American Jewish movie mogul Harvey Weinstein has come under
fire from gun-control opponents and conservatives in the United States after
announcing his plans to make a film that takes on the National Rifle
Association.
Weinstein appeared on Howard Stern's radio show this week,
where he revealed plans for the anti-gun film he says will star Meryl Streep.
(She has yet to confirm her role in the project.)
“I shouldn’t say this, but I’ll tell it to you, Howard,” he
said. “…We're going to take this head-on. And they’re going to wish they
weren’t alive after I’m done with them,” he said, referring to the NRA.
The Washington Times reported that the Hollywood bigwig
hopes viewers leave this film, which he compared to "Mr. Smith Goes to
Washington," thinking, "'Gun stocks -- I don’t want to be involved in
that stuff.' It’s going to be like crash and burn."
Weinstein's remarks drew harsh criticism from right-wingers
and gun advocates – including rocker Ted Nugent and a Fox News panel hosted by
Martha MacCallum.
Nugent compared Weinstein to Nazi propaganda minister Joseph
Goebbels, telling an NRA radio show that moviegoers who see the film "will
see that Joseph Goebbels and [Jewish community organizer] Saul Alinsky is alive
in the form a fat punk named Harvey Weinstein, and as he tries to destroy the
NRA it will backfire on him."
"Harvey Weinstein is on the side of criminals,"
Nugent went on to say. "The NRA is on the side of innocent victims
protecting themselves from criminals."
The Weinstein project was also the subject of discussion on
Fox News, where a panel McCallum hosted also took shots at the entertainment
executive.
Mike Slater, a radio host, accused Weinstein and his
Hollywood colleagues of having "built their careers on making incredibly
violent movies and they have contributed to this desensitizing to violence in
America, whether it's gun violence or 'knockout game' violence and everything
in between."
McCallum, meanwhile, took the opportunity to rehash a claim
that the Holocaust could have been prevented had more Jews been armed.
"Their guns were all confiscated under German law at the time," she
said, according to Media Matters for America, a non-profit U.S. media watchdog.
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