Anna Faris (courtesy usatoday.net)

Chris “Starlord” Pratt is on the cover of this month’s Esquire magazine. According to the mag, “Pratt talks about his thirty- or forty-gun arsenal. He bought Faris [actress Anna Faris, Pratt’s wife, above] a gun in the event that crazy person comes to their house while he’s in Louisiana and necessitates her ‘blowing their f—— brains out.’ He tells me to print that, just in case Anna Faris’ and Esquire’s fan demographics overlap.” So, pro-gun? Not the way Esquire spins it . . .

It’s not all so primal — Pratt believes in firearm regulation, background checks, and preventing guns from falling into the hands of the mentally ill. He explains population control and hunting licenses and tags and the virtues of eating what you kill. It all makes sense, but it also feels kind of like when Dexter explains that he’s a good serial killer because his victims are rapists and murderers. Really, this guy just likes to kill s–t.

So even if you’re pro-universal background checks – assuming that’s what the writer meant – and always eat what you kill, you’re still inherently suspect if you’re a Hollywood star with a gun. Or 40.

But c’mon, don’t ALL Hollywood stars have guns, one way or another (i.e., armed security)? And doesn’t that make them the worst possible anti-gun hypocrites, because they have considerable influence over our culture, which eats pro-gun rights strategy for lunch? Then again . . .

These stars make movies with guns that make people want to own guns. So, are Hollywood celebs the worst gun hypocrites, or do we reserve that honor for gun-protected pols and non-entertainment pro-gun control billionaires?

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70 COMMENTS

  1. Hollywood culture is dominated by a media slant which says guns are bad.

    That’s what happens when a region hasn’t had legal carry for decades and the closest average folk get to firearms is an IMAX theater.

    • Guns are very common in California… Carry permits are not. The difference between the two things is tremendous.

      California gun laws are silly as hell but getting your hands on a firearm is not difficult or expensive, you just have to wait a few weeks before you can get it in your hot little hands.

      • Wouldn’t it be a real problem if you had to ask for permission and wait before you could practice your religion?

      • Being from Arizona, I suspect that my perception of ‘not difficult to obtain’ is a little bit different to that of someone from California.

        • As a Californian, with family in Az, I’d say guns aren’t that difficult to obtain in CA, just that there are some really, really stupid roadblocks (namely the 10-day waiting period — if I wanted to shoot someone, and I didn’t already have firearms, I’d probably be willing to wait 10 days). Good for Pratt for being willing to come out and say he’s pro-gun.

  2. Most importantly: if he was all about background checks, shouldn’t wifey have bought the gun so her background was properly checked? If he bought it for her the 4473 was filled out by him, not her, right?

    Whoops?

      • I have purchased all of my wife’s guns, sold one or two as well. The first one was in 1965, just when did I become a felon due to whatever “straw purchase” means??

      • There is no requirement for a time stamp on any transfer document so my son and I have transfer documents signed by each of us on the same day for each others guns. So if they try to un grandfather AR’s, then who ever has the gun has a document that was the “last” one signed before any AWB or if I died, he can show I already transferred it to him and all my other guns as well.
        But.. if I have them then the transfer docs prove, he gave them back.

        I’m Sparticus!

    • Gift.

      Taken from CA DOJ FAQs:

      6.Can I give a firearm to my spouse or registered domestic partner? Can he/she give it back to me later?
      Yes, as long as the person receiving the firearm is not in a prohibited category, and the firearm is legal to possess (e.g., not an assault weapon), the transfer of a firearm between a husband and wife or registered domestic partners is exempt from the requirement to use a licensed dealer to perform the transfer.
      If the firearm is a handgun, the recipient must obtain a Handgun Safety Certificate prior to taking possession and must also submit a Report of Operation of Law or Intra-Familial Handgun Transaction [form BOF 4544A], and $19 fee to the DOJ within 30 days after [eligible giftee] taking possession.

      The same rules apply to the return of the firearm at a later date.

      (Pen. Code, §§ 16990, subd. (g), 27915, 27920, subd. (b).)

      See http://oag.ca.gov/firearms/pubfaqs#6

        • Who cares? Why does it concern you? The topic here is guns and gun laws, not someone else’s personal social arrangement that doesn’t affect you in the least.

        • To be a bit clearer, pavePusher, here in Texas we don’t register either guns or domestic partners, because it’s none of the state’s business if we have either or both.

  5. Remember, all Hollywood stars owe their stardom to “good directors”. They live taking orders on how to act. The more powerful ones make their cash being the ones who tell people how to act.

