5 Ways Dawn of the Planet of the Apes is Unintentionally Pro-Gun

If the critics claim there was a not so subtle message for gun control in this movie, then maybe they’re watching it with their own preconceived biases, because this is the movie I saw:

1. The movie takes place in the San Francisco Bay Area, that’s gun-control central, yet all the humans have guns because they stole them from the National Guard and FEMA.

2. A baby ape almost finds a gun and pulls the trigger, but the humans and apes stop him. If you wanted to make an anti-gun, you would have let that baby shoot himself. Humans and apes stopping children from shooting themselves is not anti-gun, it’s the stuff the NRA preaches.

3. At one point apes take guns away from humans who are in their territory. When one human tells another to stay awake and guard the place, he replies: “with what? They took our guns.” Thus the message is clear, without guns, we’re pretty much useless.

4. Two soldiers drink whiskey and shoot machine guns at the same time, however, mixing alcohol and guns doesn’t prove deadly, the humans don’t shoot each other or experience a gun accident. Instead, they are shot by an ape who steals their guns by pretending to be their friend (something human beings can do, as we saw with the way American Sniper’s Chris Kyle was shot by a traitor with PTSD).

5. Humans try to kill apes with a tank, the apes steal the tank and use it against them. This shows that apes like humans are able to use strategy, machines, and complex thinking.

Conclusion: For this movie to be anti-gun, the apes would have to win using their physical abilities alone which are greater to those of any human. But as Caesar puts it, apes and humans aren’t that different, there are good apes, bad apes, apes that murder apes, apes that murder humans, etc.

P.S. Since the apes kill a bear using spears, one could argue this movie is pro-hunting as well.