Rambo Hates Guns: How Sylvester Stallone Became the Most Anti-Gun Celeb in Hollywood :: 08/15/2014

This weekend, you can see Sly lay waste to hundreds of fools in The Expendables 3. But the man formerly known as John Rambo is, surprisingly, one of the NRA's most reviled stars.

On Friday, The Expendables 3 hits theaters. It's the third installment in the star-studded, old-school, bullet-riddled action series spearheaded by Sylvester Stallone—of the Rambo franchise or, for the less-discerning filmgoer, Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot.

The latest Expendables flick was never destined to garner much love from film critics. "You need The Expendables 3 like you need a kick in the crotch," wrote Variety's Justin Chang. Regardless, the movie will no doubt satisfy fans of the kind of '80s action vehicles in which large objects explode and nameless henchmen are heroically gunned down.

But here's a thing to keep in mind whenever a new Stallone guns-guts-and-glory fest comes out: Sylvester Stallone is the most anti-gun person working in Hollywood today (really).

This probably strikes you as weird, given that the impossibly ripped, snarling actor has built his image and fortune on being one of American cinema's most iconic gun-toting protagonists. "[M]ovie cult figures like Rambo are seen as boosters for every American's right to bear arms," reads a Reuters story from 1985, noting that national gun-control efforts had weakened due to a "newly aggressive U.S. mood."

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/08/14/rambo-hates-guns-how-sylvester-stallone-became-the-most-anti-gun-celeb-in-hollywood.html