Brad Pitt - Brad Pitt Defends U.s. Gun Laws

The Fight Club star is a lifelong lover of pistols and owned his first weapon - an air gun - when he was just a small child, and he's adamant lawmakers in his native country should not bow to public pressure to rescind its constitutional right to bear arms.

The actor is equally certain violent movies should not be censored, insisting it's vital to show the reality of tragedies such as the shooting rampage at a screening of The Dark Knight Rises near Denver in July (12) that left 12 dead and dozens more injured.

Pitt tells British magazine Live, "I absolutely don't believe you can put sanctions or shackles on what is made. Nor do I want to pretend the world is different than what we witnessed that night...

"America is a country founded on guns. It's in our Dna. It's very strange but I feel better having a gun. I really do. I don't feel safe, I don't feel the house is completely safe, if I don't have one hidden somewhere. That's my thinking, right or wrong.

"I got my first BB (air) gun when I was in nursery school. I got my first shotgun by first grade. I had shot a handgun by third grade and I grew up in a pretty sane environment. I was in the U.K. when the shootings happened and I did hear the discussion about gun control start again, and as far as I know it petered out as it always does.

"It's just something with us. To turn around and ask us to give up our guns... I don't know, we're too afraid that we're going to give up ours and the bad guys are still going to get theirs. It's just in our thinking. I'm telling you, we don't know America without guns."