Laura Dern has insisted that American schools will "never be safe" until gun laws in the U.S are changed.
Laura Dern explains why gun laws need to be changed following the mass school shooting in Texas
The 55-year-old actress was speaking out in response to the school shooting in Uvalde, Texas - which saw when 19 children and two teachers were killed towards the end of May - and claimed that children should not attend school until the laws are tightened.
She said: "What if we just said: kids in America aren’t going to school, because schools aren’t safe until you change gun laws in this country? There has never, ever been a world where any Democrat or liberally-minded politician or caring conservative parent said, ‘We are gonna take everybody’s guns.'"
The 'Jurassic World Dominion' star - who has son Ellery, 20, and daughter Jaya, 17, from her former marriage to blues singer Ben Harper - explained that in light of school shootings, Democratic politics have simply "created a narrative" that has fed into American culture and allowed mass shootings to take place.
She told The Guardian newspaper: "So they created a story. The narrative is: ‘They’re gonna take our guns!’ and it’s been feeding American culture all these years. And now we have weekly mass shootings."
The mass shooting at Robb Elementary School Texas was carried out by 18-year-old Salvador Ramos and - although he was reportedly not found to have any documented mental health issues - Laura explained that a boy like him should not have been able to purchase ammunition so easily.
She said: "No boy with mental health history – no human being – should ever be able to go into a store and legally buy an AR-15 and 300 rounds of ammunition. You can have a hunting rifle and you can have guns to protect your family or whatever, but there are still profound ways we can effect change so that semiautomatic and automatic weapons and no background checks are not a part of our country!"
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