WASHINGTON – In the spotlight of the White House briefing room, movie star Matthew McConaughey described in graphic detail the mutilation inflicted on 19 children and two teachers gunned down in his hometown of Uvalde, Texas.
His voice choking, the Oscar winner pleaded with politicians to make such massacres less likely, even if that means tighter regulations on guns.
“Many children were left not only dead but hollow,” he said, describing the “exceptionally large exit wounds of an AR-15 rifle.”
“Responsible gun owners are fed up with the Second Amendment being abused and hijacked by some deranged individuals,” he insisted, moments after meeting with President Joe Biden.
McConaughey spoke for 22 minutes, holding rapt the journalists and presidential aides crowded into the room has he recounted the lives and deaths of the Uvalde victims.
He held up a photo of one young girl and spoke, his voice choking, about others, among them Maite Yuleana Rodriguez, whose body was so mangled by bullets that she could only be identified by the shoes she’d worn to school that day.
He left without taking questions after ticking off solutions he described as common-sense, many of which face fierce resistance by Republicans, including his home state senators, Ted Cruz and John Cornyn.
“We need background checks. We need to raise the minimum age to purchase an AR-15 rifle to 21 We need a waiting period for those rifles. We need red flag laws and consequences for those who abuse them,” he said.
“These are reasonable, practical, tactical regulations,” and they would bring meaning to the deaths in Uvalde, he said.
“We’ve got to start right now by passing policies that can keep us from having as many Columbines, Sandy Hooks, Parklands, Las Vegases, Buffaloes and Uvaldes,” he said.
Those half-dozen massacres alone claimed 148 innocent lives.
Without naming or even alluding to any politicians in particular, he called on those in positions of authority to stop playing politics with gun rights and public safety: “Find a middle ground, the place where most of us Americans live anyway, especially on this issue. ... Enough with the counterpunching.”
“These regulations are not a step backwards. They’re a step forward for civil society and the Second Amendment. Is this a cure all? Hell no. But people are hurting.”
The Oscar winner and his wife Camila spent days in Uvalde since an 18-year-old killer stormed an elementary school there on May 24, meeting with parents, undertakers and others.
He has used his star power since then to shame federal and state officials into breaking decades of stalemate between gun rights absolutists and those who would ban the sort of assault rifles used in Uvalde and other massacres.
McConaughey surfaced at the U.S. Senate on Monday and again on Tuesday, meeting privately with senators and attracting swarms of onlookers befitting People magazine’s 2005 “Sexiest Man Alive.”
“Uvalde is where I learned responsible gun ownership,” he said at the White House, where he recalled that his mom taught kindergarten a mile from Robb Elementary, the site of the carnage.
Journalists startled as he banged the lectern in frustration at one point.
Outside, rhythmic clanging of metal drifted into the briefing room like a church bell calling mourners, as a construction crew replaced a security fence.
The University of Texas graduate, now an Austin resident, toyed last year with challenging Gov. Greg Abbott. He bowed out in late November, two weeks after Beto O’Rourke, now the Democratic nominee, entered the race.
But he vowed to use his celebrity to promote bipartisan problem solving.
“As a simple kid born in the little town of Uvalde, Texas, it never occurred to me that I would one day be considered for political leadership,” McConaughey said at the time. “We have some problems that we need to fix. ... We’ve gotta start shining a light on our shared values — the ones that cross party lines, the ones that build bridges instead of burning them.”
He kept his views on gun violence vague, though he’d previously called for bans on assault-style guns like AR-15s and AK-47s.
In keeping with his call for bipartisanship, he scheduled an interview later Tuesday on Fox News with anchor Bret Baier, whose audience tends to strongly oppose gun restrictions.
Last week, Biden used a rare prime-time TV address last week to prod Congress to resurrect a ban on assault weapons that he authored and that expired in 2004. Or, failing that, raising the age to buy rifles from 18 to 21.
McConaughey’s path to stardom began with a role in "Dazed and Confused" in 1993. He won an Academy Award for his role in "Dallas Buyers Club," a 2013 film about the early days of the AIDS epidemic.
———
