Tuesday, June 7, Oscar-winning actor Matthew McConaughey “arrived in a rush at the White House, not without having put on a jacket and his glasses, for a meeting with the president”, recounts journalist Robin Givhan in The Washington Post. Then he settled down behind a desk for a press conference during which he delivered “a plea for the strengthening of gun laws, with overflowing charisma and a no less thunderous Texan accent”.
Known worldwide for his roles in Dallas Buyers Club (2013), Interstellar (2014) or in the first season of the series True Dectective (2014), McConaughey had signed, the day before, a column in the local daily Austin American-Statesman. He recalled his roots in the town of Uvalde, the town in Texas where he was born and where a teenager killed 19 children and two adults in an elementary school on May 24.
As reported by Washington Post, the actor – who had once thought of running for governor of Texas, before giving it up – explained to the press that he had met several relatives of the victims. For twenty minutes,he recounted poignant anecdotes about the children who died in the massacre, about their dreams and their passions. He came with photos of these victims in moments of happiness, but also a moving word on the immense pain of these families whose children ‘were not only killed, but annihilated’” by the weapon used.
At one point, “Matthew McConaughey asked his wife [Camila Alves, présente lors de la conférence] to show off the high-top green sneakers, Converse, that 10-year-old Maite Rodriguez wore every day”, reports The New York Times.
“’His Converse, just like these’, said the actor, ‘are the only thing that made it possible to identify him with certainty after the killing’. Then, knocking on his desk: ‘You realize ?'”
A defender of the bearing of arms
“If he came to the White House, it’s because McConaughey is betting that Americans love their celebrities as much as they love their guns”, commented journalist Robin Givhan, for whom “his plea had the bombast and phrasing of a talented actor, and none of the exhausted exasperation of the survivor – the survivor who can’t stand hearing the same endless cries for gun control uttered in vain” .
As pointed out earlier by the Los Angele Times, “this is not the first time that Matthew McConaughey has intervened in the gun violence debate, or called the frequent killings an epidemic in the United States”. After the massacre in Parkland, Florida, in 2018, he notably expressed his fear that the movement in favor of regulation firearms “’held hostage’ by people wanting ‘zero guns’”.
For an increase in the minimum legal age
In his op-ed published by the’Austin American-Statesman, McConaughey a redit its attachment to the second amendment of the Constitution, which guarantees the bearing of arms. Before recalling on Tuesday that he had been raised “in reverence for power and abilities of this tool called a firearm”.
Supporter of a “responsible weapon carrying”, the actor supported, after his interview with Joe Biden, the measures proposed by the American president to limit the sale of assault rifles, in particular by raising the minimum legal age to obtain such weapons from 18 to 21 years old. “We want legislation that will make it so easy for bad guys to find those pesky guns,” he said in particular.
As specified by the New York Times, “McConaughey’s visit to the White House came as a group of senators from both parties attempted to negotiate new legal provisions to address gun violence.”