  6. Anyone who makes it in show biz has had to whore themselves out either literally or figuratively. Either way, to be where they are they are, they all have extensive experience selling themselves out.

  7. Actors are pampered nitwits, for the most part. The Hollywood money men are the people who take hypocrisy to whole new levels.

    • As someone who has had to work in/around the computer side of “show business,” you’re spot-on – as usual.

    • I think it was James Lileks who wrote this:
      “The only difference between hollywood actos and circus dogs, is the dog knows to get off its hind legs when the show is over..”

      • Or to quote Alfred Hitchcock “I didn’t say actors are cattle. What I said was, actors should be treated like cattle.”

    • Personally, I know only slightly more about the life of a celeb then they know about my life. So I’ll refrain from judging their life if they will refrain from acting against mine.

    • Actually this guy sounds like he could be turned our way. He’s 95% of the way there, he just needs a little nudge… to realize universal background checks could very easily lead to registration and confiscation. Just a little more convincing and not so much criticism should be the order of the day.

  9. Politicians who protect themselves with fully automatic sbr’s and live in walled mansions far away from the peasant scum who serve them are worse.

  10. Somehow I feel Mr Pratt doesn’t really believe in gun regulation he is just saying that to further his career I have never met anyone who owned 40+ guns that wasn’t pro 2nd amendment

    • Seeing as they didn’t actually quote him, I’d be willing to bet anything they twisted his words. “Maybe people shouldn’t just be able to buy anti aircraft missiles” can easily turn into “See, even this guy wants universal background checks”

      • Agreed- There are pro-2A actors. Even met a few while doing movies in NYC, oddly enough. They probably threw that line in so their audience wouldn’t bay for his blood. Gee, and we’re supposed to be the violent ones…

    • “I have never met anyone who owned 40+ guns that wasn’t pro 2nd amendment”
      Sean Penn. Had a collection of 64 guns of various types all the while as a person convicted of domestic abuse (now how did he manage that?) and a high profile gun control activist.

    • And he drove/drives a highly illegally modified vette powered hummer on permanent loan from GM at the same time he signed oppressive legislation making ownership of basic transportation even more difficult for countless residents of his adopted home.

  13. He’s fairly evolved for a Hollyweird guy. The hunting thing alone would get him banned from most “in” gatherings. And meat? Ewww…I did like Guardians but my favorite Marvel movie remains Captain America 2. Anyway I don’t seePratt as a real bad guy.

    • Pratt is a relative Hollywood newcomer and has lived most of his life in Washington state from what I know, where he’s a pretty bigtime hunter and fisherman. My guess would be that he’s just saying what he needs to say, then going home to blast some AKs and ARs.. Hypocrite? Maybe a bit, but saying otherise could mean the end of a blooming acting career for him. You decide.

    • Either way Guardians was hilarious and I like Pratt a little bit more for at least owning guns, and having an arsenal!!!!!!!!!!!!

  14. I think Democrats give the Hollywood leftists a run for their money, as being the definition of hypocrites in reference to gun restrictions.

    Most of the Democrat political elite have body guards which conceal carry and guards of their residences which either conceal or open carry, meanwhile they work their utmost to restrict our ability to own, to conceal, or to open carry.

    So the definition of hypocrite could be…
    Democrat =hypocrite = Hollywood

  16. I’m just tickled to see the commercial success of movies with themes like good guys beating the bad guys, honor matters, guns are ok, pro American values etc. And the corresponding crash in viewership for the edgy alternatives the critics like.

    Must be driving the lefty progressive fashionistas of thought control bat$hit crazy, and the actors who depend on their “reps”, to tell them what to say to make sure they know who’s in the Kool Kid Klub, these days and who is not.

    Who’s got the popcorn?

    • That’s what I love about the MCU series; a team led by a gifted industrialist, an elite soldier guided by conservative values, and an alien who’s fallen in love with his adopted culture fighting intelligent but clearly defined foes. And Hollywood thought they’d just be popcorn entertainment.

  17. It is the gun protected politicians and the pro gun control wealthy and powerful who are the the worst gun hypocrites.

    Actor’s make a living by pretending to be someone else. That’s okay because most of us understand the premise of theater. But for some in the audience the character and the story has become real. Perhaps we should test the citizen’s to ensure their mental stability is adequate for viewing theater and reading some written material.

