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Now, one would think that at my advanced age I would no longer admire celebrity types and and it should be of absolutely no surprise to me that a Hollywood icon sits in an Ivory Tower well to the Left of center. However, I'm simply flabbergasted at the idiocy and hypocrisy spewed forth this week from celebrated actor Liam Neeson.
I've always liked Liam Neeson's work. His performance in Schindler's List was worthy of an Oscar, not just a nomination. And Love Actually is pretty much my favorite film of all time. But I'm really reconsidering whether I'll ever spend another penny on his films after this week.
While attending a press conference in Dubai for the release of his latest film, Taken 3, Neeson was asked about his feelings on the attack on the offices of French satire magazine Charlie Hebdo. Being that Dubai is a city in a Muslim land, albeit in the civil, peaceful, prosperous, Westernized United Arab Emirates, I think he may have been being baited by the Dubai press in being asked about an attack by radical Muslims on a magazine that has in the past satirized the Islam and Mohammed. Really kind of underhanded to put a Westerner on the spot as a guest in a Muslim nation to speak on an attack where Muslims gunned down 23, killing 12 and wounding 11, followed the next day by a police officer being murdered and a city worker wounded in a routine traffic stop by a guy who the next day killed four and wounded another five in a kosher Jewish grocery store. Neeson didn't miss a beat.
“First off, my thoughts and prayers and my heart are with the deceased,
and certainly with all of France, yesterday. I’ve got a lot of dear
friends in Paris,” he said.
“There’s too many [expletive] guns out there,” he continued.
“Especially in America. I think the population is like, 320 million?
There’s over 300 million guns. Privately owned, in America. I think it’s
a [expletive] disgrace. Every week now we’re picking up a newspaper and
seeing, ‘Yet another few kids have been killed in schools.’”
Way to deflect, dude. Switch the focus off the Muslim butchery (because every DAY we're picking up a newspaper and seeing "Yet another bunch of people have been killed by radical Islam.") and also ditch the fact that the attacks took place in France, a country rich in gun control like most Western socialist democratic republics, yet one in which gun laws were impotent to spoil the plans of dedicated and well-trained attackers.
This isn't the first time Neeson has popped off about guns in America. Back in September he said much the same thing in an interview for The Independent, as another one of his movies was being released, bitching about American gun ownership and praising how England took away all their citizens' handguns after the Dunblane Massacre in 1996.
I hasten to point out to Liam that we actually have over 310 million guns here in America, a country you gladly gave up your Irish citizenship for five years ago when you became a US citizen. And while a 2013 Congressional Research Service report shows that “firearm-related murder and non-negligent homicide” have plummeted as gun ownership increased, back in jolly olde England knives replaced guns and one can hardly read the British newspapers without hearing about rampant stabbings and knife crimes. and hey, taking away the citizens' rights to self defense and firearms ownership has worked out oh so well for Australia, hasn't it?
I just find it brazenly and blatantly hypocritical for Neeson to bitch about guns in America when he rakes in millions of dollars annually making movies where he carries and uses guns galore. The Taken franchise? The first movie grossed over $145 million. The sequel pulled in just shy of $140 million. In less than 2 weeks the third installment has grossed over $45 million. That's over $320 million, a dollar for every person in the USA and more than the number of guns in America.
He was a gunslinger in A Million Ways To Die In The West ($43 million), carried a hunting rifle in The Grey ($51 million), brandished guns galore in The A-Team ($77 million), had a gun on a plane in Non-Stop ($92 million), and packed heat in A Walk Among The Tombstones ($26 million). While not every film project he was in was an action film, many were. His characters have wielded swords, captained nuclear missile submarines, commanded entire fleets, even carried a light saber. All to the tune of almost THREE BILLION DOLLARS in box office gross worldwide over the course of his career.
When asked about whether or not he felt the least bit duplicitous about being a sniveling anti-gun whiner while pretending to be all badass and gun-friendly for a paycheck, he said, "A character like Bryan Mills (in Taken) going out with guns and taking revenge: it’s fantasy. It’s in the movies, you know? I think it can give people a great release from stresses in life and all the rest of it, you know what I mean? It doesn’t mean [the viewers] are all going to go out and go, “Yeah, let’s get a gun!”."
