Singing less than a week after the tragedy seemed inappropriate to him. American rocker Don McLean announced on Wednesday that he will not perform on the stage of the annual big concert “for freedom, guns and the Second Amendment (of the American Constitution, which guarantees the right to possess weapons, editor’s note)” organized on Saturday evening by the National Rifle Association (NRA).
Prepared in Houstin (Texas) as part of the annual convention of the influential firearms lobby, the event is to be held four days after a shooting that killed 22 people in a Texas elementary school in Uvalde. However, the raout will take place without the participation of the 76-year-old musician, Don McLean having felt that it would be inappropriate for him to perform less than a week after the tragedy. “In light of recent events in Texas, I have decided it would be disrespectful and too painful for me to perform this week at the NRA convention in Houston, Don McLean said in a statement Wednesday. I’m sure people planning to attend the event are also shocked and sickened by what happened. We are all Americans, after all.
American folk-rock icon of the early 1970s, Don McLean is known for his long ballad American Pie, a tribute to the death in 1959 of rock pioneer Buddy Holly and a meditation on the passage of time. Several other artists such as country stars T. Graham Brown and Larry Stewart are scheduled to perform at the NRA concert. In the wake of Don McLean, other participants have however given up participating in the concert on Saturday, like the singer and assumed Republican Lee Greenwood, who expressed Thursday his deep emotion “as a father”.
Tuesday’s shooting was carried out by an 18-year-old who killed 19 students aged 9-11 and two teachers at Robb Primary School, and injured 17, before being shot dead by police . The killing has revived the debate in the United States on gun control and on the origin of the endemic violence that plagues American society every year. According to a count made by the organization Gun Violence Archive, more than 200 shootings having left at least four dead have taken place since the beginning of the year on American soil. Firearms were also the leading cause of death among people under 20 in 2020, ahead of traffic accidents, according to the CDC. “Gun violence in this country is an epidemic, it’s an international disgrace,” President Joe Biden had already lamented last year, who expressed his disgust and fatigue at the start of the week. mass killings.
Despite the shooting, the NRA has continued to organize its convention, which is due to open on Friday. The lobby this week expressed its “sincere condolences” to the bereaved families, promising to initiate “a reflection”, without further details, around this event. Various figures from the American right have been invited to the convention, including former United States President Donald Trump, who is expected to deliver a speech.
