Uvalde native Matthew McConaughey presses senators for action on gun safety
- Matthew McConaughey is pressing lawmakers to act on gun reforms.
- McConaughey, a native of Uvalde, Texas, is on Capitol Hill to make his case in person.
Oscar-winner Matthew McConaughey is making the rounds on Capitol Hill this week to press lawmakers to take action on a slew of gun reforms in the wake of the mass shooting that left 21 people dead at an elementary school in his hometown of Uvalde, Texas.
McConaughey met with Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin, who chairs the powerful Judiciary Committee, on Monday and Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa, the top Republican on the panel, on Tuesday. The actor declined comment on Monday when reporters spotted him in the US Capitol and asked him what he was doing in Washington.
Grassley tweeted out a photo of their meeting, saying that he and the "Dallas Buyers Club" star discussed "gun responsibility" and "school safety."
Grassley added that they discussed his bipartisan "EAGLES Act." The proposal would reauthorize and expand the US Secret Service's National Threat Assessment Center by adding a focus on school violence. The bill is named after Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School's mascot, an Eagle. The Parkland, Florida, high school was the site of one of the worst mass school shootings in US history in 2018.
McConaughey, who considered challenging Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott in the 2022 elections, responded to the Ulvade tragedy by calling on Americans to take stock of the stream of tragedies and ask themselves, "What is it that we truly value?"
The actor followed up his call for action with an op-ed in the Austin American Statesman on Monday that proposed a four-point plan to address the crisis.
"I believe that responsible, law-abiding Americans have a Second Amendment right, enshrined by our founders, to bear arms," McConaughey wrote. "I also believe we have a cultural obligation to take steps toward slowing down the senseless killing of our children."
McConaughey's plan calls for expanding background checks to all gun purchases, raising the age to buy an assault rifle from 18 to 21, a nationwide "red flag" law, and a mandatory waiting period for assault rifles. Some of what the actor proposed is currently under discussion, especially an expansion of red flag laws that can give authorities the power to temporarily confiscate a person's firearms if they pose an immediate threat to themselves or others.
Republican and Democratic lawmakers have expressed hope that Congress will act after a series of mass shootings in Uvalde and Buffalo, New York. Nineteen children and two teachers were killed in the Uvalde shooting, drawing parallels to the 2012 mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut.
"We're not going to put a piece of legislation on the table that's going to ban assault weapons, or we're not going to pass comprehensive background checks," Sen. Chris Murphy, a Connecticut Democrat, who is leading the talks, told CNN on Sunday. "But right now, people in this country want us to make progress. They just don't want the status quo to continue for another 30 years."