Well, shitfire, Liam. I personally find target shooting very relaxing, a great release from stresses in life and all the rest of it. It doesn't mean I'm gonna go shoot up a mall. No one said we needed to ban skis after your wife's death, did we? As I write this, I have 2 handguns down the hall and one in arm's reach at my desk. I note that none of them have ever killed anyone.
Or are you going all Jihadi on us, Liam? After all, you did say you thought about converting to Islam a couple years back. Nothing is more dangerous than naturalized US citizens who are Muslim, unless it's natural-born US citizens who are Muslim converts.
Keep it up, Neeson. Keep biting the hands that feed you here in the Land of Milk and Honey (or it was before noted closet Muslim Barry Obeezy stopped wiping his ass with his hand in the Muslim fashion and started wiping it with the US Constitution.) Keep it up and the only way you'll get my ticket money is to pry it from my cold, dead hands much like you will my guns.
Way to deflect, dude. Switch the focus off the Muslim butchery (because every DAY we're picking up a newspaper and seeing "Yet another bunch of people have been killed by radical Islam.") and also ditch the fact that the attacks took place in France, a country rich in gun control like most Western socialist democratic republics, yet one in which gun laws were impotent to spoil the plans of dedicated and well-trained attackers.
This isn't the first time Neeson has popped off about guns in America. Back in September he said much the same thing in an interview for The Independent, as another one of his movies was being released, bitching about American gun ownership and praising how England took away all their citizens' handguns after the Dunblane Massacre in 1996.
I hasten to point out to Liam that we actually have over 310 million guns here in America, a country you gladly gave up your Irish citizenship for five years ago when you became a US citizen. And while a 2013 Congressional Research Service report shows that “firearm-related murder and non-negligent homicide” have plummeted as gun ownership increased, back in jolly olde England knives replaced guns and one can hardly read the British newspapers without hearing about rampant stabbings and knife crimes. and hey, taking away the citizens' rights to self defense and firearms ownership has worked out oh so well for Australia, hasn't it?
I just find it brazenly and blatantly hypocritical for Neeson to bitch about guns in America when he rakes in millions of dollars annually making movies where he carries and uses guns galore. The Taken franchise? The first movie grossed over $145 million. The sequel pulled in just shy of $140 million. In less than 2 weeks the third installment has grossed over $45 million. That's over $320 million, a dollar for every person in the USA and more than the number of guns in America.
He was a gunslinger in A Million Ways To Die In The West ($43 million), carried a hunting rifle in The Grey ($51 million), brandished guns galore in The A-Team ($77 million), had a gun on a plane in Non-Stop ($92 million), and packed heat in A Walk Among The Tombstones ($26 million). While not every film project he was in was an action film, many were. His characters have wielded swords, captained nuclear missile submarines, commanded entire fleets, even carried a light saber. All to the tune of almost THREE BILLION DOLLARS in box office gross worldwide over the course of his career.
Damn...that's a lotta guns.
When asked about whether or not he felt the least bit duplicitous about being a sniveling anti-gun whiner while pretending to be all badass and gun-friendly for a paycheck, he said, "A character like Bryan Mills (in Taken) going out with guns and taking revenge: it’s fantasy. It’s in the movies, you know? I think it can give people a great release from stresses in life and all the rest of it, you know what I mean? It doesn’t mean [the viewers] are all going to go out and go, “Yeah, let’s get a gun!”."
Well, shitfire, Liam. I personally find target shooting very relaxing, a great release from stresses in life and all the rest of it. It doesn't mean I'm gonna go shoot up a mall. No one said we needed to ban skis after your wife's death, did we? As I write this, I have 2 handguns down the hall and one in arm's reach at my desk. I note that none of them have ever killed anyone.
Or are you going all Jihadi on us, Liam? After all, you did say you thought about converting to Islam a couple years back. Nothing is more dangerous than naturalized US citizens who are Muslim, unless it's natural-born US citizens who are Muslim converts.
Keep it up, Neeson. Keep biting the hands that feed you here in the Land of Milk and Honey (or it was before noted closet Muslim Barry Obeezy stopped wiping his ass with his hand in the Muslim fashion and started wiping it with the US Constitution.) Keep it up and the only way you'll get my ticket money is to pry it from my cold, dead hands much like you will my guns.
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