The "dangerous" reason why Trump wants Mel Gibson to get his gun rights back [View all]

[marmar]

The "dangerous" reason why Trump wants Mel Gibson to get his gun rights back
A defining characteristic of MAGA men is their insecurity. Now, it's threatening everyone's safety

By Amanda Marcotte
Senior Writer
Published March 13, 2025 6:00AM (EDT)


(Salon) There could be no better poster boy than Mel Gibson for the wisdom of "red flag" laws, which allow the state to remove guns from people in a mental health crisis or who are an active threat to the community. To be clear, the actor lost his gun rights due to a 1996 federal law that strips gun rights away from people convicted of domestic violence. Gibson was convicted of misdemeanor domestic violence in 2011 after pleading "no contest" to accusations of punching his girlfriend while she held a baby. Yet Donald Trump's administration reportedly forced out a pardon attorney for the Justice Department because she refused to restore Gibson's gun rights.

"This is dangerous. This isn’t political — this is a safety issue," Elizabeth Oyer told the New York Times, which first reported on her Friday firing.

Link to tweet

She's right. A history of domestic violence is a strong predictor of a man's overall tendencies towards violence, a fact so well-known that even the far-right Supreme Court balked last year at ending the law prohibiting domestic abusers from having guns. Eighty-two percent of Americans agree that wife-beaters should not have guns, including even 81% of Republicans. Gibson's story illustrates why this is such a big deal. While Gibson downplayed the attack against his then-girlfriend as a "slap," prosecutors said he punched her hard enough to bust her teeth. But what's telling is how remorseless Gibson has been. During the attack itself, he screamed that she "deserved it" while calling her names, outraged she refused to "smile, and blow me." In official court documents, he continued to insist his violence was merely "an attempt to bring her back to reality."

....(snip)....

The battle over Gibson's gun rights underscores how this is not, as MAGA likes to pretend, a matter of feminist joykills complaining about a few off-color jokes. Gibson's legal right to tell jokes, no matter how tasteless, is not in dispute. The issue is letting him have weapons designed to kill people with ease. The research on this is crystal clear: Domestic abuse is far more likely to turn deadly when a gun is involved. But not only does Trump not care, it seems very much like the threat of violence is part of the allure. Trump's toxic brand of "masculinity" valorizes violence and abuse, especially against people who are smaller or less powerful. That's why his administration appears to have intervened in the prosecution of Andrew Tate, a misogynist "influencer" who was charged in Britain and Romania for rape and sex trafficking. .................(more)

https://www.salon.com/2025/03/13/the-dangerous-reason-why-wants-mel-gibson-to-get-his-rights-back/