American singer, songwriter and guitarist Ted Nugent played lead for psychedelic rock band Amboy Dukes in 1963 but is best known for his solo career, especially “Cat Scratch Fever.” Nugent is also known for his Republican-leaning political views including being a board member on the National Rifle Association.
On February 14th, 2018, 17 people were killed in the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting in Parkland, Florida. As a direct response of the shooting and so many like it over the last few decades, nationwide protest known as National School Walkout Day took place on March 14th with students leaving their classes to remember the seventeen lives lost in the Parkland shooting and protest Congressional inaction on gun control. Thousands of people participated in the March For Our Lives on March 24th. Some of the participants in the march were survivors of the Parkland shooting, giving speeches along with Martin Luther King Jr.’s granddaughter Yolanda Renee King. The shooting in Parkland has had a slightly larger impact on the gun control debate than other school shootings such as Columbine, Virginia Tech and Sandy Hook Elementary, but it remains to be seen what, if any, changes are made.
According to CNN Nugent went on Joe Pagliarulo’s conservative radio program, “The Joe Pags Show,” to share his views on the protest and protesters in particular. Nugent’s comments about the Parkland survivors include referring to them as “liars,” “poor, mushy-brained children” that were brainwashed by the media and that they “have no soul.” claiming they were brainwashed by the media and “they have no souls”.
“The dumbing down of America is manifested in the culture deprivation of our academia that have taught these kids the lies, media that have prodded and encouraged and provided these kids lies,” he said after watching videos of Parland survivors and movement figureheads David Hogg and Emma Gonzalez. “I really feel sorry for them because it’s not only ignorant and dangerously stupid, but it’s soulless.”
A day after his interview on “The Joe Pags Show” Nugent posted a live Facebook video. According to MediaMatters in a Facebook Live video Nugent said, “I merely identified that you have to have mush for brains to accept, blindly accept, the propaganda from the gun-hating, freedom-hating, America-hating, liberal Democrat left media.”
Other musicians such as Jesse Hughes from Eagles of Death Metal and Killer Mike from Run the Jewels have weighed in on the Parkland survivors. According to mxdwn Hughes ranted on Instagram in March expressing his political views on the matter, referred to the anti-gun protesters as pathetic – post he has since apologized for. One image included in his posts was a Photoshop-altered picture of Parkland survivor Emma González tearing apart the United States Constitution – doctored from a photo shoot in which she was tearing up a shooting target.
Killer Mike appeared on NRA TV in March to speak about his views on gun control and the current gun protests. According to mxdwn Killer Mike took to Twitter to apologize and clear up his interview with NRA TV after receiving backlash on Twitter.
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