America's Cowboy Days Are Over - Kirk Douglas

Under the flooring of my dressing room is a safe. In it are two guns that I used to shoot the bad guys in movies and a silver plated revolver with my name engraved on it which was given to me by some crazy fan. People take their movie heroes very seriously. I often played the good cowboy on screen, riding in to save the day. Now, everybody thinks he is a cowboy too. That frightens me. We have become a cowboy country with too many guns.

I put my guns in the floor safe very long ago so that my children would not be able to find them. I was reminded of that safe when I read in the papers that a five-year-old boy shot and killed his two-year-old sister. How did he get the gun?

I remember many, many years ago when I was a little boy. Somehow, I was climbing around in the house and I found a revolver on top of a cabinet. I took the gun, ran into the kitchen waving my find. My father grabbed the gun from me and gave me a spanking. It was really his fault because I learned later that he had been in a fight at the saloon with a guy who had a gun. My father was a tough guy in those days and he subdued the guy and took his gun. I guess he thought he had placed it in a safe spot. There is no safe spot for kids.

I cannot understand the people who are against some form of gun control. They should be the first to welcome a message on making it more difficult to get a gun. Many of them seem to propose more guns being available to everybody. Why? Are they interested in making more money for the gun manufacturers? Are they politicians who just want to oppose the president in anything he endorses? It's incomprehensible to me.

I am 96-years-old. I have many grandchildren. I would hate to leave them a world where guns are easily accessible. Children don't vote, adults do. It's time to do something to make our children safer. America's cowboy days are over.