Legendary singer/songwriter Charlie Daniels had strong words against some Democratic presidential candidates and others making recent public overtures for greater gun control.
His views were published recently in a commentary on CNSNews.com called: “Charlie Daniels: Master Plan on Radical Side Is to Incrementally Outlaw All Privately-Owned Firearms.”
Raised in North Carolina, Daniels describes himself as an “outspoken patriot, beloved mentor to young artists and still a road warrior at age 81” on his Charlie Daniels Band website. He has been inducted into the Grand Ole Opry and Musicians Hall of Fame. He also received a star on the Music City Walk of Fame.
He characterized recent gun-control statements by some Democratic presidential contenders as “political desperation by also-rans trying to get a little more face time on TV to bolster their faltering campaigns.”
Daniels noted: “This attitude, this approach and these kinds of opportunistic politicians are the very reason there has been no movement on gun legislation because law-abiding gun owners know that this kind of attitude that immediately grabs the low hanging fruit and never the roots of a problem skews to overkill, that in reality, does nothing about the real dilemma and ends up being a futile exhibition of asinine hyperbole and rhetoric about how the opposing side wants to see mass murders and school shootings.”
He also spoke in defense of Second Amendment proponents. “Nobody with enough gray matter to tie their shoes really believes that the proponents of the Second Amendment want to see gun violence, and the kind of gross incendiary dialogue that suggests otherwise is totally counterproductive to doing anything about sensible gun laws or the insanity on our streets,” Daniels said.
He views “the roots of our gun problem run through the political process, the biased media, the dealers who allow straw-purchasing of firearms, the alley dealers and the crime community’s black market. One place it does not run is through the locked gun cabinets of the millions and millions of legal gun owners who have never used their guns for anything except sports and protection. They have a right to own guns. Criminals don’t. Apply the medicine to the diseased areas, not the healthy ones.”
In 2017, Daniels was honored by Friends of NRA for his enduring support. “Being a lifetime member of the National Rifle Association is just who I am and what I believe in,” he noted then.
