Last week, a lot of people thought about Eagles of Death Metal for the first time in a while for all the wrong reasons. In the wake of last Saturday’s “march for our lives” movement of students across the country marching for gun control laws following school shootings, Hughes called them “disgusting vile abusers of the dead.” The fact that Hughes was also involved in a deadly shooting appeared to be lost on him, and mocking children was the first thing that came to mind for him to do.
Backlash was immediate, and while he found some support, many others unfollowed him and his band from social media and called out his hypocrisy. He deleted his original Instagram post, but that may not have been enough. After a week of thinking about it, Hughes released a statement on Instagram yesterday backtracking and saying that he was sorry. Here’s some of what he said via Rolling Stone:
“Recently I made some posts on my Instagram that did not communicate how I feel about a variety of topics. What I intended to be a statement about the hijacking by any side of the aisle of the beautiful agenda of a movement of our nation’s youth came off seeming like a mean-spirited and personal attack and slight of the youth themselves…
“I wanna be clear, I never intended for that to happen. I was not attempting to impugn the youth of America and this beautiful thing that they accomplished. I truly am sorry, I did not mean to hurt anyone or cause any harm.”
At least he’s realized that he might have crossed a line. Most gun control advocates don’t want to appeal the second amendment, and are fine with the first amendment as well. But as Hughes, Laura Ingraham and others are finding out, just because you have the freedom and right to say whatever you want doesn’t mean there won’t be consequences for it.
