Matthew McConaughey recounts diving headfirst into his hometown tragedy

Matthew McConaughey penned an essay for Esquire calling for stricter gun regulations in the aftermath of the Robb Elementary School massacre that took place in his hometown of Uvalde, Texas.

"Our firearm policy is failing us, and we are failing it," McConaughey wrote in the essay, published Tuesday.

In the essay, he called for raising the minimum age to buy an assault rifle to 21 years old, a measure many of the victims' families advocated for this past week during a press conference. He also reiterated his support for stronger background checks and mandatory gun safety training.

This is not the first time McConaughey has expressed his views on stricter measures regarding who should be able to own a gun.

Weeks after the shooting, he wrote an op-ed in the Austin American-Statesman calling for what he referred to as "gun responsibility" measures. Days after that, he gave an emotional speech at the White House calling on Congress to pass gun reform.

"How can these families continue to honor these deaths by keeping the dreams of these children and teachers alive?" he asked from the White House press briefing room in June. "How can we make the loss of these lives matter?"

In his Esquire essay, McConaughey offered an answer.

He spent the weeks following that speech on the telephone, he wrote, ringing senators he had met on his trip. His goal was to get 10 Republican votes for a gun control measure being weighed in the Senate that would lengthen the waiting period for background checks and put millions of dollars toward gun law enforcement.

In the end, 15 Senate republicans voted in favor of the bill and President Joe Biden signed it into law in late June. McConaughey wrote that the bill doesn't solve everything.

"We'd done our best to make their lives matter," he wrote.

McConaughey spent the first 10 years of his life in Uvalde. He held his first lemonade stand in the town, saw his first movie at the theater there, and spent his first allowance at the local drug store, according to his essay. He went to school less than a mile from Robb Elementary.

Just days after the shooting that left 21 victims dead, he and his wife, Camila, returned. They met with families of the victims.

"Fathers, mothers, brothers and sisters reveled in sharing the passions, dreams and affections of their loved ones who were alive just days earlier," he wrote in Esquire.

It was after reconnecting with families in his hometown that he was spurred into action, he said.

He has reconnected with his town's sports teams, too.

In September, McConaughey lent his voice to an ESPN College Gameday package focused on the players of the Uvalde High School football team after they won their first home game in a nail-biter.

"The crowd cheered these young men," he said. "Young men who kept the faith. Young men who claimed a victory that seemed out of reach. Young men that reminded us that even in the most painful and darkest of times, light comes in the morning."