The Route 91 Festival in Las Vegas on October 1, 2017, was supposed to be a night of drinking, fun, and country music. Instead, when a man opened fire on the crowd, it turned into a nightmare. Now Eric Church is speaking out against the group that he thinks is largely to blame for the tragedy: the NRA. Click through the gallery to hear why this self-professed “Second Amendment guy” is saying enough is enough when it comes to the National Rifle Association.
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Photo credit: MEGA
Eric, 41,
opened up to Rolling Stone about how that October night changed him. “I had anger. I’ve still got anger. Something broke in me that night, and it still hasn’t healed. There’s a part of me that hopes it haunts me forever,” he said. 58 people were killed and more than 800 were injured.
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The “Springsteen” singer owns about half a dozen guns himself, and doesn’t think the right to bear arms should go away. “But nobody should have that many guns and that much ammunition and we don’t know about it. Nobody should have 21 AKs and 10,000 rounds of ammunition and we don’t know who they are.”
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“Something’s gotta be done so that a person can’t have an armory and pin down a Las Vegas SWAT team for six minutes.”
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The father of two supports common-sense gun reforms like closing gun-show loopholes, improving background checks, and banning gun stock. “As a gun guy, the number of rounds [the shooter] fired was un-f----ing-believable to me,” he said. “I saw a video on YouTube from the police officer’s vest cam, and it sounded like an army was up there. I don’t think our forefathers ever thought the right to bear arms was that.”
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“There are some things we can’t stop,” he said. “But we could have stopped the guy in Vegas.” And he knows who he holds responsible. “I blame the lobbyists. And the biggest in the gun world is the NRA.”
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“I don’t care who you are – you shouldn’t have that kind of power over elected officials. To me it’s cut-and-dried: The gun-show [loophole] would not exist if it weren’t for the NRA, so at this point in time, if I was an NRA member, I would think I had more of a problem than the solution. I would question myself real hard about what I wanted to be in the next three, four, five years.”
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And if fans are angry at him for speaking out? “I don’t care,” he says. “Right’s right and wrong’s wrong. I don’t understand why we have to fear a group [like the NRA].”
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Photo credit: MEGA
He thinks the main problem is that people won’t talk about the issues with each other. “I feel like these things need to be discussed. That’s the problem with this country. We don’t talk to each other enough. We dig in, we don’t listen and we don’t talk.”
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Photo credit: MEGA
What do you think of Eric’s political turn? Sound off in the comments!
Eric, 41,
opened up to Rolling Stone about how that October night changed him. “I had anger. I’ve still got anger. Something broke in me that night, and it still hasn’t healed. There’s a part of me that hopes it haunts me forever,” he said. 58 people were killed and more than 800 were injured.
The “Springsteen” singer owns about half a dozen guns himself, and doesn’t think the right to bear arms should go away. “But nobody should have that many guns and that much ammunition and we don’t know about it. Nobody should have 21 AKs and 10,000 rounds of ammunition and we don’t know who they are.”
“Something’s gotta be done so that a person can’t have an armory and pin down a Las Vegas SWAT team for six minutes.”
Photo credit: Getty Images
The father of two supports common-sense gun reforms like closing gun-show loopholes, improving background checks, and banning gun stock. “As a gun guy, the number of rounds [the shooter] fired was un-f----ing-believable to me,” he said. “I saw a video on YouTube from the police officer’s vest cam, and it sounded like an army was up there. I don’t think our forefathers ever thought the right to bear arms was that.”
Photo credit: Getty Images
“There are some things we can’t stop,” he said. “But we could have stopped the guy in Vegas.” And he knows who he holds responsible. “I blame the lobbyists. And the biggest in the gun world is the NRA.”
Photo credit: Getty Images
“I don’t care who you are – you shouldn’t have that kind of power over elected officials. To me it’s cut-and-dried: The gun-show [loophole] would not exist if it weren’t for the NRA, so at this point in time, if I was an NRA member, I would think I had more of a problem than the solution. I would question myself real hard about what I wanted to be in the next three, four, five years.”
Photo credit: Getty Images
And if fans are angry at him for speaking out? “I don’t care,” he says. “Right’s right and wrong’s wrong. I don’t understand why we have to fear a group [like the NRA].”
He thinks the main problem is that people won’t talk about the issues with each other. “I feel like these things need to be discussed. That’s the problem with this country. We don’t talk to each other enough. We dig in, we don’t listen and we don’t talk.”
What do you think of Eric’s political turn? Sound off in the comments!