Eric Church puts the blame for the mass shooting in Las Vegas in October squarely on the shoulders of the National Rifle Association (NRA). Eric, who admits to being a gun owner, performed at the Route 91 Harvest Festival just two nights before the shooting, which killed 58 people and wounded more than 500.
Eric told Rolling Stone Country, “There are some things we can’t stop. 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 . . . Right’s right and wrong’s wrong. 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? Start with the bump stocks and the gun shows. Shut a couple of these down. I do think that will matter a little bit. I think it will save some lives.”
Eric said he still struggles with the horrific outcome of the Las Vegas show saying, “It got dark for me for a while. I went through a period, a funk, for six months at least. I had anger. I’ve still got anger. Something broke in me that night, and it still hasn’t healed. There’s a part of me that hopes it haunts me forever.”
Eric covers the August issue of Rolling Stone Country.