Veteran actor Bill Murray praised the Parkland, Florida, students who became gun control activists after last month’s mass shooting, comparing the teens in an NBC op-ed to Vietnam War protesters.
“I was thinking, looking at the kids in Parkland, Florida who have started these anti-gun protests, that it really was the students that began the end of the Vietnam War,” wrote Murray, who rarely expresses a political opinion. “It was the students who made all the news, and that noise started, and then the movement wouldn’t stop. I think, maybe, this noise that those students in Florida are making — here, today — will do something of the same nature.”
The famed Ghostbusters star said influencing lawmakers to pass gun control measures will require the same comprehensive campaigning that it took from student protesters to pressure President Richard Nixon to launch efforts to end the Vietnam War.
“You’ve got to surround a deeply political issue like gun control or a war, to come at it from every single direction,” Murray wrote. “You can’t just focus on one thing, or aim for just the one goal.”
“People will survive. If you can just stop shooting at them, they really do pretty well,” writes the Golden Globe and Emmy-winning actor. “It’s the right idea for a human to live in peace, and a peaceful nature is a proper thing. For children to be concerned about going to school, worried about what could happen to them at school, that makes for a horrible moment. It’s just a horrible place for us to be at.”
Murray marvels at the idealism driving the anti-gun student activists and insists that there are “idealists left over the age of 18.”
The Caddyshack star, who called the Republican tax cuts plan “fantastic” last month and slammed identity politics, is currently promoting his new Wes Anderson-directed animated movie Isle of Dogs.
The 67-year-old is the latest Hollywood star to come out in support of the student gun control activist, who are set to take center stage this weekend at the star-studded gun control March for Our Lives in Washington D.C.
Follow Jerome Hudson on Twitter @jeromeehudson
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