© Charles Platiau / Reuters
Eagles of Death Metal vocalist Jesse Hughes, whose band was performing at the Bataclan theater in Paris when 90 people were murdered by terrorists in December, has argued for universal access to guns in an interview with French TV ahead of an emotionally charged gig in Paris on Tuesday night. Asked if his longstanding views on gun-control laws had changed after the terror attacks, he said, “Did your French gun control stop a single fucking person from dying at the Bataclan? And if anyone can answer yes, I’d like to hear it, because I don’t think so. I think the only thing that stopped it was some of the bravest men that I’ve ever seen in my life charging head-first into the face of death with their firearms… I think the only way that my mind has been changed is that maybe that until nobody has guns everybody has to have them… I saw people die that maybe could have lived.” Soldiers and armed police will be standing guard at tonight’s gig, to which survivors of the Bataclan massacre were given free invitations.