Vince Vaughn: unlikely darling of the Right

How did True Detective star Vince Vaughn go from amiable Wedding Crasher to gun-slinging NRA poster boy?

Vince Vaughn: 'Banning guns is like banning forks in an attempt to stop making people fat'
Vince Vaughn: 'Banning guns is like banning forks in an attempt to stop making people fat'

“I’ve always been more conservative than not”, True Detective star Vince Vaughn told American radio show host Adam Carolla in 2013. Before that, the amiable-seeming actor was known as a backer and friend of two-time Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul, and an endorser of Mitt Romney's 2012 presidential bid. But how did he get from there to his notorious GQ interview, in which he claimed that teachers should be allowed access to guns in schools?

2004: Vaughn the conference crasher

Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson in Wedding Crashers, 2004 (Photo: Richard Cartwright)

Vaughn's Wedding Crashers co-star Owen Wilson said that he'd attended a conference for young members of the party at The Four Seasons hotel in Washington DC while the pair was filming Wedding Crashers. Vaughn was denied entry. “Vince actually is a Republican and they didn’t believe him,” Wilson claimed during a press tour for the film in 2005. “They saw me and said, ‘Come on in.’ But to Vince, they said, ‘We know you’re not a Republican.'”

Whether Wilson was attending in earnest is unknown. However Wilson said that Vaughn’s attempts to get in were completely genuine, but because he hadn’t yet spoken about his political views, he couldn’t convince the party members that his attendance wasn’t a prank. How things have changed, Owen. How things have changed.

2009-present: the Vince Vaughn and Ron Paul bromance

Ron Paul during his 2012 Presidential Primary campaign in Ankeny, Iowa (Photo: Justin Sullivan/ Getty)

Ron Paul during his 2012 Presidential Primary campaign in Ankeny, Iowa (Photo: Justin Sullivan/ Getty)

Former Congressman Ron Paul has made two bids to become a Republican presidential candidate in the last seven years. Before that was the presidential nominee of the Libertarian Party, which is economically conservative but has fought for for liberal causes including the legalisation of drugs, same-sex marriage and abortion.

Paul and Vaughn have often been spotted around the barbeque together. "Vince is a great guy who loves liberty," said Paul’s campaign chairman Jesse Benton. "Dr Paul is proud to have his friendship and support."

Vaughn invited Paul and his wife to the premiere of his 2009 film Couples Retreat, and endorsed Paul's 2009 book End the Fed. He officially came out as a Ron Paul campaigner in 2011.

2012: Vaughn befriends 'crazy man' Glenn Beck

In 2012 conservative radio talk show host and former Fox News commentator Glenn Beck announced that he and Vaughn would be co-producing a reality TV series called Pursuit of the Truth, in which 20 documentary makers would compete for an international distribution deal. Of the collaboration with Vaughn, Beck said: "That should make everybody's head spin. ‘What the hell is Vince Vaughn doing with a crazy man?'"

Ultimately, some 1500 people applied to take part in Pursuit of the Truth. It aired on Beck’s network The Blaze TV in 2013 and ran for one season.

2013: Vaughn on big government

“I’ve always been more conservative than not” (Photo: Callahan/REX Shutterstock)

On radio host Adam Carolla’s podcast of November 2013, Vaughn laid out his views on big government: "I think that as you get older, you just get less trust in the government running anything," he said.

In a recent interview with GQ, Vaughn fleshed out this sentiment: “Governments claim to write endless laws to protect us, a law for this, a law for that, but are they working? I don't think so. The consequences are that there is a staggering loss of freedom for the individual.”

2015: Vaughn on taxes

Vince Vaughn interviewed by Jimmy Fallon (Photo: Mike Coppola/ NBC)

In a Playboy interview in February, Vaughn opened up about his stance on taxes: “I like the way it was until 1913, when locally you had sales taxes and property taxes. That seems ethical to me, because I can move to a different neighborhood or area if I like the services they provide. To this day, your police department and your fire department are paid for with local taxes, and that makes sense, because you might use those. But the federal government looking into your books to decide what to take from you, that feels wrong.”

2015: Vaughn on drugs

The law should enable people to make their own choices and mistakes, believes Vaughn. In the actor's opinion, that extends to drug use, in line with his buddy Ron Paul’s standpoint. In an interview with Playboy in February he questioned the logic behind the outlawing of certain substances. “You’re going to make this drug legal and that one illegal," he said. "I don’t think that’s the government’s job to decide. I think it’s up to the individual. We’re all different”.

During a keynote address to a Libertarian conference at UCLA in April 2015, Vaughn elaborated on his policy: “If someone’s parents don’t have money they are going to go to prison and have a life wasted. If someone’s parents do have money, they go to rehab. You can’t really go after people that are committing real crimes – forceful crimes, violent crimes – because you are so inhabited with people that were using drugs.”

Then again in GQ. “Taking away guns, taking away drugs, the booze, it won't rid the world of criminality." Don’t worry, we’re coming to the guns.

2015: Vaughn on guns

Vaughn in Clay Pideons, 1998 (Photo: Gramercy/Everett / Rex Feature)

Vaughn in Clay Pigeons, 1998 (Photo: Gramercy/Everett / Rex Feature)

“Banning guns,” said Vaughn, “is like banning forks in an attempt to stop making people fat.” Easily the actor’s most radical views are about the Second Amendment of the American Constitution: the right to bear arms. Most of these got an airing during the GQ interview: "I support people having a gun in public full stop, not just in your home. We don't have the right to bear arms because of burglars; we have the right to bear arms to resist the supreme power of a corrupt and abusive government. It’s not about duck hunting; it’s about the ability of the individual”.

How Vaughn might use his guns to resist the corruption of the government remains to be seen, but this sentiment has proved popular on the National Rifle Association's Twitter account.

“Take mass shootings,” Vaughn continued. “They've only happened in places that don't allow guns.” He therefore thinks guns should be available in schools, to protect against others who might also bring in guns. “You think the politicians that run my country and your country don’t have guns in the schools their kids go to? They do.”