Country music guitarist and Vegas shooting survivor says he's reversed his gun control stance
— -- A country music guitarist who played Sunday night at the outdoor concert in Las Vegas where a gunman opened fire, killing 59 and injuring over 500 people, says he has now reversed his stance on gun control.
"I’ve been a proponent of the 2nd Amendment my whole life," Caleb Keeter wrote on Twitter today, "until the events of last night. I can’t express how wrong I was."
Keeter plays lead guitar for the Texas-based Josh Abbott Band, which performed several hours before a gunman opened fire during headliner Jason Aldean's set.
"We actually have members of our crew with [concealed handgun licenses], and legal firearms on the bus. They were useless," he wrote. "We couldn’t touch them for fear 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 firepower."
He added: "Enough is enough."
Keeter wrote that on Sunday, he wasn't sure he'd survive the night.
"Writing my parents and the love of my life a goodbye last night and a living will because I felt like I wasn’t going to live through the night was enough for me to realize that this is completely and totally out of hand," he said. "These rounds were just powerful enough that my crew guys just standing in close proximity of a victim shot by this f-----g coward received shrapnel wounds."
He then concluded, "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."
Keeter wasn't the only musician calling for gun control in the aftermath of the mass shooting.
Five months after a bombing at her Manchester, England, concert killed 22 and injured more than 100 others, pop star Ariana Grande called for "love, unity, peace, gun control & for people to look at this & call this what it is = terrorism."
