Pantera “Sad and Disappointed” That “Christina Grimmie was Gunned Down the Same Way That Dimebag Darrell Was”

Sunday morning’s tragedy in Orlando should have hit a nerve with… well, every human being with a conscience, to be frank. But for metal fans, the entire event had an especially disturbing sense of déjà vu — not just because this was the umpteenth mass shooting, or even because we just lost a substantial number of our fellow hard rock and metal fans in a different terrorist attack. For any metal fan, a performer being killed on stage — in this case, The Voice‘s Christina Grimmie — will immediately call to mind horrific memories of the murder of Dimebag in 2004.

And so, touchingly, if unsurprisingly, Pantera released a statement regarding the shootings via Facebook yesterday:

“We are so sad and disappointed to hear that Christina Grimmie was gunned down the same way that Dimebag Darrell was. After Dime’s murder, we all prayed that our industry (i.e. club owners & promoters) would do whatever they needed to do to protect artists from gun wielding fanatics. Sadly, that’s not the case and another rising star had to pay the consequences with her life. SOMETHING NEEDS TO CHANGE! RIP Christina & RIP Dime, Jeff Thompson, Erin Halk, and Nathan Bray.”

Obviously the quality of concert security tends to vary based on the venue… but I will say that it occurs to me every time I go into a venue and the dude at the door barely pats me down that it would be SO EASY for some dick to bring a weapon into the show.

Ultimately, and to the chagrin of the Ted Nugents of the world, the only thing which can really, truly help put an end to this kind of incident is stronger gun control laws. Still, it’s on concert and event security guards across the world to, y’know, do their jobs. And while venue security will almost certainly tighten up in the wake of the Orlando shootings, I fear that will only be temporary, the way mere months after 9/11 TSA basically went back to being lazy assholes. I sincerely hope I’m wrong.