“The Paris terrorist attacks shouldn’t be exploited to clamp down on guns, insists Jesse Hughes, the front man for the band that was performing when 89 people were killed in the Bataclan theater last year.” That’s how nbcnews.com spins it. Gently, gently. But there was no getting around Eagles of Death Metal singer Hughes’s views on gun control, as voiced to French TV . . .

In an interview Monday with the French television station iTélé, Hughes — a longtime gun-rights activist — maintained not only that French gun restrictions didn’t inhibit the terrorists but that they actually made it easier for them.

The Paris terrorist attacks shouldn’t be exploited to clamp down on guns, insists Jesse Hughes, the front man for the band that was performing when 89 people were killed in the Bataclan theater last year.

Hughes’ band, Eagles of Death Metal, was about an hour into its performance when gunmen stormed in and opened fire in one of the coordinated attacks across the city on Nov. 13.

In an interview Monday with the French television station iTélé, Hughes — a longtime gun-rights activist — maintained not only that French gun restrictions didn’t inhibit the terrorists but that they actually made it easier for them.

“Did your French gun control stop a single [expletive] person from dying at the Bataclan?” Hughes said. “And if anyone can answer yes, I’d like to hear it, because I don’t think so. I think the only thing that stopped it was some of the bravest men that I’ve ever seen in my life charging head-first into the face of death with their firearms.”

“I know people will disagree with me, but it just seems like God made men and women, and that night guns made them equal,” he said. “I think the only way that my mind has been changed is that maybe that until nobody has guns everybody has to have them.”

Amen. It’s s shame that so many innocent people had to die for French people to hear the truth about guns.

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39 COMMENTS

  1. Exactly. Every gun used by the terrorists is illegal in France. Yet they had no problem getting them.
    Those who advocate for more gun control laws are actually lobbying for the Criminal class and the corrupt. Those are the only two groups that benefit. Disarming the law abiding does not make them safer. But it does make the ‘work place’ safer for criminals and corrupt public employees.

    • Those who advocate for more gun control laws are actually lobbying for the Criminal class and the corrupt. Those are the only two groups that benefit.

      I would like to point out that the ruling class also benefits from gun control laws … but isn’t that just being pedantic since many, if not everyone, agree that the ruling class is almost universally criminal and/or corrupt?

  2. As a person who witnessed the carnage in Paris first-hand, his interpretation of it and statement about gun control accrue a powerful validity. I applaud him for speaking-out.

  3. If for some reason the government makes it illegal for me to own a firearm, better bet that I’ll still have one.

  4. Sad to see a man broken by the sight of death. Western cultures better wake up to the fact that death is something to become comfortable around. The long peace is over.

    • Western culture has always had a strange and uncomfortable relationship with death. There’s a lot of drivers for that, and I don’t know that it pays to delve deeply into them.

      Especially in the US.

    • He’s not broken. He was giving an emotional interview and showed emotion. A man can show emotion and not be broken, fer fu*k’s sake.

    • there is a difference between death and murder, many of us witness death. i would imagine quite a few of us have witnessed murder too. life escaping its bodily form is not something we often have to deal with, life forced from its body by acts outside our doing is a bit harder to deal with.

  6. Wow, I strongly encourage everyone to watch the entire interview. Mr. Hughes puts everything on the table in a way that, as far as I am concerned, no one can possibly refute. His simple statements of fact AND emotion are quite possibly the most succinct, most compelling statement in condemnation of gun control that I have ever heard. We should take his statement and run with it.

    Sure, a few die hard gun-grabbers will never change. If his statement cannot move anyone away from gun-control and to our side, nothing else will.

    • Case in point … here are more of Mr. Hughes’ words:

      … I don’t ever want to have to see anything like this ever happen again. And I want everyone to have the best chance to live. And I saw people die that maybe could have lived … I don’t know. But I wish I knew for sure if they could have had a better chance because there was some real angels, real wonderful people in that show that are not alive today … and I really wish they were.

  7. No, he’s not broken, he’s been profoundly affected by the experience.

    This is hands down the best argument for gun rights I’ve ever heard. I never would have expected such eloquent words from a professional rock musician. Shame on me for stereotyping.

  8. ADMIN/OWNER!!! LOOK!!!
    Your freaking ads, on the mobile site version, won’t let me get to your freaking site. I have to reload your main page AT LEAST twice, to get past the pop-up ads. It keeps opening new windows and redirecting me. The last couple days, I go to ttag, reload it 2-3 times, after having my App Store open several times, close the several tabs that your ads have opened, click on 1 article, read, rinse, repeat. Fix your crap.

    • It’s a nightmare isn’t it. I hate the auto load talking ads too. When I have to listen to depositions and I click over here, I don’t need Select Buicks in stock, blaring. Worse thing is someone might think I actually want the preferred vehicle of Chinese Communist. Shudder…

    • I’m talking about on my iphone. I have add blocker on my computer. Are those apps available for phones?

    • I agree 100%

      Do something about the stinking spam clogging up the mobile site and crashing mobile devices

      TTAG was one a good website, now it is infested with spam and spam-for-brains commenters and admins that cannot comprehend a simple and straightforward plea for relief like yours.

  10. Gun F’ing Mensch of the Year. No truer words.

    But I’m sure the media tropes like those on MSNBC will clamour that he’s just struggling from PTSD, should be involuntary admitted to a psychiatric ward and have his gun rights forfeited without due process forever.

    Then we can all ‘feel’….. ‘safe’.

  12. “until nobody has guns everybody has to have them”

    One of the best lines to ever emanate from the mouth of a rock singer.

    Now, go write that timeless line into a multimonth chart topping rock anthem!

  13. If no one has guns, then it reverts to swords, which require strength and skill, which favors criminals over regular folks. Guns help cancel out that disadvantage.

    But I appreciate the recognition that gun control gives a huge advantage to bad guys and hinders the test if us. I need to check out this band.

  14. Or, alternatively, we can reflect on the fact that we feel we need guns to protect ourselves in our own home countries as a sign of a basic sickness resulting from the most obvious cause that few name out of fear of being ostracized: the false religion of multiculturalism and egalitarianism.

    If Muslims had not been allowed into France to begin with and they controlled their borders like a sane nation, this would’ve never happened. Same with America and 9/11. Instead we’re willing to tolerate this perverse nonsense where we create an internal police state to protect us from people who shouldn’t be here in the first place, thus turning our previously decent societies into low trust hellholes and police states.

    People here often wax nostalgic about 1950s America being a nicer place to live. Yeah, it was. We didn’t need militarized police. We controlled our borders and limited immigration solely to people who were like us and could assimilate.

    Now it’s a free for all and the elites that run this country view everyone as replaceable units of production. All they care about is money. They’re under the false impression that Jose or Muhammad will be just as productive as you will and since encouraging native births and fostering the environment necessary for them would cut into the bottom line, they’re happy to import your replacements.

      • THAT was actually irony(or humor). I’m old(in my 60’s) but in my younger daze I saw JethroTull 4 times & UFO with Whitesnake. Reo Speedwagon at the Y in Kankakee-a Dex Card production…and others I can’t even remember lol.

    • Eagles of Death Metal is actually pretty straightforward rock’n’roll. Been a fan of the band (and Jesse in particular) for quite a while. He’s led quite a life..

  17. If nobody had guns it would just mean the old , sick, weak and disabled would be defensles against the young and strong. It would also mean the individual would be helpless against any three men who wanted to oppress him.

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