“The Shield” star Michael Chiklis believes it’s time for the country to stop being run by politicians on the fringes of politics.
“This polarization in this country has to stop,” he told the New York Post. “The grownups in the room have to take over. We’ve allowed the fringes on both the far right and far left to control the narrative for too long and it’s created this death spiral that can’t be accepted any longer — period.”
In his upcoming Fox series, “Accused,” Chiklis plays an “affluent brain surgeon,” who also happens to be the father of a teenage boy who is on trial for planning to commit a violent attack on his school.
In light of the recent mass shootings by 18-year-old boys, at a grocery store in Buffalo, New York earlier this month and an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas on Tuesday, he believes the show’s subject matter is “pretty relevant,” because the horrific events “keep happening.”
“It’s this bizarre cycle that we’re stuck in and we have to break it,” Chiklis remarked. “I don’t know how this happened. I grew up in the United States; I grew up in a hunting tradition. I grew up as a gun owner. I don’t know one gun owner that doesn’t believe that we need to do something — and this is a perfect example.”
“This kid was flagged, he had issues, there is no way in this world that this kid should have been able to buy an AR-15 and pistols without a million bells and whistles going off,” he continued. “We’re stuck.”
New York’s red flag law, which was created to prevent people that are a threat to themselves and others from buying or possessing guns, should have restricted Tops Friendly Market shooter, Payton Gendron, from legally obtaining the semi-automatic rifle he gunned down 10 people with.
Gendron made a remark about murder-suicide in a classroom last June while he was still a minor. He was investigated by authorities and cleared, 11 months later he committed the racially motivated attack.
Chiklis believes that “we’re stuck in a wheel” of violence, but would rather stick to acting than get involved in politics. “I’d rather eat glass,” he said.
wpDiscuz