A guitarist who performed at Las Vegas’ Route 91 Harvest Festival before last night’s mass shooting says the experience has immediately and fundamentally changed his perspective on gun ownership.
Caleb Keeter, a country musician who plays with the Josh Abbott Band, took to Twitter to tell fans he and members of his band were safe.
However, the traumatic incident –which saw at least 58 people die, and hundreds more suffer injuries – convinced him that gun ownership, long interwoven in America’s national identity and its Constitution, needs to be restricted.
Keeter argues that one of the counterarguments to limiting gun ownership – that ‘good guys’ with guns can stop these incidents from endangering innocent people – was rendered totally moot.
I’ve 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 [concealed handgun licenses], and legal firearms on the bus. They were useless. We couldn’t touch them for fear police might think that we were part of the massacre and shoot us. A small group (or one man) laid waste to a city of dedicated, fearless police officers desperately trying to help, because of access to an insane amount of fire power.
Enough is enough. Writing my parents and the love of my life a goodbye last night and a living will because I felt like I was going to live through the night was enough for me to realize that this is completely and totally out of hand. These rounds were powerful enough that my crew guys just standing in a close proximity of a victim shot by this fucking coward received shrapnel wounds.
We need gun control RIGHT. NOW.
My biggest regret is that I stubbornly didn’t realize it until my brothers on the road and myself were threatened by it. We are unbelievably fortunate to not be among the number of victims killed or seriously wounded by this maniac.
His Twitter post has already been shared over 14,000 times, forming part of the (regrettably) recurring conversation about America’s infuriating inaction on gun laws.
The muso has also addressed the fact he knew something was wrong with America’s gun culture before the shooting, but didn’t act.
https://twitter.com/Calebkeeter/status/914941713180917765
But it’ll take more than one artist’s admission to provide a solution to the issue.
