Gun-Owning Musicians Speak Out on Gun Control After Mass Shootings
The topic of gun control is back in the news following the recent mass shootings in Georgia and Colorado. Musicians, some of them gun owners (Snider and Labonte), have spoken out on where they believe the U.S. should be regarding gun rights, especially when it comes to the AR-15.
Mass shootings are generally defined as a single incident when four or more individuals are shot. Mass shootings can be gang-related, domestic situations, seemingly random acts of violence and large-scale mass casualty events such as Columbine. As of this posting, over 100 mass shootings have taken place in the United States in 2021, leaving 122 people dead and 325 injured.
Twisted Sister’s Dee Snider responded to a month-old tweet from U.S. Representative and pro-gun activist Lauren Boebert, calling her a “fucking idiot” in the process:
Sebastian Bach agreed with Snider’s tweet, pointing out the vast advancements in firearms widely available to the public since the Second Amendment was written:
Offspring guitarist Noodles also spoke out against the United States’ current gun culture:
As for the pro-gun argument, All That Remains’ Phil Labonte expressed his long held views:
Shinedown’s Brent Smith simply shared a CNN video with a short, mournful tweet:
With the COVID-19 pandemic shutting down much of the United States in 2020, one may assume fewer mass shootings took place across the country last year. Though the most deadly mass shooting of 2020 had a relatively low body count (seven dead), there were actually 181 more mass shooting incidents in 2020 than 2019 (615 vs. 434) and four more deaths (521 vs. 517) according to Mass Shooting Tracker.