Why Eric Church is a '2nd Amendment guy' who supports gun reform
As one of the headliners at the Las Vegas country festival where 58 people were murdered last year, the issue of gun rights is personal to singer Eric Church.
In the new issue of Rolling Stone, Church, a gun owner who describes himself as a "Second Amendment guy," said he supports some reforms, but blames the National Rifle Association (NRA) for why they haven't been enacted.
"Nobody should have 21 AKs and 10,000 rounds of ammunition and we don’t know who they are," he told the magazine. "Something’s gotta be done so that a person can’t have an armory and pin down a Las Vegas SWAT team for six minutes."
Church, who said the massacre in Las Vegas changed his stance on guns "a little," said he's in favor of closing gun-show loopholes, banning bump stocks and improving background checks. Noting that he saw a video where he could hear the "unbelievable" number of rounds the Vegas shooter fired, adding, "I don’t think our forefathers ever thought the right to bear arms was that."
“There are some things we can’t stop,” he said. “Like the disgruntled kid who takes his dad’s shotgun and walks into a high school. But we could have stopped the guy in Vegas.”
The singer blamed "the lobbyists" for the lack of movement on the issue.
"I don’t care who you are -- you shouldn’t have that kind of power over elected officials," he said. "To me it’s cut-and-dried: The gun-show [loophole] would not exist if it weren’t for the NRA."
And while the North Carolina native knows he may get some flak from fans for his comments, he said, simply, "I don't care."
“Right’s right and wrong’s wrong," he said. "I don’t understand why we have to fear a group [like the NRA]. It’s asinine. Why can’t we come together and solve one part of this?"
