
‘A Good Die to Die Hard’ will be out on Valentine’s Day, which means that Bruce Willis will be promoting it heavily for the next two weeks. It also means that that, like Sylvester Stallone, he’s going to get a slew of questions pertaining about gun violence. Given his celebrity status, they’ll be teed up for him in such a way as to allow him to hit the ball in whatever direction he chooses — but they’ll still be asked.
The Associated Press was the first to get a hold of him, and he didn’t disappoint:
Bruce Willis says he’s against new gun control laws that could infringe on Second Amendment rights. The “Die Hard” star also dismisses any link between Hollywood shootouts and real-life gun violence.
“I think that you can’t start to pick apart anything out of the Bill of Rights without thinking that it’s all going to become undone,” Willis told The Associated Press in a recent interview while promoting his latest film, “A Good Day To Die Hard.” ”If you take one out or change one law, then why wouldn’t they take all your rights away from you?” …
“It’s a difficult thing and I really feel bad for those families,” he said. “I’m a father and it’s just a tragedy. But I don’t know how you legislate insanity. I don’t know what you do about it. I don’t even know how you begin to stop that.”
Compare Willis’ answer to Stallone’s recent musing on the Second Amendment while promoting ‘Bullet to the Head’:
“I know people get (upset) and go, ‘They’re going to take away the assault weapon.’ Who … needs an assault weapon? Like really, unless you’re carrying out an assault. … You can’t hunt with it. … Who’s going to attack your house, a (expletive) army?”
The 66-year-old actor, writer and director said he also hopes for an additional focus on mental health to prevent future mass shootings.
“It’s unbelievably horrible, what’s happened. I think the biggest problem, seriously, is not so much guns. It’s that every one of these people that have done these things in the past 30 years are friggin’ crazy.
Notice the difference? In actuality, both answers are only off by degrees — but Bruce Willis comes down on the side of individual freedom and liberty, and Stallone does not. Stallone seems to want to curry favor with the politically correct hob-knobbers in Hollywood, but Willis doesn’t care; he’s just Willis.
It is a rare instance indeed when a Hollywood star realizes that the public do-gooders will never be appeased. There will always be wrongs for them to right, and so they will never stop chipping away at the God-given natural rights of the individual. The same people who believe that they should be able to regulate how much sodium and fat and sugar you consume would not think twice about confiscating all guns if they thought they could get away with it (politically or with their lives). The people who believe they can force you to engage in commerce so that they could regulate that commerce will have no qualms coming for firearms as soon as history provides them with a window of time to act.
There are cameras on every block. There are domestic drones overhead. Your property rights (an essential pillar of any free society) have been eroded like a sandcastle wiped away by the rising tide (e.g., Kelo v New London). Your text messages and email messages are fair game. The federal government is so big and so bloated and so convoluted that every day you break federal regulations without even knowing it. We have a president — who demonized President George W. Bush — who has “Terror Tuesday” kill lists and rules for killing American citizens overseas.
In short: the stage is set for the United States to devolve very quickly one day into a bizarro United States of hopelessness and despair and tyranny. And one of the bulwarks against such a reality from ever taking place is the Second Amendment.
Bruce Willis might not be a constitutional expert, but his instincts are sound (which may explain why he’s been a star for so long). On this day, on this issue, he deserves a pat on the back for his willingness to stand up for gun rights. Bravo, Bruce. You just solidified my decision to see ‘A Good Day to Die Hard.’ I was on the fence after the previous installment (let us not go into detail about how ridiculous the fighter jet scene was, even by ‘Die Hard’ standards), but you’ve gained enough good will to get a few more bucks out of me. I’ll see you opening weekend.

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