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Artist News
Eagles Of Death Metal frontman: “Until nobody has guns, everybody has to have them”
By Andy Malt | Published on Wednesday 17 February 2016
Despite witnessing a horrific terrorist attack during one of his own shows, Eagles Of Death Metal frontman Jesse Hughes says that his views on gun control have not changed.
Eagles Of Death Metal, of course, were performing at the Bataclan theatre in Paris when gunmen opened fire on the audience, in the bloodiest of a series of attacks on the city on 13 Nov last year.
Speaking to French TV station iTélé ahead of the band’s return to Paris for a show at the Olympia theatre last night, US National Rifle Association member Hughes said: “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. 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”.
Those men were, of course, police officers fully trained in the use of firearms and diffusing such awful and thankfully unusual situations. But Hughes remains unswayed.
“I know people will disagree with me”, he continued. “But it just seems like God made men and women, and that night guns made them equal. And I hate it that it’s that way. I think the only way that my mind has been changed is that maybe that until nobody has guns, everybody has to have them. Because I’ve never seen anyone that’s ever had one dead. I want everyone to have access to them. I saw people die that maybe could have lived, I don’t know”.
Speaking about the decision to return to Paris to perform so quickly, he went on: “I think that’s what we really need, to just have fun together, so that we can put some of this shit behind us and really leave it there so it doesn’t follow us around for the rest of our lives”.
As previously reported, owners of the Bataclan have said that they plan to refurbish the venue before re-opening it later this year.
