Kirk Douglas, who starred in plenty of famous westerns during his days in Hollywood, has written an oped in support of gun control, saying that “America’s Cowboy Days Are Over.”
The 96-year-old Hollywood legend wrote the piece for the Huffington Post and it was published on Wednesday. He starts off by writing that he still has two guns he used in the westerns he made and are kept in a safe. They have been there for decades, kept from sight from his children.
“People take their movie heroes very seriously,” he wrote. “I often played the good cowboy on screen, riding in to save the day. Now, everybody thinks he is a cowboy too. That frightens me. We have become a cowboy country with too many guns.”
He was inspired to write a pro-gun control piece by reading the stories of a five-year-old boy who accidentally shot his two-year-old sister. “How did he get the gun?” Douglas wondered.
“I cannot understand the people who are against some form of gun control. They should be the first to welcome a message on making it more difficult to get a gun. Many of them seem to propose more guns being available to everybody,” he continued. “Why? Are they interested in making more money for the gun manufacturers? Are they politicians who just want to oppose the president in anything he endorses? It's incomprehensible to me.”
Later he added, “It's time to do something to make our children safer. America's cowboy days are over.”
Gun control remains a hot topic, with Connecticut and Colorado, two states deeply affected by recent shootings, passing gun control legislation.
Douglas’ children include Oscar winner and Behind the Candelabra star Michael Douglas. He won an honorary Oscar in 1996.