
Last month, the University of Southern California’s Hollywood, Health & Society Program published “Trigger Warning: Gun Guidelines for Media,” a series of recommendations for the entertainment industry on how it should portray firearms.
Although some of these guidelines offer helpful suggestions, particularly about how the media should deal with the topic of suicide, the publication is aimed largely at motivating Hollywood to stigmatize lawful gun ownership.
The guidelines are highly critical of any attempts to portray the benefits of gun ownership, particularly for victims of domestic violence. They include a section on the “myth” of “the good guy with a gun” and are awash with heavily disputed (and often easily dispelled) talking points manufactured by gun control advocates.
USC’s guidelines may push Hollywood to “change the narrative” on guns, but nothing can change the facts—the right to keep and bear arms is a critical component of the natural, unalienable right of self-defense. And peaceable citizens rely on it all the time.