Rambo Supports Assault Weapon Ban

by David Higginbotham Guns.com

Recently by David Higginbotham: LaserLyte Laser Training System: Does It Really Work?

Finally. A voice we can trust. Sylvester Stallone, most notable for his roles Toymaker in Spy Kids 3-D: Game Over, and Weaver (voice only) from Antz, has finally used his celebrity to help make the world a better place.

The 66-year-old icon of peace and morality shared his views on guns recently in an interview with the Associated Press.

“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?”

Yes. People are upset. They’re going to take away the assault weapon. I guess, if there’s only one, it should be taken away.

It’s about time

I’m glad Sly has decided to weigh in on the debate. As an industry insider who understands the practical applications of modern sporting rifles, I often look to ex-porn stars and half-assed screen writers for guidance. It helps if they’re licensed gun owners (in California, no less) who lend their unassailable credibility to the support of the Brady Bill, while building their own fortunes on a foundation of globally disseminated bullshit meta-violence that, in many parts of the planet, reduces the American G.I. to a grotesque caricature.

There’s more to the AP story. Stallone, ever vigilant in his efforts to help right the wrongs in American society, continues. “It’s unbelievably horrible, what’s happened,” Stallone Said. “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. Really crazy!”

Right. The massacres that happened 40 or 50 years ago, though – like Charles Whitman (who killed 14 and wounded 32 at the University of Texas in 1966) – those upstanding citizens must not have had mental health issues. Thanks for clearing that up, Sly.

But he isn’t finished! “And that’s where we’ve dropped the ball: mental health,” Stallone said. “That to me is our biggest problem in the future, is insanity coupled with isolation.”

So rest assured. Not even Stallone thinks the problem is the guns. And he can see the future. It is the mental health. Friggin’ insanity. Why didn’t anyone else think of that? And couple the friggin’ insanity with the friggin’ isolation and you have an epidemic.

Quick. Someone get this whiz-bang some funding. He’s onto something.

But seriously

Stallone’s opinion on guns is nothing more than pissing into the wind. Yet it’s getting ink. Why do we, as a culture, place so much stock in our celebrities? Is it a fundamental need to worship something? Is it the notable absence of royalty in American society? Is it rooted in our desire to build someone up so we can watch them fall, hard? Or, as Stallone demonstrates, do we like watching the underdog claw their way to the very top?

It is a topic for a doctoral dissertation, and not editorial.

This is useful for us

Stallone is a gift. When some celebrities use their celebrity to endorse or oppose things they know nothing about, Americans pay attention. It doesn’t make any sense, but it happens.

CNN ran an opinion piece yesterday that detailed celebrities that are voicing opposition to the National Rifle Association. And some people will, undoubtedly, listen.

When Stallone says he is in support of a “tak[ing] away the assault weapon,” no one will take him seriously. How can you?

Anyone who attempts to use Stallone will be easily discredited. He’s not going to be the poster-boy for civilian disarmament. Even if he wants to be.

There are too many who associate Stallone’s millions (estimated at $275 million) with gratuitous violence. And Stallone is just an exaggerated example of countless celebrities that speak out against guns (when they’re not on set dramatizing acts of gun violence).

Read the rest of the article