Opinion: Matthew McConaughey’s Speech Must Resonate Far Beyond Guns and Uvalde
Let Uvalde Inspire America to Overcome Its Divisions
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Speeches don’t make me cry.
Matthew McConaughey’s did.
His heartbreaking stories of the massacred children and teachers of Uvalde, Texas, during his eloquent and passionate speech at the White House press briefing on Tuesday were unbearable to hear.
I never agree with everything in anyone’s speech.
I did with Matthew McConaughey’s.
Most of the press coverage has variations on headlines like this one: “Matthew McConaughey Makes Impassioned Plea for Action on Guns.”
But it was so much more. It was an emotional entreaty for a return to sanity in this country, a powerful reminder that Americans agree on far more than they disagree.
“We need safer schools,” he said. “We need to restrain sensationalized media coverage. We need to restore our family values. We need to restore our American values. And we need responsible gun ownership.”
First to guns, but I’ll later address his more important theme of American unity.
Most Americans Agree on Most Gun Regulations
On guns, I’ll be brief and clear as McConaughey was: Nobody is going to take away the right of Americans to own a gun. As I wrote in a column last week, the Supreme Court ruled in District of Columbia v. Heller that the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution protects an individual’s right to possess a firearm. And remember, the court has moved strongly to the right since then. When gun extremists start shouting about how they’re going to take away your guns, they’re blatantly lying.
Let’s also be clear that the government can reasonably regulate your right to own a gun. You know who wrote the majority Supreme Court opinion in the Heller case? Antonin Scalia, the patron saint among justices for conservatives and second amendment purists.
The bottom line is that none of the amendments in the Bill of Rights grants an absolute right to anything. As Scalia wrote in his Heller opinion about the Second Amendment, “Of course the right was not unlimited, just as the First Amendment’s right of free speech was not.”
Scalia added, "Like most rights, the right secured by the Second Amendment is not unlimited.”
To again quote McConaughey, a native of Uvalde: “Responsible gun owners are fed up with the Second Amendment being abused and hijacked by some deranged individuals. These regulations are not a step back; they’re a step forward for a civil society and the Second Amendment.”
We must channel our anger and sadness over Uvalde into more rational policies on guns.
And huge, sometimes overwhelming majorities of Americans want more regulation of them. In fact, they want much more than McConaughey called for, as I described in last week’s piece. A Morning Consult/Politico survey that followed the Uvalde shooting clearly shows how at least two thirds of Americans strongly or somewhat support background checks on all gun sales (88%); banning assault-style weapons (67%); banning high-capacity ammunition magazines (69%); preventing sales of all firearms to people who have been reported as dangerous to law enforcement by a mental health provider (84%); requiring a person to be 21 in order to purchase a gun (79%); requiring a mandatory waiting period of three days after a gun is purchased before it can be taken home (80%); banning gun purchases by people on federal no-fly or watch lists (79%); creating a national database with information about each gun sale (75%); and the list goes on.
Politicians refuse to listen to the American people, as the watered-down gun measures being discussed in Washington amply prove. They are a step forward, but many politicians funded by the National Rifle Association simply won't respect the will of their constituents.
Even Republican Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell reportedly has expressed openness to raising to 21 the age for buying semiautomatic rifles, but that’s not likely to make it into any deal.
Americans Agree on Far More Than They Disagree
For the past year I have written dozens of columns on my Meta Bulletin website, “A View from the Center,” which is based on my firm belief, supported by ample polling, that Americans have a shared identity and agree on much more than they disagree. As I have written there, Americans have far more common ground that unites them than disagreements that divide them. We see ourselves as Americans first, and hope to fashion a better country and better world.
McConaughey’s words expressed the same reality, much ignored by our media and politicians. “We got a chance right now to reach for and to grasp a higher ground above our political affiliations, a chance to make a choice that does more than protect your party, a chance to make a choice that protects our country now and for the next generation,” he said. “We got to take a sober, humble, and honest look in the mirror and rebrand ourselves based on what we truly value. What we truly value. We got to get some real courage and honor our immortal obligations instead of our party affiliations. Enough with the counterpunching. Enough of the invalidation of the other side. Let’s come to the common table that represents the American people. Find a middle ground, the place where most of us Americans live anyway, especially on this issue. Because I promise you, America — you and me, we are not as divided as we’re being told we are. No.”
It reminded me of a speech I’ve quoted before, then Senator Barack Obama’s at the 2004 Democratic National Convention: “There is not a liberal America and a conservative America — there is the United States of America. There is not a Black America and a White America and Latino America and Asian America — there’s the United States of America. The pundits, the pundits like to slice-and-dice our country into Red States and Blue States; Red States for Republicans, Blue States for Democrats. But I’ve got news for them, too. We worship an awesome God in the Blue States, and we don’t like federal agents poking around in our libraries in the Red States. We coach Little League in the Blue States and yes, we’ve got some gay friends in the Red States. There are patriots who opposed the war in Iraq and there are patriots who supported the war in Iraq.”
Thank you, Matthew McConaughey. I hope your words, amid tragedy, inspire the moderate majority of Americans who believe that we need to restore our family values and American values, but also invest in mental health care and have “gun laws that won’t make it so easy for the bad guys to get these damn guns.”
That moderate majority needs to make itself heard and call on its leaders, as McConaughey did, “to start giving all of us good reason to believe that the American Dream is not an illusion.”
Let the deaths in Uvalde not be in vain.
Let those children and teachers inspire all of us and strengthen our republic, reminding us that we are one nation, indivisible, whose values have made it the greatest country the world has ever seen.
Cover photo: Actor Matthew McConaughey holds a photo of Alithia Ramirez, a 10 year old student who was killed in the mass shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, while speaking during the daily briefing in the James S. Brady Press Briefing Room of the White House in Washington, D.C., on June 7, 2022. McConaughey, a native of Uvalde, met with President Joe Biden and senators to discuss gun control reform following the mass shooting at Robb Elementary School. (Brendan Smialowski/AFP/Getty Images)
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