Uvalde Shooting: 'Jurassic World' Star Laura Dern is the Latest to Take a Stand For Gun Control Laws
Oscar-winning actress Laura Dern has a new idea for protesting America's lack of strong gun control laws.
In a new interview given to the Guardian, the Jurassic World Dominion actress proposed a school walkout until gun control laws are changed, and it's safe for students to return to school without threat of the weekly gun violence that plagues recent news.
In the interview, Dern said:
"What if we just said: kids in America aren't going to school, because schools aren't safe until you change gun laws in this country?"
Dern's exasperation and anger seems mostly directed towards the politicizing of gun control, and how politicians seem more concerned with putting forth a narrative of sympathy than with doing what's right to protect Americans.
She points out:
"There has never, ever been a world where any Democrat or liberally minded politician or caring conservative parent said: 'We are gonna take everybody's guns.' So they created a story.
"The narrative is: 'They're gonna take our guns!' and it's been feeding American culture all these years. And now we have weekly mass shootings."
Though the article later goes on to state that Dern has moderate opinions, the actress does state clearly what she thinks should be the limits of gun laws.
"No boy with mental health history - no human being - should ever be able to go into a store and legally buy an AR-15 and 300 rounds of ammunition.
"You can have a hunting rifle and you can have guns to protect your family or whatever, but there are still profound ways we can effect change so that semiautomatic and automatic weapons and no background checks are not a part of our country."
While looking to celebrities for policy positions is always something to be done with a bit of skepticism, it's interesting to see Dern be so frank with her position on gun control.
With virtual learning and the COVID-19 pandemic already widening learning gaps for students, a school walkout until gun policy changes mght not be truly feasible. However, Dern's comments just further underscore that changes to these laws are absolutely necessary to protect American schoolchildren and change the culture around guns our society has - and anyone, politician or actor or parent, can see that.
