NEW YORK -- Actor Vince Vaughn’s latest role appears to be a parody of former NRA president Charlton Heston, the "True Detective" star telling GQ Magazine teachers should be allowed to carry guns in US schools and banning them is like banishing forks "to stop making people fat."
In an interview published on Monday, Vaughn offered his support for America’s Second Amendment to the constitution, the right to keep and bear arms, which he said was necessary not “because of burglars” but so that citizens could “resist the supreme power of a corrupt and abusive government.”
Vaughn: 'The greatest defense against an intruder is the sound of a gun hammer being pulled back'
He also blamed to preponderance of mass shooting in the US on gun-free zones. "Take mass shootings," said the 45-year-old. "They’ve only happened in places that don’t allow guns. These people are sick in the head and are going to kill innocent people. They are looking to slaughter defenseless human beings. They do not want confrontation. In all of our schools it is illegal to have guns on campus, so again and again these guys go and shoot up these fucking schools because they know there are no guns there. They are monsters killing six-year-olds.”
Vaughn continued: “It’s the same reason we have freedom of speech. It’s well known that the greatest defense against an intruder is the sound of a gun hammer being pulled back. All these gun shootings that have gone down in America since 1950, only one or maybe two have happened in non-gun-free zones.”
More controversially, Vaughn suggested the way to stop mass shooting was to allow teachers to carry firearms in schools. When asked specifically if that was his position, Vaughn said “of course.”
“You think the politicians that run my country and your country don’t have guns in the schools their kids go to?" he added. "They do. And we should be allowed the same rights. Banning guns is like banning forks in an attempt to stop making people fat. Taking away guns, taking away drugs, the booze, it won’t rid the world of criminality.”
Although the actor’s views may appear extreme to Europeans, he is certainly not alone with recent Pew polls showing an increase in the popularity of gun rights in the US. In research published last December, 57 percent of adult respondents said guns “protect people from becoming crime victims.” Only 38 percent said guns “put people’s safety at risk."