It’s no secret that many pop-country stars love — or at least present a facade of loving — their guns.
Well, some of the dude-bros in Stetsons are backing off their affiliation with the National Rifle Association in the days after a horrific Las Vegas shooting that left 59 people dead after the Route 91 Harvest Festival.
As Rolling Stone points out, Florida Georgia Line, Thomas Rhett and Luke Combs have clarified that they are not partnered with the gun advocate group which has been eerily silent after 64-year-old Stephen Paddock used more than a dozen guns to terrorize a sold out country music festival on Sunday night (Paddock was found dead in his room with 47 weapons) .
FGL, Rhett and Combs were 37 artists featured on the NRA Country website, but they’ve been wiped off since the magazine reached out to representatives.
Spokespeople for Florida Georgia Line even clarified that the band does “not have a present day association with the NRA.” A representative for Thomas Rhett also stated that the singer “has no current affiliation with the NRA.”
Even representatives for The Voice judge Blake Shelton — who’s been a clear advocate of gun rights — told the magazine that, “Blake does not have a partnership with the NRA.”
All this comes after country music royal Rosanne Cash penned a New York Times op-ed urging country musicians to stand up to the NRA.
Read the rest of Jonathan Bernstein’s great story here. Florida Georgia Line plays the MidFlorida Credit Union Amphitheatre on October 13. Details on that show are available via local.cltampa.com.
This article appears in Oct 5-12, 2017.
