Eagles of Death Metal frontman, Jesse Hughes, has spoken up in favour of universal gun ownership, saying that his experience of the November 2015 terrorist attacks at Paris’s Bataclan Theatre has convinced him that “until nobody has guns everybody has to have them.”
In an emotional interview with French television station iTelé, Hughes, a long-time gun advocate and supporter of Republican Presidential candidate Donald Trump, was asked if his views on gun control have changed since the Paris attacks.
Through tears he responded: “Gun control kind of doesn’t have anything to do with it”, but went on to say: “If you want to bring it up, I’ll ask you: Did your French gun control stop a single fucking person from dying at the Bataclan? And if anyone can answer yes, I’d like to hear it, because I don’t think so.”
The Californian metal band was playing to a crowd of 1,500 people on 13 November 2015 when three gunmen entered the Bataclan Theatre and murdered 88 people with assault rifles and hand grenades. Islamic State later claimed responsibility for the shootings, which were part of a city-wide attack that claimed the lives of 130 people.
In the iTelé interview, Hughes said: “I think the only thing that stopped it was some of the bravest men that I’ve ever seen in my life charging head-first into the face of death with their firearms.”
He continued: “I know people will disagree with me, but it just seems like God made men and women, and that night guns made them equal. I hate it that it’s that way. I think the only way my mind has been changed is maybe that until nobody has guns everybody has to have them.”
He went on to say that he’s never seen anyone that’s had a gun die and that he wants everyone to have access to them after watching people die unarmed on the night of the Bataclan Theatre shootings.
A member of the National Rifle Association of America, Hughes has long been an advocate of universal gun access. In a separate interview with Agency-France Presse he said, “I don’t go anywhere in America without a gun anymore. That sucks. And I’m not paranoid. I’m not a cowboy… but I want to be prepared.”
Eagles of Death Metal are currently on tour and will play Bluesfest 2016, plus Melbourne, Sydney and Fremantle sideshows. Paris’s Bataclan Theatre is set to reopen at the end of the year.
Watch: Eagles of Death Metal frontman Jesse Hughes discusses gun control following Paris attacks. Via The Guardian
