WASHINGTON • Alec Baldwin (above) has an unusual idea for ending cruelty towards bears in captivity: Maybe give them guns?

"People talk about the right to bear arms," the actor says in a new video for the People For The Ethical Treatment Of Animals that shows footage of bears held in cramped pits, where they suffer from disease and distress.

"After seeing this video, you might want to push for the right to arm bears."

He is kidding, of course, in that sardonic Alec Baldwin kind of way. But he is making a point.

In the video and in a letter to the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), the self- proclaimed animal activist asks that people stay away from roadside zoos and shows that use "bear pits" and that the United States government ban the method of confinement.

"The USDA has an ethical and statutory obligation to ensure that exhibited bears are treated humanely, and until it does, bears languishing in concrete pits will continue to pay the price," Baldwin wrote to Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack.

WASHINGTON POST