Eagles of Death Metal frontman Jesse Hughes, whose band was onstage at the Bataclan theater during the November ISIS attacks in Paris, said this week that the city's strict gun control didn't stop anyone from dying.
"Did your French gun control stop a single person from dying at the Bataclan? If anyone can answer yes, I’d like to hear it, because I don’t think so," Hughes said during a TV interview,
Variety reported.
"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," he added.
Hughes, who escaped the massacre in which 90 concert-goers died, will take the stage Tuesday night in Paris as a tribute to the victims that were lost.
"Paris isn’t just a show. It is not a rock show; it is a lot bigger than that. It has a much bigger purpose than just entertaining this time around," he said while breaking into tears,
The New York Times reported.
The Bataclan remains closed after the Nov. 13 attacks that rocked multiple sites around Paris, however, Eagles of Death Metal has secured the Olympia theater in central Paris for the reprise performance.
"For the survivors, the concert means a lot, everything possible," said a spokesman for a survivors group, Paris for Life.
"I was in the pit when the shooting started, and I dropped to the floor and crawled over and around bodies until I reached an exit . . . The band members are survivors, too."
The California-based band has returned to Paris since the attacks, having closed a show with U2 in early December. There, they performed the Patti Smith song "People Have the Power."
"I’m not a hero, but I love my friends," Hughes said ahead of Tuesday's show. "And I was raised that you have to be willing to give your life, or else it is not worth living, and you are not a member of a community. I’m not a hero, but if I had had a gun I could have changed something, and I would have been willing to do it."
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