County music superstar Jason Aldean made clear that his position on the current gun debate will be to avoid taking a position in the debate.
Aldean says he is not “a politician” and that he believes the American people would be best served if everyone quit pushing their own political “agendas” and sought something that really works.
“I’m not a politician. I’m not trying to push my own agenda. If I say that I believe this, I’m gonna piss off half of the people, and if I say I believe that, I’m gonna piss off the other half. I have my opinions, but what the hell do I know?” the four-time Grammy nominated signer told Entertainment Weekly.
“I think everybody needs to sit down, stop pushing their own agendas, and figure out what will make it safer,” Aldean said. “When people can’t go to a damn movie or a concert and not worry about somebody shooting the place up, there’s a flaw in the system.”
Aldean was on stage at the Route 91 Harvest music festival in Las Vegas when Stephen Paddock opened fire on the crowd, killing 58 on October 1, 2017.
The Josh Abbott band played the festival earlier in the night and that band’s guitarist, Caleb Keeter, emerged from the experience apologizing for defending gun rights in the past.
Keeter explained he is for gun control going forward:
I have been a proponent of the 2nd Amendment my entire life. Until the events of last night, I cannot express how wrong I was. We actually have members of our crew with CHL licenses and legal firearms on the bus, [but] they were useless. We couldn’t touch them for fear that the police might think we were part of the massacre and shoot us. A small group (or one man) laid waste to a city with dedicated, fearless police officers desperately trying to help, because of access to an insane amount of fire power.
By contrast, when Aldean spoke to EW he assessed factors other than guns that he believes may play a role in violence toward others.
“I’m not a pro [but] I think part of the issue is kids at home playing virtual reality games where they’re shooting people all day,” Aldean said. “They sit down for hours and hours, and that starts to become actual reality. Get out and throw a ball, you know what I’m saying? I think that’s part of the problem, but I don’t know.”
AWR Hawkins is the Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and host of Bullets with AWR Hawkins, a Breitbart News podcast. He is also the political analyst for Armed American Radio. Follow him on Twitter: @AWRHawkins. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com.
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