    As I often say, the gun control group are the hypocrites. They want to take our guns but keep theirs. You can see it in the laws being established in New York, New Jersey, Maryland, Connecticut. Chicago and California. Guns are not being banned. That would be unconstitutional and counter to their objective which is to control who gets the guns.

  18. No one beats Mike “the Leprechaun” Bloomburg for hypocracy. He has to be king, beating out even the late Sen, Ted “The swimmer” Kennedy, and Jim “Wheel man” Brady. (Sorry, I watched too much wrestling this week)

  19. Considering how well he played his earliest roles, a conservative Colorado jock on some old show and a blue-collar guy on “The Office,” and then a SEAL in Zero Dark Thirty, he seems legit about gun ownership. I doubt he really supports extensive background checks, he probably only meant it as a CYA though.

    • Well, Pro-Gun people could be for an automatic universal background check… because it could be good for safety to be sure the person that want to buy a gun, can actually really own a gun.

      BUT, it’s not about the concept of universal background check, it’s all about the way it will be implemented. If it’s for the government to keep record and have a list, then it could be very dangerous. Therefor, the government should only have (maybe in the DMV since all people are already listed there) a simple indication if the person can legally own or not a gun (like they do for the organ donor).

      Therefor, it will be to the gun store responsibility to check and verify from the list if he can buy you or not a gun, without mentioning any kind of gun, how many, etc… Just a simple request (on even consultation on a website) if you can get a gun or not.

      THIS kind of “universal background check”, yeah, even as a Pro-Gun guy, I wouldn’t mind… and I don’t think it makes me a hypocrite, and it surely doesn’t make me wish for any more law or gun control. Surely not!

      • I see what you’re saying, and that is exactly what I was trying to say. I don’t usually care about celebrities’ opinions on anything but I’m glad he’s on our side even if he might look like he’s hedged a little.

        • To be honest, I don’t really care about celebrities, politics or any so called “VIP”.
          To me, a person is a person, and his/her life doesn’t have more value than someone else, his/her voice doesn’t have more weight than someone else. It might be heard more because of the fact to be popular, but that’s about it.

          That’s the same reason why I will never understand why military/LEO or even private security services for these so called VIP could own and carry a gun, and any other law abiding could not… to me, it just doesn’t compute! I’m against privileges… and rights should be for everyone with no exceptions; That’s just how I am 😀

          I’m all in to increase gun safety if we can; No doubt about it… but as long as it doesn’t intervene with everyone’s rights. That’s why I’m not against background check, I’m not against the fact to have a gun safe at home (mainly if you have kids)… but we should also have better infrastructure to better teach people, to be sure they can practice gun shooting safely… if I would listen my heart, I would prefer the government to use the money to provide any citizen a gun and ammo if they desire it (such Switzerland, and as long as they’re Oath Keepers and practice regularly). To me it would be a way better use of money than what they currently do!

          With more people being better shooters, I’m convinced it would make the world safer. But I know, it’s probably not really realistic… but to me, it is already way more than everything I saw and heard so far from the anti-gun groups that are supposedly acting for our “safety”.

          So, yeah, we can be Pro-Gun and wish for more safety… but it’s probably and surely not what those anti-guns believe and hope for.

          My 2¢

  21. Yes. They like to make lots of money depicting gun slinging maniacs on the screen then turn around and shun and criticize some actor into lowering his head in shame after that actor makes a statement in support of armed self defense, etc. In Hollywood you are a liberal – period – or you don’t get roles in films. However, it is acceptable to make hordes of money depicting gory rape and murder scenes – however it is not acceptable to make statements indicating you support the defense against them.

  22. Most are anti-gun hypocrites, like Harvey Weinstein , Matt Damon and Stallone and Arnold and Kevin Bacon, who speak out against guns and how they need to be taken, yet make millions off of movies that are laced with both physical violence and gun violence. These out of touch with reality stars for the most part, don’t really need guns themselves in their sheltered and protected penthouses and homes in the Hollywood hills, they have armed to the teeth private security for that. They equate that lack of a need for a firearm to everyone else in the country also not needing a firearm. It’s the biggest form of hypocrisy, especially from people like Weinstein who want to personally “destroy the NRA and make them wish they never existed”, yet his company MiraMax makes some of the most violent movies ever. They would be all to happy and sleep comfortably at night if the only thing the Constitution gave us uninfringed access to was a speed dialer for 911.
    And for the mass market Hollywood idiots who actually think that these stars know what they’re talking about, they eat up their anti-gun diatribes like it’s indisputable fact and sadly let it shape their own opinions. Luckily us TTAG-ers are smarter than that.

