Rosanne Cash, Chely Wright + Others Talk Gun Control Following Thousand Oaks Shooting
Following Wednesday night's (Nov. 7) shooting at a country bar in Thousand Oaks, Calif., Rosanne Cash, Chely Wright and Margo Price were among the artists offering their condolences to those affected -- but they were also questioning what else has to happen for the United States to reform its gun laws.
"When will we get serious about gun violence in America?" asked Wright in a tweet on Thursday morning (Nov. 8). Price, meanwhile, re-tweeted a photo of herself on Election Day (Nov. 6), wearing an "I Voted" sticker and a pin that reads "We Can End Gun Violence." Of the shooting at the Borderline Bar & Grill, she says, "This is why I wear this pin."
Cash, however, took perhaps the most direct approach: "12 killed, including the ‘good guy with a gun,'" she writes, nodding to the idea that arming people will keep shootings from happening. "We can't go on like this."
"I don’t want to hear about thoughts and prayers," Cash adds. "I want #GunControlNow."
Cash is a longtime advocate for stricter gun laws: In 2017, shortly after the Route 91 Harvest Festival shooting, she penned an op-ed for the New York Times condemning country music’s longstanding connection to the National Rifle Association. More recently, she collaborated with singer-songwriter Mark Erelli, Lori McKenna, Sheryl Crow and folk artists Josh Ritter and Anais Mitchell on Erelli's anti-gun violence song "By Degrees."
Photos From Outside the Thousand Oaks Shooting
Twelve people are dead following the Wednesday night shooting. The Borderline Bar & Grill was hosting "college country night" when a tall, white male, dressed in all black, entered and began shooting around 11:20PM local time; the shooter, 28-year-old Ian David Long, was killed by a self-inflicted gunshot wound. Long was a U.S. Marine Corps veteran, and although his motive is not known at the time of publication, he was known to police due to past minor infractions.
Some of those in attendance were also at the Route 91 Harvest Festival shooting in October 2017. Nicholas Champion tells CBS that he and "probably 50 or 60 others who were in the building at the same time as me tonight" were also at the 2017 Route 91 Harvest Festival in Las Vegas, Nev., at which 58 people died when a gunman opened fire on the crowd from the nearby Mandalay Bay hotel.
According to its website, the Borderline Bar & Grill is "Ventura County's Largest Country Dance Hall & Live Music Venue." Borderline has been open since the late 1980s, when it was located in Malibu, Calif.; it moved to Thousand Oaks in 1993. Artists such as Lee Brice, Tyler Farr and more have performed at Borderline over the years.
Thousand Oaks is located about 40 miles west of Los Angeles, and was recently ranked as the third-safest city in the United States by Niche.com, which analyzes "crime rates for murder, assault, rape, burglary and other crime statistics by city ... based on data from the FBI and U.S. Census."
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