Matthew McConaughey Tells Americans to ‘Meet in the Middle’ After Pushing Gun Control from Biden’s White House

Actor Matthew McConaughey, who’s made millions starring in movies that feature several big guns, has once again called upon Americans to “meet in the middle” on gun policy. This, after pushing gun control from pro-gun control President Joe Biden’s White House.

In a lengthy essay for Esquire, the Academy Award-winning actor recalled his fight to push gun control reform in the wake of the Uvalde, Texas, massacre earlier this year and the conclusions he drew about the state of American politics. After several paragraphs of describing how he met with the Uvalde victims’ families, discussed gun control reform with Washington politicians, and eventually delivered his speech from the Biden White House, McConaughey said that Americans need to brush off the extremists and “meet in the middle” to get results.

Even though the essay centered on the horrific massacre of children, the editors of Esquire peppered various glamor shots of McConaughey throughout the piece.

“Most Americans, myself included, don’t stand on the political fringes. We are reasonable and responsible, and we share more values than we’re being told we do—and we believe that meeting each other in the middle is in service of the greater good. We have the majority. We have the numbers,” wrote McConaughey.

“That’s why it’s high time we take the megaphone back from the extremists who’ve been manufacturing these false fractures among us.,” the The Dallas Buyers Club star continued. “They’ve been selling us soft porn at the pep rally for too long. It’s time to kick them off the port and starboard sides of the boat on which American democracy sails.”

McConaughey could not exactly identify what constitutes extremism, at least on the matter of gun rights. For instance, if people disagree with his prescribed gun control (or gun responsibility, as he prefers to call it) plan, does that, therefore, make them an extremist? Who gets to decide and dictate who among us is the extremist?

Last month, President Biden characterized MAGA Republicans as extremists unworthy of political power. Does McConaughey agree with him? Are extremists simply people preserving long-held values and principles or merely stubborn people unable to understand the difference between principle and pragmatism?

McConnaughey provides no answer to all of the above questions. He does at least repeat the principle of America’s founders that Americans must become a more moral people in order to preserve democracy.

“If we want safer communities, more freedom, and better leaders, we’re gonna have to build better people,” he concludes. “As parents, parental figures, role models, and mentors, it’s on us to guide our children—to be more active in their lives—to show them we care, show them how to care for themselves and hence how to care for others: to teach them responsibility.”