“We’re in a window of opportunity right now that we haven’t been in before, a window that looks like real change, real change can happenMcConaughey, 52, told reporters.
McConaughey, who visited Uvalde and met with the families of the victims after 19 children and two teachers were shot dead on May 24, he spoke emotionally about some of the boys who died.
He showed a colorful drawing made by Alithia Ramírez, a 10-year-old girl who wanted to attend art school in Paris one day.
McConaughey also pointed to a pair of green Converse sneakers held by his wife, Brazilian model Camila Alves, and which belonged to another of the victims, Maite Rodriguez.
“Green Converse with a heart on the right toe,” McConaughey said. “These are the same green Converse shoes on her feet that turned out to be the only clear evidence that could identify her after the shooting.”
“What about that?” he asked, banging on the lectern in the White House briefing room.
McConaughey, who met with the president Joe Biden and members of Congress before speaking to accredited reporters at the White House, he said the victims’ families told him they wanted “their loss to matter.”
“We consoled a lot of people,” the actor said. “And you know what they all said? ‘We want safe, secure schools and we want gun laws that don’t make it easy for bad guys to get these damn guns.'”
“We need to invest in mental health care. We need safer schools,” McConaughey insisted. “We need to restore our American values and we need responsible gun ownership.”
“We need background checks,” he continued. “We need to raise the minimum age to buy an AR-15 rifle to 21.”
McConaughey, who won an Oscar for best actor in 2014 for the film “Dallas Buyers Club: Homeless Club,” and has flirted with the idea of running for governor of TexasHe said the gun issue should be a “nonpartisan issue.”
“As divided as our country is, the issue of gun responsibility is one on which we all agree,” he said. “There is nothing Democratic or Republican in a single act of these gunmen“, said.
“Can both sides see beyond the political problem and admit that we have a life preservation problem?”
The actor, who refused to answer questions, in a very personal moment of his speech, said that his mother taught in a kindergarten just over a mile from the Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, the place where the massacre occurred. And he claimed that it was in his hometown that he learned the responsibilities of owning a gun.
“Uvalde is where I was taught to respect the power and capacity of the tool we call a weapon. Uvalde is the place where I learned to be responsible for weapons,” she pointed out.
Gun violence is common in the United States, but the national shock over recent mass shootings at a school in Uvalde and days earlier at a grocery store in buffaloNew York, has generated calls to action again.
In social networks, the campaign “Demand a plan of arms control” carried out by several American artists, in 2012, went viral again.
Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy has been working with a bipartisan group of senators on gun ownership and use reform, a tricky one given that many Republicans routinely reject most forms of gun control.
A recent CBS News/YouGov poll found that 62% of Americans support a nationwide ban on semi-automatic rifles.
Support is even stronger for background checks on all gun buyers (81%).
Gun violence in the United States has killed more than 18,000 people so far in 2022, including nearly 10,300 suicides, according to the NGO Gun Violence Archive.
Source: Ambito
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