“Even though Selma Blair‘s 4-year-old son Arthur Saint plans on dressing up as a police officer this Halloween, he will not be allowed to carry his toy gun in his holster,” celebritybabies.people.com reports. “I won’t let him carry around the play gun for Halloween,” the Legally Blond brunette told People. “He doesn’t get to carry it around outside.” But Art gets to imitate life inside the home. “I’m new at navigating this,” Blair said using her best Hollywood therapy-speak. “He only plays with this cap gun with Mom or Dad around, and he seems to respect it so far and understands that these are plastic toys and we don’t shoot people.” Unless . . .
you’re acting in a movie. Like My Mom’s New Boyfriend [above].
“I am someone that is terrified of guns,” the actress added. “I know how to shoot one very well. My sister was a police officer and I have tremendous respect and caution around guns, but it is something he was drawn to.”
Cognitive dissonance much?
She doesn’t sound very bad to me. She might be one of the redeemable ones.
Yeah, I’m not seeing the problem here. She’s not a gun person, which is fine, and she’s being perfectly reasonable about toy guns for her 4-year-old.
Let’s not throw out what’s good in pursuit of what’s perfect.
nailed it!
Agreed! Well said.
She is most likely pro-gun. But she knows she isnt a fully established actress in Hollywood and doesnt want to rock that boat. First she allows her son to play with guns and is apparently teaching him well with regards to them. She admitted being good with them, which shows she shoots regularly enough. The rest appears to me is an attempt to convince the liberal hollywood anti-gun establishment that she is one of them. But she isnt. If she were truly afraid of guns, her 4 year old would have flowers and barbie dolls and not a cap gun.
+1
Quite true.
Recall that Jim Caviezel to a hit to his career just for playing Jesus in a movie that blew away the trash that Hollywood loved (last temptation). In fact Mel Gibbons warned him that would happen.
Selma plays with guns a lot in her movies. Hell Boy was one of her most fun movies.
Um, WILLEM DAFOE played Christ in THE LAST TEMPTATION OF CHRIST!
I believe he was referring to playing in Mel Gibson’s movie about “The Christ” (can’t remember the entire title), not the Hollywood favorite “The Last Temptation of Christ” will Willam Defoe.
He meant _Passion of the Christ_ most likely.
Selma Blair’s been “established” in Hollywood for quite some time.
I don’t buy that she is “terrified of guns,” and also knows how to shoot them “very well.” Those two things cannot coexist in the same person.
I agree. This is progress people. Both her son and her sister are into guns. Liking it.
At least he gets to play with toys guns at home and it sounds like some of the rules of gun safety are in effect even if she doesn’t know what they are.
While it seems to me only yesterday that big groups of us would sling our .22s across our backs and ride our bikes out to the dump to shoot rats and cause no fuss whatsoever (in a liberal California college town, no less), I’m not so sure I’d let my kids play outside with toy guns in any kind of suburbia nowdays. The potential downsides just aren’t worth it (forget about trigger happy cops, you just know some asshole would be on the phone to social services trying to get them to crawl up your ass).
I’ve been quite surprised to see several young boys playing with toy guns at the gate of the community where my daughter’s friend lives. Seems natural, but now out of place these days.
+1. Today’s dog-shooting cops have offed kids for having TV remotes in their hands. No way I’d let a kid of mine carry anything more realistic than a cartoonish orange Super Soaker in any public venue that isn’t a gun range. Out in my own back yard, that’s another story entirely. My impression is that she’s trying to strike a reasonable balance between her own rights and her kid’s safety.
Someone give her the memo: guns are OK for cops and the “right people”, remember? “But he’s only pretending to be a cop”. And it’s only a “pretend” gun. BTW, maybe he was “drawn” to guns watching Mom carry one in the movies? So much fail…
At least she is teaching respect for the toy guns as opposed to just flat out banning them. I had a mother in one of my kids play groups forbid any kind of “gun” on our play dates- neon squirt guns, light up alien style guns, even effing bubble guns! I feel like forbidding items or topics to children causes even more of an interest in them that could develop into something else entirely.
Only time to be terrified of a gun is if someone’s pulled one on you or is shooting at you and you don’t have one to level the playing field.
Or if it’s a Bryco/Jennings and you’re the one pulling the trigger…
I’d throw it or use one as a club instead. After dousing it with holy water for extra protection
Most liberal Hollywood actors remind me of the poor schmucks during the Soviet show trials in the 1930’s. They accept their fate and always support the party line, knowing that not doing so is a death sentence.
Her fear of guns might be a good start. She just needs to adjust her perspective a bit to respect instead of fear and then learn the safety basics and teach them to her son. Not sure that will ever happen but it looks like she might be headed in that direction. At least she is not denying they exist or banning any replica of one from her home.
I don’t really see a problem with what she’s doing with her kid here. It’s not Eddie Eagle, but he’ll know not to play with anything gun-like without his parents’ OK.
My boys haven’t really been drawn to toy guns like I would have expected – maybe it’s because none of their friends have them? If they wanted them, I’d let them have them, but I won’t push them. I want to get them into shooting when they are older, and I’ll be happy to teach them safe handling from a “clean sheet” instead of having them unlearn bad toy gun habits.
