Rosanne Cash: Country Musicians, Stand Up to the N.R.A.
I’ve been a gun-control activist for 20 years. Every time I speak out on the need for stricter gun laws, I get a new profusion of threats. There’s always plenty of the garden-variety “your dad would be ashamed of you” sexist nonsense, along with the much more menacing threats to my family and personal safety.
Last year, I performed at the Concert Across America to End Gun Violence with Jackson Browne, Eddie Vedder, Marc Cohn and the Harlem Gospel Choir, and we got death threats. People wanted to kill us because we wanted to end gun violence. That’s where we are: America, 2017.
For the past few decades, the National Rifle Association has increasingly nurtured an alliance with country music artists and their fans. You can see it in “N.R.A. Country,” which promotes the artists who support the philosophical, if not economic, thrall of the N.R.A., with the pernicious tag line “Celebrate the Lifestyle.”
That wholesome public relations veneer masks something deeply sinister and profoundly destructive. There is no other way to say this: The N.R.A. funds domestic terrorism.
https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/10/03/opinion/rosanne-cash-country-musicians-nra.html?action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=span-abc-region®ion=span-abc-region&WT.nav=span-abc-region&_r=0
This op-ed is so good I wish I could post all of it. She calls out the congresspeople who are influenced by the NRA through cash donations and she tells her fellow musicians that the laws the NRA would pass are a threat to them, their fans and the festivals and venues where they perform. She said that some people may burn their records and ask for refunds on tickets for concerts but country musicians need to find the strength of moral conviction.
I don't believe Johnny Cash would be ashamed of her at all. I think he'd be very proud.
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