    • It annoys they assume their status as a celebrity gives any credit to the argument. OMG you made Footloose, you gotta be a genius about everything!!!

  23. Celebrities that make millions playing with guns in movies are right behind politicians that enjoy armed security on the hypocrisy list.

  24. Here he talks a little about squirrel hunting with Jimmy Kimmel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6RDtYcA_gGQ

    I just like how he’s got nothing to hide and is totally unapologetic about his life. There’s another interview (the rapping one) where he says he used to live out of a van in Maui and smoke a lot of pot.

  25. http://www.gq.com/entertainment/movies-and-tv/201205/chris-pratt-interview-parks-recreation-five-year-engagement

    GQ: I wouldn’t have guessed that you were such a serious hunter, such an athlete. Did Bigelow?
    Chris Pratt: I certainly didn’t go out of my way to hide it. I was like, “It’s probably good for her to know that I like to kill shit.” I think like if you’d asked me or any of my family or friends as a kid, and said “Hey, Chris is going to be an actor when he grows up. What’s he going to do? He’s going to play a Navy SEAL, or he’s going to play a shoeshine guy who falls down on rollerblades?” I think most people would probably pick the Navy SEAL. Actually, they probably would say, “No, Chris isn’t going to be an actor. He’s going to be in the armed forces.” I went camping every summer. And I went bird hunting, deer hunting as a kid, and just got out in the woods. And I drank beer with my old man and my older brother and we became men out in the woods. That’s how we identified ourselves. And I still very much enjoy it, you know?

  27. Of course they’re hypocrites if they own guns or have armed security and still vouch for any form of gun control. That’s not even a valid question on a logical basis, much less a factual one. The only real difference between any Hollyweird chowderhead and the soulless, spineless, gutless, ignorant, arrogant, uneducated, unprincipled, uncouth, ill-mannered, sexist, racist, anti-Humanist, sub-Human filth that infests Capitol Hill is that the former will at least entertain me for a while. In (mostly) a positive way, even, and that’s because wholly unlike the latter I can actually differentiate between fact and Hollyweird fiction. Meanwhile, the latter will all too happily have some slow, primitive, flat-footed, sloped-forehead, mouth-breathing, knuckle-dragging, “Yes man” Neanderthal goon stick a gun to your head and force you to comply with inhumane, unnatural, and Unconstitutional laws. Where as, the former would not and could not do that.

  28. Actually, in a twisted way, Hollywood does a fairly good job of glorifying and selling guns, thus growing the owner base and the NRA base. The video game producers are great gun salesmen as well.

    • You hit the nail on the head. As long as they keep making these movies glorifying guns they will continue to foster gun envy among the masses. They can make as many hypocritical PSAs as they want. Every one just makes them look more unbelievable. Most actors never stop playing some kind of facade, so you cannote really take anything they say seriously.

      A bigger problem is the plethora of movies that seem to suggest that it’s the new normal to seek revenge for the smallest slight by grabbing a gun and shooting up the offender and his immediate surroundings. Combine that with constant exposure from early childhood to same type, violent, video games and the entertainment industry is doing a lot to create a dangerous, new generation that lacks appreciation for the intended, responsible ownership and use of firearms.

  29. “These stars make movies with guns that make people want to own guns. So, are Hollywood celebs the worst gun hypocrites, or do we reserve that honor for gun-protected pols and non-entertainment pro-gun control billionaires?”

    Oh mannnn, do I have to decide? Can’t I pick “all of the above”?

  30. Glad to see that Chris Pratt isn’t one of those “gunz are bad, mkay?” Guys.

    I personally have no problems with background checks as long as no records are kept (but that is halfway impossible so I don’t like them).

  31. There are over 370 “mental disorders” listed in the latest version of the DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.) The list includes “Tobacco Addiction Disorder” among other equally mundane and ridiculous so-called “mental illnesses.”

    If the DSM is the standard by which Obama wishes to remove our rights to own guns, then I’d guess 90% of the American people could probably be classified with a mental disorder of one kind or another.

    BEWARE, BEWARE

  32. Mental health is the avenue to gun control..
    It was used to confiscate guns in Eastern Europe prior to WWII..

    American Psychiatric Asso: Half of Americans are mentally ill..
    After crafting by politicians and Media all will be crazy except for them..

    300 million prescriptions for psychiatric drugs were written in 2009 alone..
    Your children on medication for ADHD?
    Single woman with children diagnosed with depression?

    be careful what you ask for

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