I agree with Blair about not playing with them outside in general – it’s not worth the risks – though I might make an exception for a Halloween costume.
Toy guns, real guns, meh. One son loves guns and shooting, the other not so much, happy to go along but no real drive. Raised as close to the same as we could manage, now 35 and 41, all people are just not the same.
Toy guns serve a few purposes: fun and as a handy gun safety study aid. It isn’t hard to spend a few seconds going over The 4 Rules, and then take cover behind the couch and snipe some bad guys on tv with my little girl.
Boys love guns. If they don’t have a toy gun, sticks will become guns. They only start hating guns after becoming emasculated beta males. I played with toys guns from the time I was a little kid. The first person to teach me about gun safety was my mom. She talked to me about not pointing guns at people and being safe. She sounds like she isn’t doing too bad of a job of raising her kid.
Nice grip ; )
Selma who? I guess I need to get out more. or not.
I think she was in The Sweetest Thing. Her character got her boyfriend’s piercing caught in the back of her throat and she had to sing to get loose.
Hilarious movie. You might pass it up as a “chick flick” but it was very funny. Almost as funny as “Something About Mary”. Christina Applegate is in it and that right there is worth the price of admission.
I don’t see a problem-very little cog. dif. She let’s him have toy guns and respects guns. Lighten up…she was on Anger Management FWIW. Nothing to see here.
Many years ago, back before I regained RKBA consciousness, I foolishly acceded to my ex’s foolish insistence our son spend his tender formative years in a gun-free home, especially including toy guns. Ya’ know, it’s downright amazing how many different improbable inanimate objects a frustrated but normal and imaginative kid can pretend are make-believe guns. Just about anything handheld, in fact. You can take the guns away from the boy, but not vice versa.
“I know how to shoot [a gun] very well.”
Not with that teacup grip you don’t.
She’s part of the problem. She knows how to shoot very well, but is still terrified of guns? Liar. To shoot very well you must gain command of the mechanics of the firearm. You cannot do that and still be “terrified” by them. You’d never reach proficiency with that degree of irrationality.
As with a horse who senses a tentative, inexperienced rider, or a dog who smells your fear and hesitancy, her son picks up on her irrational fear. It’s compounded by her ban on toy guns outside of the house, and her constant worrywart hovering when he plays with toy guns at home.
She’s instiling in him, against his natural interests, a sense that guns are to be feared, loathed, ashamed of, and reserved only for special people who work for the government.
You know what would be a kick-ass costume? A kid dressed in freshly pressed casual slacks, a nice polo stye shirt, and a toy GLOCK sitting in an unobtrusive IWB or OWB holster. What’s he going as for Halloween? A man.
Reading the thread here, it seems we’ve really lowered the bar vis-à-vis Hollywood. She lets her 4-year-old play with a toy pistol, but only in the house and only with mom or dad around and we don’t shoot at people (I guess he plays like he’s shooting at imaginary paper targets? Or does he get to shoot at imaginary animals?) And she’s one of the “good” ones. OTOH, maybe I am indeed being too harsh. Early on I let my wife indulge her “no play guns” wishes with my boys. And we didn’t own a TV or go to movies. But they still played with stick “guns”, so she gave up, and they both went on to be competitive target shooters and sometime hunters who keep handguns for home/self defense. Maybe she’s just being like my wife was, moving from point A to point But the thing is, she pretends to shoot people with guns, and gets paid for it. Can’t quite square that what she’s doing with her son.
My first thought about not wanting the boy to carry a toy gun was that some rookie cop might mistake it for a real gun if the kid pulled out and “drew down” on an officer that just happened to be walking, or driving by.
Cops are funny that way.
I’m guessing she’s not letting her four-year-old wander around on Halloween in his policeman suit all by himself.
I should hope so.
Political correctness and nanny-ism is so hard to relate to. I played with every sort of toy gun imaginable as a kid in a home that had no guns, and parents who had no interest in having guns. Yet they let me have water guns, cap guns, dart guns, bows and arrows with those suction cups that stick to the wall, toy swords and daggers, probably bought some of them for me. As an adult I was neutral on guns, no hate but no interest, until repeated workplace situations brought to light huge personal vulnerabilities. And of course as kids we always played cowboys and Indians, or cops and gangsters, and everyone got “shot” but no-one got hurt or as far as I know became a criminal. Way too much angst about nothing today; and way too little worry about how close we are coming to destroying our society.
and he seems to respect it so far and understands that these are plastic toys and we don’t shoot people.”
Awwww, I used to play Army and shoot other kids with my toy M-14.
A bit off the subject, but I have a neat trick you can play on the little folks who come to your door the evening of the 31st.
I get a paper grocery bag, and when they knock, I open the the door real quick, and before they can say a word, I say TRICK OR TREAT!
It blows their little minds, they don’t know how to reply! They just stand there. I hold the bag out, and if they finally say trick or treat, I say, I said it first, fill up the bag! Sometime they put something in the bag.
All this takes place in about 10 seconds or so, and then I smile and tell them I just kidding!
This sort of sounds like a bit of career protections by someone who, if not actually pro-gun, is at least gun friendly.