Kirk Douglas may have brandished a six shooter in films like "Gunfight at the O.K. Corral" and "Man Without a Star," but he wishes America wouldn't follow his big-screen example.
"I often played the good cowboy on screen, riding in to save the day," the 96-year old Douglas writes in a Huffington Post opinion piece. "Now, everybody thinks he is a cowboy too. That frightens me. We have become a cowboy country with too many guns."
Douglas acknowledges that he has guns in his own homes — souvenirs from his days as a cowboy hero — but writes that he always made sure to keep them locked up in a safe so his children, and later his grandchildren, could not access them.
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Stricter guns laws must be enacted, Douglas writes, because it is to easy to buy or find weapons.
The action hero from Hollywood's Golden Age writes that he was compelled to come out in favor of gun control after reading about a 5-year-old Kentucky boy who accidentally shot and killed his 2-year-old sister last month with the .22-caliber rifle he received for his birthday.
President Obama has been pushing for tighter gun laws, including background checks for firearms sold online and at gun shows, but legislation has faced fierce opposition from some members of Congress and the gun lobby.
Douglas said he hoped that the country would take action.
"I am 96 years old," Douglas wrote. "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."