,208 — nearly 22,000 less than the figure cited by Douglas and Clinton.
On April 11, Breitbart News reported:
The U.S. averages around 30,000 firearm-related deaths a year. Of these, a very small number are accidental while about a third of the 30,000 are actually related to “gun violence.” For example, the overall number of firearm-related deaths in 2013 was approximately 32,888. Of these, the number of accidental deaths was 505 and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported the number of deaths due to actual “gun violence” was 11,208. But when Clinton repeats these numbers, she adds accidental deaths and homicides — which equals 11,713 — then adds the 21,175 firearm-related suicides, rounds the number off at “33,000,” and names “gun violence” as the cause for all these things.
Yet Douglas parrots the gun control talking points, even going so far as to ask Americans to throw Making a Killing screening parties in their homes:
Baldwin’s video is similar to the one featuring Douglas, in that it shows him parroting gun control talking points–including the claim that “over 33,000 Americans were killed by guns in one year alone.” He also uses the phrase “gun safety” instead of gun control — a linguistic shift gun control groups made after getting shellacked in the 2014 midterm elections. Baldwin also echoes Douglas’ claim that his family would be safer if the NRA quit blocking the passage of more gun laws:
Baldwin, Douglas, and Kaine never bring up the fact that Paris, France has every gun control measure that Democrats are pushing at the federal level in the U.S., yet they also saw 12 people gunned down at the offices of satirical cartoon Charlie Hebdo on January 7, 2015, and saw another 130 gunned down in a firearm-based terror attack on November 13.
The celebrities also fail to mention that Washington state, California, and Colorado all have the comprehensive background checks that gun control proponents seek under the guise of making Americans safer. However, such checks did nothing to stop the September 23 mass shooting in Burlington, Washington, the December 2, 2015, firearm-based terror attack in San Bernardino, California, and the November 27, 2015, Planned Parenthood attack in Colorado Springs, Colorado.
The laws in Paris, Burlington, San Bernardino, and Colorado Springs failed because gun control is not the same thing as “gun safety.” Rather, it represents a heightened degree of restriction on the behavior of law-abiding citizens and that does nothing to prevent criminals from committing crime or terrorists from carrying out terror. And that is why the NRA opposes passing more gun laws.
AWR Hawkins is the Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and host of “Bullets with AWR Hawkins,” a Breitbart News podcast. He is also the political analyst for Armed American Radio. Follow him on Twitter: @AWRHawkins. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com.
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