Once-relevant music mag tries to “blow the lid off” of country music’s ties to the NRA and their NRA Country brand – and drive a wedge between them . . . Inside Country Music’s Uneasy Relationship With Gun Control
Immediately after the (Las Vegas) shooting, the country music community was overwhelmed with a prevailing sense of silence on the issue of guns, with nary a single recording artist willing to speak publicly about the topic.
Since then, Nashville has slowly, if hesitantly, begun to reflect upon its relationship with firearms. Rolling Stone spoke with a dozen artists and industry veterans about their evolving, often conflicted feelings about country music’s economic and cultural relationship with the gun industry, a relationship informed and made complicated by country’s formal ties to the gun lobby via NRA Country.
Although every artist interviewed for this piece stresses that they’d like to see changes in the nation’s gun laws, they all expect any change in country’s ties to gun culture to be gradual, slow and subtle. “I know the NRA works with artists, and I also know that many artists love to hunt and none of that is necessarily going to change after Las Vegas,” says songwriter Lori McKenna, who’s written hits for Little Big Town and Hunter Hayes. “We can’t change the things that are threaded inside of us that quickly.”
Read the whole thing here.
*searches desperately for my give a shit about what Rolling Stone and country music songwriters think about my gun rights*………….
I looked in my desk drawers, I looked in my gun safe, I looked in my truck, I looked at home, I looked at work. I even called some of my friends but we could not come up with any fucks to give about what a worthless rag has to say about my guns.
I even went and looked through that pile of stuff in the corner of the garage – nope, not a thing.
Just came here to say I’d found a fvck to give under my desk… who knew it would look like a dust bunny of dog and ferret hair?
🤠
I still wouldn’t give it. Rolling Stone isn’t worth it.
Lets not forget Dude that keeping wildlife, um… an amphibious rodent, for… um, ya know domestic… within the city… that ain’t legal either.
I found a recent issue of Rolling Stone one of my co workers brought into work, I was leafing through it and discovered they had a “bad to good” style graph on one page, detailing recent political events. Literally everything they listed as being bad/negative I found to be overwhelmingly positive, and the stuff they listed as good/positive I found repugnant and awful. It’s a weird feeling, leafing through a periodical written by people who are almost your exact opposite. I also thought it was weird that political events were being discussed in a magazine that ostensibly covers music, but I guess there’s a lot about liberals that is weird.
That’s what a “rag” that is well passed it’s expiration date does to stay relevant. It’s readerships consists of aged hippies and college students wanting to be recognized as “hip”.
I wouldn’t say they’re doing that because they’re failing, but I really hope they’re failing because of it. They’ve been doing that same kind of crap for a loooong time. I realized back in the early ’90s that Rolling Stone was doing its best to kill everything I loved about music, and they’ve been anti-gun leftist propagandists from day one.
It is my sincerest hope that the fvcktardidity of that rag didn’t rub off on your trigger finger as you turned the pages, Godspeed on your recovery if it did.
My wife and I obtained tickets to the DNC convention in Denver in 2008. I figured I’d never be likely again to hear a future President speak in person.
We were literally shaken by the experience. Imagine 76,000 people screaming for abortion and demending I give up my legally kept and borne arms.
Until that time, I was unaffiliated, and voted for the most qualified candidate. After? I will never, never, EVER vote for a (D). And every time I hear one spout BS, I buy another box of amm unition.
Still won’t register (R), though.
Next up, the American Rifleman will discover that Jann Wenner is gay.
In other news Rolling Stone Discovers That Country Music and Patriotism go hand in hand…🇺🇸
And those country clowns Timmy McGraw and wife will lose their azzes opposing their “fans”. Does ANYONE buy RS on a newstand anymore?!?😖
Hank Williams jr. I like him, but don’t know if he. Will …..get a picture on the cover of the rollin stones. Texas Hippie Coalition might. I dig Big Daddy Riches shotgun Mike. Then there’s Steven Tyler, he likes to hunt, Lars Ulrich( Metallica) rescheduled concert to hunt. Ted Nugent’ , Catfish Ted, all mouth and no brain , I used to like him but after that crap on MTV “hunting with Ted”, he’s just s dumbass
Say doesn’t “Rolling Stone” have another rape hoax to concoct?
The rape “epidemic” in Sweden would be an excellent example.
There’s something ineffibly sad about a bunch of superannuated hippies passing judgement on what regular, unenlightened (in the sense of not “lighting up”) folks think. Possibly they forget that their own forebears once inhabited “flyover country” before being driven out by the dustbowl of the 1930s, and herded like cattle to the promised land of Californication. They yearn for the drugged out haze of the 1960s when they were briefly relevant. Neither their opinions nor their pontifications are of any interest to those of us with actual lives to lead, which don’t include anything of interest to them. We have what we need, and we don’t need them.
Looks to me like there is an opportunity here.
The C&W artists are astute enough to recognize that coming out for gun-control is a death sentence. Rather like coming out in support of Harvey Weinstein’s sexual proclivities would be for an actress.
So, what do you do if you are a C&W artist? Perhaps the best you can do is shut-up and hope that works. Even so, you will be badgered by representatives of the MSM for comment. Better be prepared.
Our organizations, NRA, GOA, SAF, etc. ought to do some outreach here. Offer to meet privately with C&W artists and explain the ugly facts-of-life to them. 230 million guns aren’t going anywhere any time soon. The anaconda strategy (squeeze hard enough and long enough and the prey will suffocate) will take far longer than their carrears.
None of the so-called “common-sense” measures could have any measurable effect. Their fans will fight these nonsense measures out of principle, or spite, or generalized opposition to Progressive-ism. Just why is this so? We PotG understand the facts; but likely these artists don’t. They need to be convinced of the facts and the truth.
Ultimately, the facts and the truth are not going to satisfy the reporters from the MSM. We, the PotG, through our organizations’ outreach, need to provide the talking points for the artists to use in responding to the MSM.
Lovely idea… just one problem, you see when they aren’t goin pop or backing gun control most country artists are viewed as slack jawed cousin fucking hillbillies by “mainstream” music mags. Sorry but if you ain’t Taylor Swift or stumpin gun control like Mcgraw you’re viewed as just another redneck with a guitar. Just ask Aaron Lewis ( lead singer of Staind) he’s gone country and you ain’t heard shit bout him lately. Darius Rucker (Hootie and the Blowfish) is bout the same way except you hear him on the radio. Aaron just needs to find his sound and get some more stuff like Country Boy out there.
Not interested in changing Rolling Stone’s editorial bent. Rather, we ought to inoculate celebrities against the BS fed to them by MSM. If C&W artists have some idea what the reality of the issues are AND know what talking points to pursue, they will have sensible responses to MSM questions – – – which the MSM won’t print.
Occasionally, some of these statements will leak past the MSM filter and be heard by the fans. Those who are not already gun supporters will become better informed.
“The C&W artists are astute enough to recognize that coming out for gun-control is a death sentence.” – Two words: Dixie Chicks.
I think this says it all.
There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there always has been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that “my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.”
ISAAC ASIMOV, “A Cult of Ignorance”, Newsweek, Jan. 21, 1980
I wonder if RS has discovered that Rap glorifies violence with guns?
“Yes, we glorify guns. But that’s only in our music. In our private lives, we hate guns.” Said no rap ‘artiste’ ever.