The Newtown massacre has elicited the views of a variety of celebrities and journalists on gun control, from Piers Morgan to Beyonce to Jamie Foxx. The latest to weigh in on the national debate is Samuel L. Jackson, who is currently starring in Quentin Tarantino’s Django Unchained. His interview with the LA Times contains the following exchange:
This movie has a fair amount of gun violence and can be a bit flippant about it. Does that give you pause in the wake of what happened in Connecticut?
I don’t think movies or video games have anything to do with it. I don’t think [stopping gun violence] is about more gun control. I grew up in the South with guns everywhere, and we never shot anyone. This [shooting] is about people who aren’t taught the value of life.”
Jackson grew up in Chattanooga, Tenn., and, after attending Atlanta’s Morehouse College, was involved in the Civil Rights Movement before he began his acting career.
Jackson’s Django co-star, Jamie Foxx, has said that Hollywood violence does play a role in the mass shootings we’ve seen. “We cannot turn our back and say that violence in films or anything that we do doesn’t have a sort of influence,” he said. ”It does.”