Actor Martin Sheen is familiar with the US political system. He portrayed a President of the United States for years on television in “The West Wing,” and aside from that, he’s particularly an expert on John F. Kennedy. He played Kennedy in a TV miniseries and narrated the voiceover for Oliver Stone’s “JFK” – oh, and he’s also a close friend of the Kennedy family. He’s weighed in on the gun debate recently and commented on US President Donald Trump’s handling of the recent school shooting in Florida.
According to Sheen, JFK would’ve handled the NRA’s meddling very differently from the way that Trump is handling it.
The actor said that Kennedy would’ve “confronted those b*****ds” at the NRA, instead of conceding to their demands (like Trump). He added that JFK would have “an even and direct response” to the Florida school shooting that would be both “human and compassionate,” rather than Trump’s response, which was all over the place – making it about himself, then listening to the victims, then listening to the NRA, then calling for teachers to be armed with guns, and so on.
Sheen predicts an alternative history if Kennedy had survived
If JFK had survived his assassination in 1963, Sheen predicts, then we would be living in a very different America today – one were “those weapons would not be in the hands of stark raving mad people.” The crazy people he is referring to are the likes of Nikolas Cruz, the 19-year-old kid who went into his high school a couple of weeks ago, opened fire, and killed 17 people. Sheen called the NRA a “bullying organisation” and said that Kennedy would not have “rolled over” to their will, like Trump has.
