In the wake of tragedy, singer and songwriter Rosanne Cash used the power of words to make a stand. She took to the editorial pages of the New York Times calling out the NRA and urging fellow country starts to stand up for stricter gun control laws as well as against the gun rights organization.
This comes after the mass shooting in Las Vegas this past Sunday when a gunman opened fire on the crowd at the Route 91 Harvest Festival during a headlining performance by country star, Jason Aldean. By the end, 59 people died and more than 520 were injured making it is the largest mass shooting event in U.S. history.
Every day, it seems like there is another tragedy and yet nothing is changing so instead of putting it to the side, Cash wrote the piece which was posted earlier today.
In the opinion piece, she accuses the National Rifle Association (NRA) in the first couple of paragraphs in the New York Times piece by saying that “A shadow government exists in the world of gun sales, and the people who write gun regulations are the very people who profit from gun sales. The NRA would like to keep it that way.”
She encouraged fellow music artists to end their silence and speak up even if it means being bullied themselves. Cash has been an advocate for gun rights and has been speaking out for the cause for the past 20 years. “Every time I speak out on the need for stricter gun laws, I get a new profusion of threats.”
Cash was part of last year’s Concert Across America to End Gun Violence which included Jackson Browne, Eddie Vedder, Marc Cohn and the Harlem Gospel Choir. She admitted that “we got death threats. People wanted to kill us because we wanted to end gun violence. That’s where we are: America, 2017.” She went on to say, “I encourage more artists in country and American roots music to end your silence. It is no longer enough to separate yourself quietly. The laws the NRA would pass are a threat to you, your fans, and to the concerts and festivals we enjoy.”
According to the piece, Cash calls out a “shadow government” in which the people who write the gun laws are the same ones profiting from them. “The laws we have in place to prevent the procurement of military-style weapons by mentally ill citizens are laughable by the standards of any civilized society,” Cash continues. “But even those pathetic restrictions would be eased if the N.R.A. had its way.”
We should not be silenced during these hard times. Cash wrote, “This is a moment in American history that can’t be met with silence. According to PolitiFact, from 2005 to 2015, some 300,000 people were killed by gun violence. That’s roughly the population of Pittsburgh. The grief that extends through the affected families is endless.”
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