Testament’s Alex Skolnick Says the U.S. Has “the Weakest Gun Laws in the Developed World”
In case you somehow didn’t hear, there was yet another mass shooting in America this past Sunday: 19-year-old Santino William Legan opened fire with a semi-automatic rifle into the crowd at the Gilroy Garlic Festival in Northern California. He murdered three people — including a 6-year-old boy and a 13-year-old girl — and injured dozens more before he himself was gunned down and killed by police. Donald Trump took time off from sending out racist tweets and negging French wine to condemn the shooter as a “wicked murderer,” but this being the United States, it seems likely that this latest shooting will have no actual impact whatsoever on gun laws. In other words, there will be another mass shooting any day now.
And at least one metal musician recognizes that until the U.S. addresses its shitty gun control laws, these kinds of massacres will continue to take place: Testament’s Alex Skolnick. When a fan tweeted at him (and Tracii Guns and Nikki Sixx) following the shooting to make sure the guitarist was okay, Skolnick offered the following reply:
“I’m thousands of miles away, thanks. But as more mass shootings happen at schools, malls, movie theaters, concerts, nightclubs & elsewhere (we can add food festivals, sadly) here in the country with the weakest gun laws in the developed world & the most guns, none of us are safe.”
Which seems like common sense. But this is America. We don’t do common sense. We let rich people manipulate us into allowing children to be murdered in the name of “freedom” so that they can grow richer.
Word mentioning: although the Gilroy Garlic Festival is, as its name suggests and as Skolnick notes, a food festival, it also included live music, and Legan, in fact, started firing during a performance by the band Tin Man. It’s not even a little bit of a stretch to imagine metal fans going to some kind of event that mixes a passion for music with a passion for food. Any of us could have been at an event like this. You’d have to be inhuman for this shooting not to hit real close to home for you.
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