A Defensive Gun Use in a Movie that Worked Out Well: The Green Book (2018)

Nov 13, 2025 | Media Bias

We normally just focus on how television shows treat gun ownership. And television show bias against guns is never-ending. You won’t see an entertainment television show that has a civilian successfully using a gun defensively. Instead, something always seems to go wrong when guns are used defensively (from being fatally shot by the criminal without stopping the crime to getting in the way of police to continually having the gun stolen and use in a crime to it being used in an accidental shooting).

But this 2018 movie is an example of successful defensive gun use. Interestingly, the Tony Lip (the character portrayed by Viggo Mortensen) was only pretending that he had a gun, but just the threat of the gun was able to save Dr. Donald Shirley (portrayed by Mahershala Ali).

If you watched entertainment television these days, you would never know that people use guns defensively some 2 million times a year. If you want some examples of people successfully using guns to stop crimes, here are some examples. Other examples of people using guns to stop mass public shootings are available here. More examples of television coverage of defensive gun uses are available here

Here is a video on Hollywood’s bias against guns.

johnrlott

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