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Josh Abbott Band Guitarist Flips Gun Control Stance Following Las Vegas Shooting: ‘We Need Gun Control RIGHT. NOW.’

By Bryan Rolli        October 2, 2017

Josh Abbott Band guitarist Caleb Keeter took to Twitter on Monday morning (Oct. 2) to share his thoughts on gun control in the wake of the Las Vegas shooting that left more than 50 people dead and 500 injured.

Josh Abbott Band

The Texas country group performed at the Route 91 Harvest festival on the Las Vegas Strip on Sunday afternoon (Oct. 1), where hours later an active shooter began firing into the audience from the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino. Keeter, previously a lifelong gun rights advocate, said witnessing the ensuing chaos firsthand caused him to realize how ineffective he and his crew were as the incident unfolded.

“I’ve been a proponent of the 2nd Amendment my entire life,” he wrote. “Until the events of last night. I cannot express how wrong I was. We actually have members of our crew with CHL licenses, and legal firearms on the bus. They were useless.”

The guitarist added that his bandmates and crew couldn’t access their firearms during the attack because police could have mistaken them for attackers as well. He praised the police officers for defusing the situation as quickly as possible, and said the shooting gave him a wakeup call on the need for tighter gun legislation.

“We need gun control RIGHT. NOW.,” he wrote. “My biggest regret is that I stubbornly didn’t realize it until my brothers on the road and myself were threatened by it.”

Keeter followed up his original statement with another more hopeful, defiant tweet: “That being said, I’ll not live in fear of anyone. We will regroup, we’ll come back, and we’ll rock your f***ing faces off. Bet on it.”

Read Keeter’s statements in full below.