Guns & Music

Is there a correlation between the music you play and your opinion on guns?

Sure, there are plenty of gun fanatics who are musicians, notably guitarist Ted Nugent, who loves his guns so much that he has threatened violence against gun haters. (Presumably, he would not be using switchblades to affect this mayhem.)  But if I had to guess,  among musician (at least the good ones), there are probably many more gun haters.

But is there some correlation between particular types of music you play and the love or hate of guns? Maybe musicians who like to play relentlessly loud (like some electric guitarists and drummers) are more prone to liking guns than say, jazz pianists in the Bill Evans vain, or singer-songwriters like Paul Simon.

Hmm…in fact, now that I think about it, the gun nuts/musicians I’ve had the unfortunate experience of interacting with on Facebook are electric guitarists and drummers. Which doesn’t necessarily mean that there aren’t gun-loving flutists out there; I’ve just never met one.

And then there’s Nugent, whose NY Times Best Seller is entitled, God Guns and Rock ‘n’ Roll, and who has played his music so loud for so long that he’s going deaf (and dumb, but sadly only intellectually.)

So yes, there may be a connection to hostility in certain types of music and the aggressiveness that leads one to love guns.

I, of course, hate guns, gun culture, and whoever invented the goddamn instrument of terror in the first place, every bit as much as Nugent loves all of it. And unlike the wimpy politicians on the left who say they absolutely respect “the responsible gun owner” and the 2nd amendment, I don’t and am all for its repeal. I also firmly believe that gun ownership and the 2nd amendment are intimately connected to slavery and our country’s little issue with racism.

And while I certainly have no problem with loudness in music, I do have a problem with musicians that have the need to always be loud. Music that is persistently loud has a kind of brutalist aggression, an oppressive quality that wants to obliterate everything in its path.

Like guns and the people who love them.