"I cannot express how wrong I was"
+ READ ARTICLEA country guitarist who performed at the Las Vegas music festival where a gunman killed 58 people on Sunday said he has changed his mind about gun control in the wake of the massacre.
“I’ve been a proponent of the 2nd amendment my entire life. Until the events of last night,” Caleb Keeter, a guitarist for the Josh Abbott Band, wrote in a message on Twitter on Monday. “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.”
The Josh Abbott Band performed at the Route 91 Harvest Festival on Sunday afternoon. Keeter said he and other members of his band and crew were still there when a gunman opened fire on concertgoers. The Las Vegas shooting, which left more than 500 people injured, became the worst mass shooting in modern U.S. history.
“Enough is enough,” Keeter wrote, criticizing the shooter’s “access to an insane amount of fire power.” “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.”
“We need gun control RIGHT. NOW,” he said. “My biggest regret is that I stubbornly didn’t realize it until my brothers on the road and myself were threatened by it.”
Keeter later responded on Twitter to some gun control advocates who questioned what he had not supported their cause previously.
“You are all absolutely correct,” he said. “I saw this happening for years and did nothing. But I’d like to do what I can now.”
While some Democratic lawmakers made similar arguments for gun control on Monday, the White House said it was too soon to debate such policies.